Twitter Is a Player In Iran’s Drama
June 21st, 2009State Dept. Asked Site to Keep Running
According to a recent Washington Post article, the State Department asked social-networking site Twitter to delay scheduled maintenance earlier this week to avoid disrupting communications among tech-savvy Iranian citizens as they took to the streets to protest Friday’s reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
and
“Iran is not the only global hot spot where the State Department has taken an interest in Twitter, nor even the first. For months it has been working to deploy the short-messaging service to Iraq and Afghanistan, part of a broader plan to leverage U.S. technology companies’ connections with youth as a diplomatic tool.” BusinessWeek June 18, 2009
These are remarkable times we live in. We have access to many powerful communications tools that are radically changing our world…every day. My friend Gordon Rude said to me recently, “Almost everything we do will be changed in 10 years.” That’s amazing, and not hard to imagine. Think about the changes we’ve experienced over the past 10 years.
Many of us are resistant to change. Conservatism is a natural human response. In the extreme, change can be terrifying and exhausting. At the least, it is unsettling.
Business is changing. New products and services come at us in waves. And marketing messages are being delivered in new and innovative ways. About the time you feel good about a new technology, it is surpassed by something new.
So, what are you doing to stay abreast with this torrent of change and innovation? Have you seriously considered new technologies in marketing your business? Or are you just dismissing Twitter, Linked In, Facebook, videos, blogs, and the other “force multipliers” that are available to you?
I’m an amateur at all this stuff but it is helpful for me to read and discuss what’s going on. Are you engaged in discussion with others about what they are doing? Are you asking questions? There’s a lot to know and sharing knowledge is the only hope for keeping up. Find a way to do that.
They’re tweeting from the streets of Tehran. There’s a message there.

