I’ll be the first to admit that I was a Twitter holdout for quite a while. I only started my account during the summer of 2009 and then only at the urging of friend and fellow blogger Rick Vanover. Like many people that don’t understand Twitter, I used excuses such as “I’m not really interested in what someone is having for lunch” and other nonsense. Sure, while there is a whole lot of that kind of stuff on Twitter, if you follow the right people and use the tool appropriately, it can be a powerful way to stay informed, learn something new, be entertained and get help when you need it. It’s also helped me to get more viewership on my articles and blog postings and I’m currently just shy of 1,500 followers. I never really used to care about that number, but it’s grown so fast that it amazes me sometimes.
This week, I’ve been researching (read: “playing with”) Teradici’s PCoIP using VMware View via a Samsung NC240 terminal/monitor. I ran into an issue with Flash audio and video not synchronizing. During the process, I needed to open up a support ticket with Teradici to get access to download the latest firmware for the terminal. My results with Flash weren’t great, so when I was done, I sent the following Tweet:
“Tested View with PCoIP today. Flash results were disappointing with a Samsung NC240 terminal (Teradici). audio/video out of sync.”
Now, I didn’t send this because I was mad at Teradici. I sent it to see if I would get any comments or suggestions and I did get a couple. However, I also got an email from Teradici support asking if the tweet was sent by the same Scott Lowe that opened up a ticket requesting access to the firmware download area. The technician proceeded to close my original support request and opened a new one for the Flash issue. If you’re keeping score, realize that I had yet to contact support about the Flash issue. It’s a project I’ve been working on in my spare time and I hadn’t gotten around to contacting support about it yet.
I know this seems like a small thing – I tweet about a problem and the company actually opens a support request on my behalf. But, it’s nice to see that customer service is actually alive and well.
As the title of this post suggests, I believe that every technical person should use Twitter and find a few people to follow that are experts in their field. Although you sometimes have to wade through the junk, there are more than a few gold nuggets out there to find.