Many thanks to Ruder Finn head of HR and avid horse fan Cathleen Graham (@cashcat1969) for some of these links.

Alex Brown’s love of horses started long before he launched the blog, Alex Brown Racing, but it was Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro that pushed the blog into prominence — and eventually established it as a site dedicated to the welfare of horses. Along the way, Brown learned many things about creating and nurturing an online community by using tools like wikis, Facebook and Twitter, and following certain principles, such as: Be authentic, be transparent, be consistent and build trust. Brown, one of whose goals is to rescue horses destined for the slaughter house, talked with Knowledge@Wharton about his strategies for bringing attention — and money — to the cause.

A group for all us business folk who outside the world of hi-tech and commerce like to unwind and get back to nature with horses. No matter your discipline (Dressage, X-Country, Trail riding, Polo, etc.), or even if you don’t have a horse but like Equine events, then come join in and get together.

Other than the fact that he’s already won $4 million in purses and may be on the verge of becoming one of the most famous faces in the sports of horse racing, Joe Talamo is like a lot of guys his age.

His horse is also tweeting! http://twitter.com/I_Want_Revenge

• www.thehorse.com
• www.chronofhorse.com
• www.horseshowspy.com
• www.ntra.com

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Executives exploring Twitter as business tool

Todd Brink’s cigar-bearing image and his thoughts about music, chick flicks and process improvement have made him a Twitter rock star of sorts.

The Wisconsin executive has nearly 3,000 Twitter followers. What’s more, he is ranked No. 1 among the Twitter Elite in Milwaukee on Twitter Grader, a free service that lets people measure their power and reach on Twitter

It may seem an unlikely classification, but Brink represents a growing breed of executives who recognize the power of the tweet as a way to connect with customers and build brand loyalty.

Brink (@toddbrink) is director of process improvement for Boldt Construction Co., a national contractor with 1,500 employees based in Appleton. Brink stressed he is representing himself on Twitter and not Boldt Construction, although many of his tweets are work-related.

He also sent a friend request to Iran, became a fan of Stimulus, and deleted the group Guantanamo Bay Detainees 4EVA.

They are:

1. Ego
2. Money
3. Travel
4. Business Speak
5. Meetings
6. Business Books
7. Time

The first point can probably apply to many in the digital business trends blogger industry.

Google News: Swine Flu vs The Recession

This juxtaposition of swine flu news and recession news highlights three digital trends that are affecting how businesses communicate. The three biggest similarities between them from a digital communications perspective are:

1. Speed
2. Credibility
3. Language

Speed

Both swine flu and the recession have been reported on instantly and broadly, and businesses and governments have been expected to respond quickly in both cases. This has put pressure on spokespeople and executives to deliver extremely sensitive messages quickly and accurately. For both swine flu and the recession, mistakes and conflicts due to poor timing could lead to the cause of financial ruin or even literally death.

Credibility

The explosion of social media outlets has empowered anyone (or thing) with a connection to the Internet to spread news. Motives are often questionable and uncontrolled. But when controlling a pandemic or a stock market, it is imperative for health and financial experts to rise above the fray. The cacophony of voices in social media makes this difficult to do, but perhaps the advent of “semi-social media” (think Mahalo, Alltop) will give experts the visibility the public at large deserves.

Language

Another similarity between the two crises is that both have suffered from unfortunate nomenclature. Terms like “swine flu,” “toxic assets,” and “crisis” can lead to misinterpretation. For example several tweets on #swineflu caution against eating pork products, however, that is not how the flu is spread.

What lessons has your business learned from these events?

Twitter now has a section dedicated to the 2008 presidential election: http://election.twitter.com/

It features:

• A live, scrolling feed of tweets posted about the campaign
• McCain and Obama’s latest tweets
• Hot topics (currently Tina Fey, SNL, VoteForTheMILF, Bill Clinton, Katie Couric, Bush, GOP)

If Twitter creates more of these types of sites, it would be great to see them offer some degree of personalization to people who would like to start their own groups. For example Ruder Finn could have a landing page on Twitter where all employees could go and see tweets from across the company and the globe.

