Global CIO: Why CIOs Need The Transformative Power Of TwitterGlobal CIO: Why CIOs Need The Transformative Power Of Twitter

That's the real value of the MLB Twitter experience: giving fans customizable experiences that allow them to decide whether to watch the game live while "listening" to friends' commentary instead of the traditional announcers. Or, fans can go to other sites outside of MLB's but still "tap into the [Twitter-based] commentary of people who are watching or listening to it elsewhere," CNET says.

5) Hyatt Hotels: For its high-priority Gold Passport customers, Hyatt is rolling out a new Twitter-based service called HyattConcierge that's designed to extend concierge-level services to Hyatt's most-frequent guests. Here's how Hyatt describes its new service in an e-mail letter from Hyatt Gold Passport VP Jeff Zidell:

We are pleased to announce that Hyatt is extending its hospitality and service to accompany you at all times during your travel journey. Whether it's before, during or after your stay, Hyatt hospitality will be on-hand to make your travel experience easier and more enjoyable through our new service called HyattConcierge, which can be accessed through Twitter by any web-enabled device.

Twitter is a network of 3 million users and is a great tool to find quick, easy answers and information. Need directions to the Grand Hyatt New York? A restaurant recommendation in Hong Kong? A spa appointment at Hyatt Regency Waikiki? HyattConcierge is there to assist you with your travel questions and requests.

This Hyatt innovation once more points to the opportunity to break through conventional processes and products and services and use technology to enhance and expand the value your customers experience with your brand in ways and places that were not possible before.

6) John Calipari: The University of Kentucky has one of the most-storied basketball programs and traditions in the world, but in recent years has stumbled through some mediocre seasons under the directions of coaches who not only failed to meet the sky-high expectations of alumni and fans but also seemed not to grasp the significance and the indispensability of passion and excitement and community and communication that lie at the heart of successful megaprograms such as Kentucky's.

But incoming coach John Calipari understands those issues -- viscerally. And he has used Twitter relentlessly to help rebuild that passion and excitement within the Wildcat community, to re-establish the sense of community among the many hundreds of thousands of fans, and to constantly communicate with high school coaches, recruits (when allowed), donors to the U.K. athletic program, students, sportswriters and broadcasters, and any and everyone else who can influence the fortunes of the University of Kentucky basketball program.

ESPN.com published a long and fascinating profile of Calipari's wildly enthusiastic reception this spring when he was named to replace Billy Gillespie, and the piece opens with a long anecdote about Calipari's animated use of Twitter to announce the signing of a blue-chip recruit. And the profile concludes with this assessment of the role Twitter was playing in helping Calipari win hearts, minds, recruits, wallets in his first few weeks on the job:

Kentucky is Kentucky because of its fan base. Capturing their hearts and loyalty is vital to a coach's success. Rick Pitino mastered it. Tubby Smith only partially did. Gillispie's gravest miscalculation was that he failed to recognize how much all the non-basketball stuff mattered.

I was in Lexington at Gillispie's nadir. It wasn't pretty. Fans were angry and embarrassed at the losing but furious that he failed to embrace their passion. Gillispie was viewed as standoffish and indifferent.

He "didn't get it," I was told more than once. He was in hot water more for that, Barnhart told me, than for his win-loss record.

Calipari doesn't just get it.

He Tweets it.

When it comes to running an IT organization, I know that most traditional CIOs "get it." The challenge today, though, is that the CIO job is about a whole lot more than just running an IT organization. It's about revenue growth and customer-driven innovation and customer engagement and speed and deep, real-time knowledge of what's happening in the market.

Twitter is certainly not the answer to every problem, it's not a panacea, and it's not the Holy Grail. But it's a powerful and potentially transformational tool that can help CIOs "get it" when it comes to the new responsibilities that CIOs are gaining as opposed to traditional ones they've always had.