What can you learn from a Tweet stream? A lot, in my opinion. A Tweet stream is a focused set of Twitter messages identified by a hashtag. Say I were having a conference about this topic, I would set up a hashtag of #tweetlearn or something like that. I'd make sure that everyone knew about the hashtag identifier at the start of the conference, and then I would stand back and let the Tweeting begin.

So, if I set up that tag would I only be adding to the Twitter static that threatens to overwhelm the universe? I don't think so, and here are three examples.

First, a hashtag can bring some order to the chaos. When I attend a conference, one of the things I always look for and ask for is, What is the tag? Without a tag, people start making up their own and never really connect. Conferences that go out of their way to appear digitally hip gain points by helping us Twitterers (I'm @ESLundquist) find their way and focus. Conferences (whether live or digital) that don't set up a hashtag in advance do themselves a disservice.

Second, a hashtag helps build a collective mind. Recently I attended a very well-produced conference on business-to-business marketing (#mpb2b) in Boston. How many times have you been at a conference and wondered if there were better panels going on, if there was someone who could answer your questions or where people were going for happy hour? All that information is in the Twitter stream. The connections you can make run from the trivial to the business changing. A big effort by conference organizers is to make space for people to introduce themselves and make connections. Twitter can help this enormously.

Third, hashtags let you be in two places at the same time. For example, I really wanted to go to a session recently put on by the Innovate MassTech group. It had a good lineup, and it was being held at the new Microsoft facility in Cambridge, Mass., which has become one of my favorite places to attend events. Alas, the difficulty of being in two (or three) places at the same time made this meeting impossible. But all was not lost. By tuning my Twitter search to #innovatematech, I was able to follow a real-time stream of information coming from the event. I knew many of the folks Twittering at the event, and I could quickly get a feel for what was being said and get varied opinions about the presentations. It was almost like I was there except I didn't get to drink the coffee or eat the bagels. Now I can decide which speakers and topics I want to catch up with later in the day and develop some story ideas.

Tweet streams when used correctly don't flood, but instead focus, us with information.