So I finally caved and signed up for twitter (for those that don’t know, it’s a microblogging site).  I know, it’s a little behind the times, considering I’m one of the few people that probably have the oldest avatar on Second Life…but that aside, something really strike me as funny today.

To give a bit of background first, the team I work on is spread across Vancouver, Vernon, Calgary and Toronto.  The people are awesome, but the team dynamics are just not the same as if everyone was in one place.  I couldn’t quite put a finger on the concrete “how so” though until today.

See, I saw my manager tweet about his lunch.

And it strike me as horribly funny.

Why?  Well it’s the kind of conversation I would have with my coworker beside me.  It’s this kind of small talk that spurs on what’s good and not good for lunch, and what’ s the best way to prepare the dish in general, or whether we hate that kind of food or not (in this case, it was tuna).  It can veer off into about what’s for dinner, favourite restaurants, etc…  It’s through these kinds of casual conversation that you really begin to learn more about the person than just besides their work habits.

But while my manager and I joke and have casual conversations quite a bit over the phone, we would never pick up the phone to talk about our lunches.  (There are simply much better stories to share than that!)  So there’s some aspects of conversation or learning opportunity about the other person that is lost.

Twitter has just, for the first time, bridged that gap to some degree.  It has helped to close that physical distance in an very unique way.  It takes a couple seconds to post and a couple seconds to read, thus very undemanding on our time.  It’s informal enough that you can post any trivial thing, unlike some other tools that demands formality or substance such as blogs or emails.  It’s nearly instantaneous without being as intrusive as instant messaging, because you just post and people respond only if they feel like it. (And it’s not considered impolite!)

No wonder Twitter has become popular as it fulfills a niche that other forms of online communication doesn’t quite get to yet.  Has Twitter helped you bridged some gap in some way too?

(I’m almost tempted to ping my manager and go “so…overcooked tuna…I like mine usually raw” just to get a reaction. )