Our Tweet Cheat Sheet

Posted by: Michael Arndt on March 13, 2009

Twitter isn’t Facebook yet. But if you haven’t been there, the site is becoming a terrific place to keep up on celebs. Like who? Like Martha Stewart, Al Gore, and Shaquille O’Neal. And Britney Spears, who writes on Mar. 9: “Went shopping in Coral Gables, bought some purses and sunglasses!”

More names in the world of innovation and design are tweeting on Twitter, too (in 140 characters or less). Here are an even dozen I and my BW colleagues have come across, in alphabetical order.

* Chris Anderson, curator of the annual Technology, Entertainment, and Design Conference, @TEDchris. Twitter data: 5,122 followers; 344 updates. Sample tweet: Our 400th TED talk posting is truly special. Aimee Mullins and her 12 pairs of legs. Disabled? The opposite. http://is.gd/mSAT

* Scott Anthony, president of Innosight, @sda222. Twitter data: 124 followers; 5 updates. Sample tweet: Victim of customer service cost cutting? Hertz and AmEx got me. Love to hear your story on my blog at http://tinyurl.com/cjdc75.

* Chris Beard, chief innovation officer Mozilla, @cbeard. Twitter data: 47 followers; 22 updates. Sample tweet: This person has protected their updates. You need to send a request before you can start following this person.

* John Seeley Brown, co-chairman of the Deloitte Center for Edge Innovation, @jseelybrown. Twitter data: 229 followers; 17 updates. Sample tweet: did this technique (see last tweet) remind anyone else of Feynman diagrams - as a metaphor, of course?

* Peter Diamandis, founder and CEO of the X Prize Foundation, @PeterDiamandis. Twitter data: 424 followers; 70 updates. Sample tweet: just finished an X PRIZE briefing to TED breakfast

* John Hagel, co-chairman of the Deloitte Center for Edge Innovation, @jhagel. Twitter data: 184 followers; 133 updates. Sample tweet: saw reality mining powerfully integrating networks of places and people, making spikes even more irresistible http://tinyurl.com/5mfxgq

* Jeff Jarvis, author and blogger, @jeffjarvis Twitter data: 11,236 followers; 2,132 updates. Sample tweet: Off to WGBH then Harvard Law. I'm out of my IQ depth. Posing.

* John Kao, author of Innovation Nation, @johnkao. Twitter data: 90 followers; 4 updates. Sample tweet: Recovering from Nobel festivities. Those Norwegians really know how to throw a party. Up til 4 am, then caught the 740 am flight home.

* Philip McKinney, CTO at Hewlett-Packard's personal systems group, @philmckinney. Twitter data: 202 followers. 105 updates. Sample tweet: Just posted a new podcast on "Using Creativity To Create A Killer Career" ... visit www.killerinnovations.com to learn more ...

* Dwayne Spradlin, CEO of InnoCentive, @dspradlin001. Twitter data: 17 followers; 6 updates. Sample tweet: My big question from "Future of Journalism" conference: Are elements of professional journalism necessary in this new web 2.0 era?

* James Todhunter, CTO of Invention Machine, @jamestodhunter. Twitter data: 132 followers; 618 updates. Sample tweet: The road of innovation has many twists and turns. Always reevaluate your direction and remember it is never too late to do the right thing.

* Mark Turrill, CEO of Imaginatik, @mark_turrell Twitter data: 149 followers. 326 updates. Sample tweet: playing with ideas for a fashion shoot to highlight water issues, combined with viral marketing campaign on the internet