When I started CrowdVine, I broke several standard start-up practices. I didn’t talk to venture capitalists, I didn’t have a co-founder, and I didn’t even seek out an advisory board. Instead, I spent two months building a prototype and then took that to real customers.

For the most part, our customers have been our advisory board. But I’ve also been lucky to have a great adviser at home. My significant other, Sarah Milstein, is our only official adviser or investor and she’s brimming with relevant advice. She’s the founder of the Tools of Change for Publishing Conference and chair of the last two Web2Open unconferences in San Francisco, a second year UC Berkeley MBA student, and founder of her own startup, 20slides.com.

Most importantly she’s been producing an incredible body of work for how to use Twitter effectively. She’s been on Twitter since the first day of private beta and has interviewed hundreds of companies about their usage. This is work you should know about if you are trying to figure out how to use Twitter for your business or event.

First, there’s The Twitter Book, available in electronic editions now and in print next month. Here’s a preview, Chapter 3: Hold Great Conversations

Second, there’s the Twitter for Business webcast.

Third, if you want to keep abreast of the latest Twitter news, follow Sarah’s @TweetReport Twitter account.

If that’s not enough, I can personally recommend approaching her to speak at your conference or paying for the Advanced Twitter for Business webcast or the Micromessaging Revolution research report, all available from her personal site, SarahMilstein.com. Also if you like webcasts, you should sign up for the 20slides.com announcement.

Tags: twitter

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 3rd, 2009 at 8:25 pm by tony. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.