Part of the struggle business has today is the pace of change of technology. To maintain relevance, we have to be adaptable. Expecting ANY technology to still be useful or used in 10 years is pushing things, which for many companies simply means they will not get involved. That is, in my opinion incredibly shortsighted. Especially in the tech sector.

It is clear that the rate at which technology is moving is not slowing down. Part of my consideration in re-thinking my own views has to do with that growth pace. It’s why I believe today, that no matter what your business, no matter that Corporate business have in the past created a whole list of barriers between them and the rest of the world, TODAY, they need to be prepared to turn on the proverbial dime, and join the ranks.

The inability to change direction and make quick decisions will most definitely alter one’s relevance in the future world of business.

No matter how important you think Twitter is, the jury is still out on whether it’ll be around in 10 years, which is the time horizon of typical big huge companies deciding on IT investments.

It escapes me how you could be interviewed by Scoble and not expect a question concerning your twitter presence. I think it speaks volumes when the CEOs say they don’t have time for twitter because they’ve missed the boat entirely.

As to how Scoble handled it, I’d been more gracious. (or at least tried to be, I can be a bit intense and blunt at times as well.).I’ve followed Scoble for sometime and highly respect his passion and intelligence but at the end of the day we can’t forget that the most satisfying part of technology is opening people’s eyes to its power.

We’ve have the great privilege of helping others reach their Eureka moment.

Never the less it is 2009 and they probably should be on Twitter.
-@tsudo

I think you make good points, and again, I believe you know enough about me to know I agree with you on the need to be on twitter. Maybe because I’m softer, haven’t been thrown into the foray of stupidity as often…I’m sure there are any number of reasons, but I still think there is nothing to be gained in being over harsh. What benefit is there in that? To you? To them?

Again, thanks for commenting. I do appreciate it and you. if I didn’t you wouldn’t have been my example.

First, I don’t refute most of what you say. I think the heavy-handed approach hurts your personal brand. I know you’re resilient and all, but as a thought leader, I don’t think leading with the wording and examples used serves our community well.

To say “It’s 2009. If you aren’t on Twitter now you are simply lame and you should be told that in no uncertain terms. ” is, again, heavy-handed and not helpful to those of us who are building the conversation. It insults millions of people. Broad sweeping statements are generalizations…stereotypes if you like. They don’t serve any greater good in practice.

I’m disappointed because you are an incredibly smart and likable guy. You have to opportunity to be at some point, one of our elder statesmen (think Doc Searls). Moments like this are more likely to be recalled like some of Chris Locke’s harsher moments. How would you prefer to be viewed 10-15 years from now.

You say you “go to the best-of-breed” and I think that’s overestimating. You admit you went where the network is. Not the best-of-breed. Like all of us, you followed the crowd. I’d even say, those many of us who engage with you drew you back. But being where the community is has nothing to do with best-of-breed.

I’d also argue that there are hundreds global brands that don’t have, need or care about Twitter. I know I’m doing major architecture work for one such company in the Fortune 100. A tech lead no less.

Sometimes we, you included, grant Twitter more power than it truly has. Twitter is nothing but a dumb pipe, just like a phone line. The power is in the message, not the pipe. You deferred the power of your message, your voice, your brand, to the dumb pipe that is Twitter.

Just plumbing, no? Like the phone network.

I didn’t explain this well. It’s deeper than that. I have conversations with many CEOs/founders/VCs/press people over Twitter. It’s a LOT nicer than on email. Why? Because it’s scalable. When we have a conversation in public everyone can see it, which saves us a lot of time (many people might be having the same questions I am). I get a lot of value out of following people’s Tweets, too, much more than on blog posts (which I will never see because I rarely visit blogs anymore) and certainly better than email (I hate having conversations behind the firewall unless we absolutely need to and even then a DM is better because it forces brevity, which makes it a lot more productive).

>I think Robert missed an opportunity to educate, inspire and influence others with his current belief system

It’s 2009. If you aren’t on Twitter now you are simply lame and you should be told that in no uncertain terms. Especially if you’ve invited me over to get access to my audience (which is what these startups did).

>. Much of ‘09 Robert talked about how great friendfeed was and how it was much more powerful than twitter was.

I was right, too, and still am. The real time search there blows away Twitter. And so do many other features. The reason I got pulled back to Twitter is because of the community. Most everyone has decided that Twitter is THE place for the tech industry to share what they are doing. That overrides any feature set that FriendFeed has. And, sorry, I go to the best-of-breed.

>People still aren’t sure what they should do, which is one of the reasons I think Robert should have been a little less harsh

Keep in mind the four CEOs that pissed me off weren’t asking for help. They explicitly told me “I don’t have time for that.” Well, then, I don’t have time to help them out either and I won’t talk about them to my 100,000+ followers. IE, if they are looking to build a global brand they are hurting themselves and need to know that.