I had one of those reflective moments of clarity recently.  You know, one of those times when you see or hear something from someone else that you find offensive but then realize that you do the same thing.  That was me. 

As I sat at a conference a few weeks ago, I listened to a woman present on the use of online social networks for corporate recruiting purposes.  The presentation lacked much depth and it felt like a sales pitch for LinkedIn.  She spoke about how they were using the search functionalities within LinkedIn to find candidates for jobs at her organization.  Once they found the profile in LinkedIn for the person they were interested in, they'd use phone and email to contact them.  Not terribly progressive in my opinion, but good practice non-the-less. 

Since she was presenting as a subject matter expert on social networks in recruiting, I asked her how she was approaching Twitter.  You see, Twitter had illuded me to this point.  I'm not sure if I was intimidated or fearful of the technology, but I had stayed away from it.  My badge of honor response when asked about Twitter (despite the fact that I'd never used the site and hadn't really researched it) was this: "I just don't get it." 

So, back to the presnter.  In response to my question about Twitter, you know what she said?  "I don't get Twitter."  That seemed like a really lazy and probalby irresponsible answer.  That's when my moment of clarity came like a slap in the face.  As a leader in HR, I was being lazy and irresponsible about my knowledge and experience of social networks.  Afterall, I would be the first to make an argument that social media is changing how people interact with one another.  Clearly this holds enormous potential consequence and opportunity for HR in the future.  So, I dug in.  I'm working on building a depth of experience in many diverse social networks and sites.

There were two lessons for me in this experience.  It's amazing how comfortable I (and probalby everyone else) was in putting forth an opinion about something I had no real information about.  Uneducated opinions are dangerous because they limit our options by narrowing our perspective of the world.  I will be keeping my opinions to that of which I know in the future.  Secondly, Twitter isn't as bad as I thought.  I'm still not sure I completely grasp the significance or utility of the site yet, but I'm beginning to realize that not even the "experts" in social media understand what Twitter is going to be.  It's emerging still. 

Howeve, when it becomes "main stream," ask me about it.  I'll have an educated opinion. 

-Jason