I retweeted this great story that Jack Schofield shared on Twitter this morning and it’ll now become my anecdote to explain Twitter to those who don’t understand it. In a nutshell, a coffee shop owner used Twitter as a way to engage with his clients in a personal way and built a community. He then starting taking realtime orders via Twitter at the request of a follower…

Of course that’s totally open to someone abusing his trust but he’d already built up a loyal community via Twitter – so much so that a Tweetup at his coffee shop attracted 100 Houston Twitter users who naturally bought food and coffee whilst there and further bolstered J.R. Cohen and CoffeeGroundz community.

Next time I visit Houston I’ll have to track this place down as I suspect many others like me will do too.

Community is a powerful thing if you invest time in it and nurture it. I found this myself this morning when I asked Twitter for some help

Within an hour I had 5 offers of help from a range of people who were keen and kind enough to offer their services immediately and completely for free to help. (thankyou to all who responded and ReTweeted)

Though Common Craft’s Twitter in Plain English video is a great explanation of what it’s all about, these two stories define Twitter for me.

In a world where increasingly people are looking out for themselves, Twitter is a breath of fresh air and a reminder that community is a powerful and beautiful thing.