Other potential uses for Twitter groups include

• Corporate watchdog groups
• Music artists
• Politicians
• Families
• Events
• Alumni associations
• Celebrity gossip
• Non-profit causes

And many more. I hope Twitter continues to evolve to include these types of features, which could be very useful for corporations (and that they offer to pay me for these great ideas!)

**UPDATE 1**

While we’re on election coverage, C-SPAN, known for mind-numbing coverage of all things Congressional, has pulled an about-face with a ridiculously awesome election site: http://debatehub.c-span.org/. Here’s a review: Gizmodo (thanks Simon).

This is a shining example of how an organization, one notorious for lack of technology, can make effective use of web 2.0.

A Deal.com Tech Confidential video interview with Silicon Alley Insider CEO, Henry Blodget below. Scroll to 2:00 or so to get to his take on the future of business blogging.

The gist is that pajama bloggers and traditional media are converging. As hobby blogs become more professional, traditional media are learning how to use the Internet to overcome the obsolescence of their delivery mechanism with NYT and WSJ as shining examples (although with the Wall Street Journal‘s online redesign isn’t so "shining").

He also criticizes TV as being one-way, which is rough for business viewers, who prefer to interact (like on Mad Money?). Although, with CNN’s increasing use of Twitter, that might be changing.

What’s your favorite example of MSM gone digital?

The first time I considered that Twitter might be useful was back in April, when James Karl Buck tweeted his way out of Egyptian jail (CNN).

Pretty useful!

I also think it will be useful in feeding these blog posts to RF Darius, and some of my colleagues tweet (especially in the UK), and a couple of my clients tweet, but I’m not sure how useful any of them have found it to be.

Below are five categories in which I think Twitter was/is/will be most useful:

• Breaking News: During the last Los Angeles earthquake in July, a tweet beat the AP by 12 minutes to break the news. Not sure how useful (safe) it is to Twitter in an earthquake or a hurricane, but airlines like SouthWest and JetBluehave usefully pointed followers to their dedicated Hurricane Ike pages. AA, Virgin America, and Delta seem to still be testing it out (United, Northwest, and US Airways don’t have Twitter pages to speak of yet).
• Content Quest: The staff over at PR Week occasionally pings their followers for leads (especially during summer). Judging from the "@" replies, Twitter = useful. CNN’s Don Lemon, and Rick Sanchez have used Twitter on air and shared viewer feedback. Sanchez even did a whole show using social networks (or are they social media….or social utilities?) to tell the news. Not sure this will be a lasting trend, but it seems to be a useful outlet for opinionated people.
• Feeding: Not only does this blog have a feed to Twitter, so do NYT, WSJ, and the FT, among many others and their reporters. Following them on Twitter can sometimes be more convenient than using a feed reader. Especially when you get instant updates to your phone.
• Bragging Rights: not to get political, but according to Twitterholic, Barack Obama has the most followed Twitter account with over 70,000 followers. John McCain, not so much.
• Customer Service: Comcast, has a customer service guy who seems pretty on the ball with responding to questions/complaints, but this tweetimplies a stressful life for him.

As corporations and their PR departments adopt new communication tools more rapidly, will they get ahead of themselves?

I think there’s real potential for senior executives to be thought leaders on Twitter (Zappos.com), but BusinessWeek thinks that Twitter + corporations = creepy and distractive. BusinessWeek did get some use out of Twitter when they rewrote their "Beyond Blogs" article, but there are a few other companies out there that seem to be quite confused: eTrade, Pepsi, Dell.

Will Twitter ever be used successfully as a corporate communications platform?

Will Yammer become Twitter’s LinkedIn to Facebook?

**UPDATE 1**
NPR on Twitter for customer service:
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/09/16/pm_twitter/

**UPDATE 2**
Twitter co-founder on why Twitter will not replace traditional media:
http://www.iwantmedia.com/people/people75.html

**UPDATE 3**

Extensive Mashable article on the prospects of corporate tweeting:

http://mashable.com/2008/09/30/enterprise-microblogging/