There are a couple of things going on here:

First, if people are unfamiliar with a tool like Twitter, I could see a written guide being handy. When I've taught software classes, I've noticed it's often the older students that are the hardest to teach and take the longest to learn. Of course they're not dumb, but people who have been doing things one way for a long time seem to have a harder time learning a new method of doing things. Younger folks have had less time to get set in their ways and thus have less to unlearn.

Of course, you could just start a Twitter account and start playing with it, too. Some older folks, like my daddy, could get along very nicely this way. But that leads to my second point: The way I'm reading the CDC document, it seems like they want to use Twitter as an official communication tool. If that's the case, then it's understandable that they'd want to have official guidelines for what is posted and how it should look. If it's a CDC Twitter, then it's an official CDC communication, no matter who writes it. If I were the head of the CDC, I'd probably want to get some rules in place.

Being the unofficial technology liason for the old fogies in my company I can tell you, there are indeed people who need, who crave, a nine page document on how to use new technology. These are the same people who read video game manuals instead of just shoving the disc in and playing. They want to know everything before going in. Sweet merciful crap, you wouldn't believe the issues we had with IM and that's as user friendly as tech gets. And I work with damn smart folks.

On top of that RPM Daddy is right. If this is official communication for an orginization there needs to be standards and policies. There are all kinds of different trouble you can get into with Twitter. Whether your talking about drunken fun in Cancun or commenting on a new strain of Equine Flu.

I think you missed the point Amy. The Doc is all about things you have to be careful of as a government body using twitter, and what you say there. This is a big deal in government circles, and any company connected to them. A LOT of social networking is done without thinking through consequence...

as an individual, what you say is your problem. As part of a company or the govt. what you say is a corporate problem... some people just don't think it through, and we see fallout from that every day.

I'm with Swiss. Government is smart to offer guidance to employees about Twitter. A CDC employee could cause mayhem if he tweeter thoughtlessly about H1N1 or whatever the bugaboo of the moment.

The Chinese will own us because we insist upon trying to preserve an unheard of and unsustainable military hegemony over most of the globe.

Both sides are right. Government is smart to offer guidance, because its employees are morons who can't be fired as long as they refrain from committing acts of treason and crimes against humanity (and sometimes not even then).

As far as it goes: I have to have about 5 different personalities.

I have my work/pro personality. I have to be cool, calm and collected. I am representing the company to the world.

I volunteer on a tech website as both an advisor and expert. There I have to be generally nice, but with a hard edge occasionally.

Then there are the face-to-face person.

People who think know that they have to have them and separate the differences. But if you don't think about it, you are screwed.

This was brought home to me years ago. I was working as a temp for a muli-national corp. I had a chance to go perm. They saw a comment on my personal website about the company. I wasn't hired.