Enterprise Nation

For the last week or so, we've been inviting homeworking Twitter users to join us for a virtual break at around 11am each day - a sort of elevenses but for people who work from home. Here's everything you need to know.

The very basics

In order to take part in one of our #watercoolermoments, you need to be a Twitter user. And, if you're not already, signing up is dead easy:

Sign up to Twitter

1. Go to http://twitter.com
2. Click 'Sign up now'
3. Enter your full name, a username (which will form part of your Twitter URL), password and email address.
4. Click 'Create my account'
5. Start tweeting!

But what is Twitter?

If you're new to Twitter altogether and you want to know what it is and how it works, the video below should act as a primer - and get you up to speed!

Follow us!

It's not essential, but if you want to make the most out of #watercoolermoments and the Enterprise Nation experience altogether you should follow us on Twitter. To do so, just visit our Twitter page at http://twitter.com/e_nation and click the 'Follow' button underneath our logo.

Enterprise Nation resident geek, San Sharma manages our Twitter page and shares links to posts on our website and on others he thinks you'll find interesting; he spins virtual records (via Blip.fm) to play us in and out and back from lunch; and is known to pull the occasional funny. Perfect company, if we say so ourselves, any given homeworking day!

#watercoolermoment

We came up with #watercoolermoment as a way for people who work from home to interact with one another as peers might do in a conventional office - discuss last night's TV, for example, share gossip, ask advice and basically have some downtime, which we too often forget when we work alone!

How does it work?

When you follow Enterprise Nation on Twitter, San will remind you when a #watercoolermoment is due to take place. It's usually at 11am daily. And you'll notice that when he refers to it, it's as all one word, starting with a hashtag.

That's so that it's easier to find the topic in a search and for other followers to click it and see a listing of all other tweets that have used the term. Try it, by clicking #watercoolermoment now!

San will usually set a topic and then followers respond, including #watercoolermoment in their reply.

And then what?

Try it and you'll see that the effect is like chatter in an office. The advantage, however, is that you can tune out if you've got too much work on.

But it's a nice reminder, we think, to take a break and chill out at the virtual water cooler!

Photo credit: Blues by eye2eye