For a future post, I’d love to hear from any of you have had a research question answered via Twitter or other social media. Or, for that matter, if you had a bad experience getting a research question answered. Feel free to e-mail me or leave a comment here. Thanks!
Research Question Question
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Greg, I have turned to Twitter for information-gathering several times, as when (just yesterday) I sent out a call for opinions on upgrading my iPod Touch to 3.0. (For the record, I got much more feedback on Facebook where my tweets are imported as status updates.)
My best Twitter-for-research moment happened in my OB’s office after my baby was born. I had some family medical leave paperwork that my husband’s employer needed the OB to sign. The OB’s office staff stated flatly that they didn’t sign FML paperwork when the person taking the leave wasn’t the patient. Long story short, but since this is a state benefit, I knew the doctor HAD to sign, so I fired off a quick tweet asking for links to state law on the subject. WITHIN SECONDS, I had a dozen such links and was able to read the pertinent section of the law to the office staff, and the doctor signed the form.
I could have accessed Google from my Blackberry as readily as Twitter, but I guessed (correctly, I believe) that Twitter would be the fastest way to find *exactly* the info I wanted, because 1) you can frame a question more specifically for humans than you can for a search engine (humans understand nuance, shorthand, context); and 2) because it would have taken me longer to investigate the links a search engine turned up, and scroll through pages on my phone looking for exactly the bit of law I wanted. My tweeps hooked me up instantly.
Melissa – thanks so much. That’s a great example!