Twitter is changing perception about Microsoft.
I've watched Microsoft like most for many years. I first noticed a change in our behavior when folks within the company would start blogging. It gave us in many ways a focal point of interest around various products and it was how I first stumbled upon Scott Guthrie in the early days (via his blog).
Scoble and other folks in Channel9 then put camera's in front of various people, and they began to expose how raw and somewhat open most of the teams within Microsoft really are. In fact, I had no idea whom Scoble was until someone explained earlier this year that he was the main guy behind the camera (point: I knew of Scobles work, not the personas surrounding him).
My bet is the next wave of transparency is likely to be Twitter - or - it should be. As we can all focus on the respective folks within Microsoft's "work speak" via their blogs. Yet, if we want to get a better understanding of the person behind the blog, things they do and habits they at times fall into, then Twitter.com is my preferred option for such.
Frank Arrigo was a classic twitterer for most, as most would not only read his hatred for "Yet another conference call" but also on Saturday's read how proud he was of Billy's football games - in fact, it was one of the only reasons I checked my twitter's on Saturday mornings was to get a twitter-update of his son's football game.
I've also had some tongue in cheek arguments with some of the Adobe guys, mostly nothing serious and just a bit of taunting back and forth (no big deal) whilst at the same time it's good to read that these guys are also human and also hate airport terminals (there is a degree of commonality after all).
I'm a fan of Twitter as it's got all the appeal of transparency whilst ensuring folks keep it short and on-point. In fact, it's hard to get noisy in Twitter - unless your Scoble (whom just today did a dump in Twitter.. yet I read it, and understood his motivation).
It was also kind of cool to see Brian Goldfarb embrace twitter not only as a once-off thing but he not only got it first go, but now he's fully immersed in it. Now Anna Liu, my new boss has finally accepted thine Twitter enticement.
This is why I'm more inclined to put my Twitter address on my business cards instead of my email address. It's the best medium to contact me short of calling my cell/mobile phone. I personally have formed better working relationship(s) with the community via Twitter then most of the time in person?
It kind of reminds me of the old days when I used to use a lot of IRC.