On Twitter and in the Workplace, It's Power to the Connectors

The article “On Twitter and in the Workplace, It's Power to the Connectors” was published on November 16^th, 2009 on the Harvard Business Review site.

The article says that in order to have a successful career nowadays, one must have good networking skills, such as the ability to build relationships, to pass on information, and to introduce people to one another.

In the past, you needed to fit in a vertical organization where power was centralized and information was not shared; decision making was in the hands of a few people at the top of the hierarchy. One needed to be technically adept and have good interpersonal relationships.

Today, learning connector skills is facilitated with the new social networking tools like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedln etc …

Formal assignments work best in a vertical organizational structure whereas connector skills work best in the horizontal organization structure. Both aim at achieving company’s goals, however the advantage of connector skills lies in its ability to access knowledge quickly with the help of a human network.