One of the biggest business changes in recent years has been the breaking down of barriers to communication. Whether you think social media is the future, a fad or somewhere in between – it’s undeniable that companies are now expected to interact with the audiences that they serve in many new ways.

If you wanted to get in touch with a company in years past your options were pretty limited – no longer.  Likewise for companies, if you wanted to hear from your customers it was often challenging and what you heard was filtered – no longer.

The facts are undeniable and we believe the opportunities are too. In fact, it’s a major reason that Southwire started this blog and is working on so many mobile applications. Southwire is not the only company that thinks this way.  Ted Magazine recently hosted a tweet chat (a planned and moderated discussion over twitter, at and for a specific time, that is linked together using a common hashtag phrase) that really demonstrated the potential of these interactions.

The inaugural #tedchat discussion was everything that these discussions should be: interesting; honest; and unpolished (in a good way). The conversation focused on the role of electrical distributors and included both manufacturers and distributors.

We thoroughly enjoyed the dialogue and thought that there were some really great thoughts. Rob Fisher (@rfisher1228) highlighted some of the discussion here.  David Burnette (@david_burnette) from Wheatland Tube had excellent commentary both during the session and after in a thoughtful blog post here. David boldly states, “EMBRACE THE NEW TECHNOLOGY OR WITHER!”

Southwire will be following and participating in the future discussions and hope that you do the same. Ted Magazine closed the session looking for ideas for additional sessions.  What topics would you like to see discussed in future tweet chats?