How Twitter Lets You Eavesdrop on The World's Conference Call

One of the real benefits of the world of Twitter and blogs is that laymen get a view inside the minds of leaders.

I was talking to a friend the other day about how the best experiences in the workforce come from observing and listening to the big shots who know what they are doing. Even being cc'd on an e-mail from a superior to a client can be a revealing experience. As a lawyer, although document review was tedious, I found it fascinating to be able to go through a corporation's e-mails and see how various executives interacted with each other and with clients. Some of the most interesting experiences were just shutting up as people who knew what they were doing argued and negotiated with each other on a call. At every step of our lives, we learn to fill bigger shoes by watching someone else walk in them.

That's why the ability to see entrepreneurs, writers, venture capitalists and economists blog and tweet is such a fascinating and informative experience. You can instantly get a sense of how they think, what types of ideas they value and the kinds of arguments they respect. In fact, I think that this is one of the major benefits of Twitter over Facebook. You can't just friend anyone on Facebook, but on Twitter you can "follow" thought-leaders and eavesdrop on their brains.

Many young 20-something professionals I know have become accustomed to that puzzling, nerve-wracking obscurity of the higher-ups. We find ourselves like jealous teenagers with a crush, wondering what the boss wants, who he really likes, why she is talking to person X, etc. We wonder if our e-mails are written in the proper tone, or if we are relatively poised on phone calls with clients. We wonder if our latest industry report is "so 2008" or if our boss or manager has ever made a bad investment or a poor hiring decision. With tools like Twitter, we finally get a chance to see how successful people try, fail, and ultimately succeed on a day-to-day basis.

The web's transparency doesn't just let us get inside government practices or your daughter's binge drinking habits as expressed in a Facebook photo album. It lets us get inside the heads of people who have been there and done that. The former chief economist of the IMF. A lead partner at a venture capital firm. Former Major League baseball players. Of course, we need to be careful not to let these gurus overwhelm our capacity for individual thought.

But if we can resist that temptation, sites like Twitter lets us sit in on that global conference call and understand what makes the call's "participants" tick. The hope is that eventually, like a baby learning to talk, all that observation will result in imitation -- and eventually, independence.