We're going to try something at the InformationWeek 500 conference next week: we're livetweeting the conference on Twitter. That's old hat to the Web 2.0 crowd, but it will be new and (hopefully) exciting to our enterprise community.Here's how it works: If you're attending the conference, and want to comment about something, post a message to Twitter and include the text "#iw500" in the message (no quotation marks). That bit of text is called a "hashtag," it's how Twitter users mark the subject matter of messages, so others can find the discussion.

And you don't have to be at the conference to participate in the discussion--keep an eye on that hashtag and jump in if you see anything interesting.

Your #iw500 tweets can include comments about presentations as they happen, observations about using IT to generate business value--anything at all that you think will interest the InformationWeek 500 Conference community.

To find what other people are saying about the conference, just bookmark the #iw500 search page. Our editors will be onsite, reporting on presentations through "live-tweeting" and we'll also send out announcements on Twitter using that hashtag.

Conference participants can watch for big displays we'll have set up at the conference to show off the Twitter conversation.

The conference runs Sunday to Tuesday.

If you want to participate in the conversation on Twitter and you're not already using the service, sign up. No need to register your Twitter address with us; that's one of the beauties of Twitter. By using the #iw500 hashtag you'll make it easy for us and your fellow conference participants to find you.

Twitter is a great tool for finding like-minded communities of interest around the world. We know from our conversations with IT managers that many of you are interested in finding out more about Twitter and other social media, but haven't had the time to do so. We hope this will be your opportunity to get involved in the Twitter community through the InformationWeek 500 Conference.

While you're at it, please follow the InformationWeek Twitter account, and the official account of InformationWeek 500.

Our colleagues at the Government 2.0 Summit have been using the #gts hashtag for their discussion at the conference this week, take a look at what they have to say.

I have to admit I'm new to using hashtags. Even though I've been a Twitter fanatic for more than two years, I've mostly ignored them. But I started following a few this week, and now I'm an addict. Here are some of the hashtags I'm following:

#iw500 of course.

#healtcareIT OR #healthIT to help keep track of healthcare IT news, as part of my new responsibilities as one of the editors of InformationWeek Healthcare.

#GovIT for Government IT news, as part of my responsibilities as one of the editors of InformationWeek Government. That one seems to be populated mostly by bots, although my colleague Tom Smith often posts interesting links there.

And, finally, one that's not for work: #BooksFriday, which I started. I'm trying to get a regular discussion going of what people are reading.

You can also just use search for keywords on Twitter. I tried that last night, when my wife and I went to see the play Spamalot here in San Diego, it was fun to see who else was in the audience tweeting before, after, and during the intermission of the show. (That is, it was fun until my wife made me put away the iPhone.)


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