I was reading a very good post by Krigman on How Twitter is Dangerous and realized how far from my previous mega-corp personality I’ve drifted.

I should clarify that I am NOT a twitter user - I have a wife, kids, a company, and a history/biography book jones - I am not suffering from a lack of attention, information, or things to do. (I don’t have a facebook or myspace page either.) It’s not that I don’t get it, it’s just that I don’t want it.

But, like a visible tattoo or a tongue piercing, I don’t care if other people want it and get it. But Krigman was describing someone casually using twitter during a meeting and revealing confidential information.

W. T. F?

I guess if someone was using twitter (or AIM, for that matter) during a meeting at our company on a non-emergency basis I’d make a mental note to drop them from the next meeting because they’re not participating. And by participate I do not mean: talk.

My business partner doesn’t talk as much as I do (who does?) but he listens very well and what he has to say is worthwhile. If he’s not talking at a meeting I know he’s participating.

But, man, can I cast my mind back to the numbing meetings I used to sit through about blah, and blah, and blah, with 50% of the people in the room there to cover their fundaments or to score points, and the other half there to make sure that some politically appropriate decision gets made. I can see twitting during that meeting.

Hey, we’re not the Spanish Inquisition - if we have a client or production issue during a meeting (ex: it’s our monthly open books meeting and we have a flaky server) I could care less if the guys in the back of the boom are doing whatever and listening with half an ear. I’m just glad they’re there.

But our solution to a bunch of bored people sitting around in a meeting doing AIM/twitter/blackberry was to have fewer meetings. With fewer people in them.