What’s Your Status?

In our blog posting entitled “Why Twitter Matters to Joint Contact” we announced plans to integrate Joint Contact with the popular microblogging service called Twitter. Since then we’ve received a lot of media attention as one of the first (if not the first) to consider Twitter for business communications.

 

The folks at WebWorkerDaily had a chance to catch up with us and we had a great discussion about project collaboration and the role social media could play in business productivity.

 

At Arbutus we think business professionals are increasingly using social media technologies to communicate. Examples include blogs, wiki’s, and social networks. Twitter, however, is still thought of as a fun, casual way to stay connected with friends and co-workers.

 

While early adopters use Twitter as a social communication tool, we acknowledge Twitter’s potential as a business communications platform. Why? Because there’s a growing trend of people using Twitter as a replacement for email. As a result we’ve been able to implement some straightforward powerful features that build on our goal of integrating project collaboration and social media.

 

What’s your status?
For our latest product release our goal was to answer this question.  In addition to sending Conversations titles directly to Twitter, account holders can now update their current work status using their profile. For example, a team member can type “Organizing the committee meeting,” send that to Twitter, and other team members can access the Tweet using their cell phone, iPhone, desktop computer or another Twitter enabled website:

 

 

Your status is also saved to the Joint Contact Team Profile.  (The Team Profile provides contact information for members who share at least one workspace with you).   The Team Profile now becomes a manager’s dream-come-true as interested parties can always check on a group’s current status.

 

 

Making it work with your business
Ready to give it a try? If you’re already using Twitter we recommend that you create a second Twitter account for business. That way you can separate your business and personal Tweets. Once established, just add your Twitter credentials to your Joint Contact profile settings.

 

One advantage Twitter brings to business is its ability to be accessed by more devices / services than email. For example, a Tweet from Joint Contact can be received on a cell phone as text message.

 

Don’t Twitter? No worries! You can still use everything in Joint Contact without Twitter. This includes providing team status updates through the Team Profile as well as all the functionality in our Conversations module.

Advertisements