Chatter - a new way to learn?

One of the cool aspects of working with clients online is we interact with them in their own environment. In most cases, they are using their own computers, in their own homes, surrounded by their own families and stuff. This is particularly cool because so much of a client's research and work is done on a computer and online. Being a support and engaging the client in that setting can really increase the relevancy and timeliness of the interactions.

I was thinking about this particular benefit this weekend as I was texting a friend. This friend and I keep in touch through our periodic and random texting. We give each other those 150-word-or-less updates on where we are or what we have been thinking at any given moment. These seemingly unimportant comments do sometimes paint a bigger picture. Every once in awhile I look back at my cell-log to this friend and get a kick out of the journey I've been on.

Millions of Internet users are playing with this concept through the use of Twitter and other social networking tools. Apart from viewing "tweets" of some more prominent CEOs, I hadn't found a personal or professional use for Twitter.

Then I came across a new little application called TwitterCamp. It allows a user to display a number of Twitter profile pages simultaneously. I believe it was positioned as an application that could be used to capture the buzz at a conference. But it got ME thinking about career counselling and microblogging for the first time.

While so much of the work a client does is on the computer, much of it is not. For instance, what goes on for your client just before he goes into an interview? And how can those sporactic and somewhat disconnected thoughts for the busy mom with kids be captured? Maybe encouraging clients to communicate in bite-size ways in their real-world context can help paint bigger pictures.

Random texts, tweets, and microblogs can look like a lot of chatter. But is there something that can be learned, captured, understood by all the chatter? What can our clients learn about their patterns, anxieties, interests, and values by collecting their reflections and actions in this way? Is it a new way to learn?