There must be a lot of twits running around because it seems like everyone is tweeting. Everyday, another article hails Twitter as the latest social media rage and no wonder. According to CNN.com, Twitter grew by a whopping 1,374 percent in the past year to 7 million users from less than half a million a year ago. That's a lot of twits.

In the Twitter world, you communicate with people in short phrases of 140 characters or less, called tweets. Twitter lets you follow people, and the people with the most followers are the biggest twits, or as Twitter users prefer to think of them, the most influential. Shaq has over 400,000 followers and trend setting celebrities, politicians and bloggers all have their own Twitter groupies who monitor what they are doing from minute to minute.

You can even follow me on Twitter: Jon_Pushkin. I'm approaching 100 followers, which makes me not very influential but interesting enough for some people to want to know what I'm up to. As we say in show biz, there's no accounting for taste.

Some people think Twitter is the future of journalism, public relations, and all human communication. There are others who feel that Twitter is dangerous, addicting, and a narcissistic cult. I'm somewhere in the middle, still making up my mind.

Twitter can be annoying. Frankly, I don't care what you are having for breakfast or when you go to the gym or how long you had to wait in line at the airport. I have better things to do than tweet every five minutes about every thought that enters my head and the last thing I need is some other excuse to play with my iPhone more than I already do. Call me old fashioned but I am still fond of face-to-face communication. I would hate to miss the really important things in life because I was too busy worrying about the mundane.

But if you are an entrepreneur or a business leader, you need to know about Twitter, Facebook and the other channels that tech savvy people use to communicate. If you want your brand to be visible and respected, you need to monitor and participate in the conversation or you won't be considered credible. And people won't want do business with you.

At it's best, Twitter is more than just inane chatter. It provides instant breaking news updates, commentary and insight into the views of influential thought leaders more directly than ever before. It can even help you understand different points of view.

OK, maybe Twitter doesn't boldly go where no man has gone before, but it's a start. Beam me up Scotty. Let's shift her into warp drive and see how we like the ride.

America is angry. So as we've always done throughout our history, when we get angry we look for a scapegoat. And our scapegoat now is those no good scoundrels at AIG who had the nerve to award bonuses to the same managers that got us into this financial mess in the first place.

I was born in Brooklyn, so I know from anger and it doesn't really bother me. It seems like a healthy way to blow off steam. Mostly I get angry when the Mets play like bums or the driver in front of me is an idiot or the pundit on TV is so incredibly dumb. I may get loud but I never get violent.

Watching the CEO of AIG squirm before the venom directed at him by Congress, and listening to him explain to an angry mob of Americans dying to tar and feather his bonus babies that he couldn't release their names because he feared for their safety, I was struck with just one thought. If this guy had only listened to his PR people, he wouldn't be in this mess.

No self-respecting public relations counselor would let a client go before a hostile audience with a message like, "I've asked them to return half their bonus." The PR pro's response to that hypothetical answer in the Q&A prep session they surely did before the hearing must have been, "Are you nuts?"

AIG got in this mess because of bad corporate financial decisions, but they keep digging the hole deeper by making bad corporate communications decisions. Maybe the CEO didn't anticipate the hostility of the public outcry, but their PR team surely did. And that team was probably counseling the CEO to say something like "I don't care about contracts, I don't care how many managers quit rather than give back their bonus, there is no way that any of us will accept another dime from the American taxpayers until we right this ship and make things square with the taxpayers for showing so much faith in us."

Maybe it's hard to swallow for someone so used to having all the answers, but sometimes even a CEO needs to realize that it's time to shut up and listen. The bottom line is, it is not the American people that need anger management; it is the management at AIG.

Musicians know how to listen. They understand that the music within and around them provides the inspiration they need to express themselves. They also understand the value of feedback.

Any rock n' roll guitar player can tell you how to get good feedback. Just turn up the volume, point the guitar at your amp, and let it wail. It's not always pleasant to hear, especially when it happens by accident. But in the hands of a master like Jimi Hendrix, feedback can unlock a whole new world of music.

Feedback is also important in public relations. Too often, PR campaigns focus on communicating to someone. The problem is, when we forget that good communications also involves listening, it's like a pilot flying on instruments. We are really communicating blindly.

These days it seems like no one is listening. We communicate to someone about how we feel and what we are doing. We react instinctively to perceived threats by laying off staff and slashing budgets. Glen Broom, co-author of Effective Public Relations, compares it to what a squid does when it senses danger. It squirts ink.

Squirting ink is tactical, not strategic. It means we are focused on getting some ink when we should be getting an inkling instead.

By seeking feedback, you may learn that your publics don't trust you. Maybe your employees are worried about their jobs or retirement. Maybe your patients don't think your hospital is worried about their health. If the community is skeptical about your motives, maybe it's time to ask if you are communicating the right messages.

It's easy to get stressed out by day-to-day worries and not take the time to think strategically. Your business goals should guide your communication tactics, not the other way around. When business is slow, take advantage of the downtime to enjoy the silence. You may be surprised by what you hear.

Great musicians pay attention to what the musicians around them are saying musically. It's the same with good communicators. We all have communications breakdowns. The trick is to take a deep breath and listen.