Still not convinced of the business value of Twitter? Forbes understands your concern and did some research for you – canvassing scads of businesses and pricey social-networking gurus looking for honest answers on how to make money – if you can make money – with the microblogging service. Their answers may surprise you, as they share 21 ways Twitter can have an impact, and not just as a marginal marketing tool.

College Optional?

Larry Cheng, Partner at Fidelity Ventures wonders aloud if college is necessary for a true entrepreneur. “Sitting in a classroom listening to a teacher every day for four years in so many ways is exactly the opposite of what someone with an entrepreneurial DNA should want to do.” In this post, he outlines what he sees as a “blueprint to success” for those with no degree. First lesson? Take $1.00 and turn into $1.10 by this time next week.

Use Teamwork to Tackle Problems

Of course you know that teamwork is important, but in this Marketing Profs Daily Fix post, Paul Williams outlines in detail – complete with instruction template – how to create a GroupChallenge. Beyond basic brainstorming, a GroupChallenge is a simple and inexpensive way to―on an ongoing basis―inspire creativity and teamwork to generate ideas and solve problems.

Group Challenge Setup - Image from Marketing Profs Daily Fix

Why Waltham Doesn’t Matter

For those on the East Coast, this piece by Scott Kirsner of the Boston Globe has created quite a stir. Will it be the new turf war? Kirsner claims, “The new core of Boston venture capital has moved in closer to the city, toward Copley Square and Harvard Square,” and that “as a group, they [Waltham venture capitalists] represent the worst of the old-school business culture.” He has some great viewpoints on risk taking, the innovation economy and what he terms “the vibrant new culture of entrepreneurship.”

Should PR Professionals Use Social Media to Build Their Personal Brand?

PR Week takes a look at two opinions on one of the hottest debated topics in our office. How do you balance personal brand with your corporate brand? Should you? Two PR professionals weigh in.

Nine worst social media fails of 2009… thus far
Ok, so this one technically came out last Friday, but it’s definitely worth a mention in this week’s picks – especially if you haven’t seen it yet! Jennifer Leggio profiles nine of the potentially worst social media efforts so far this year. Online campaigns from Denny’s, Motrin and Quiznos are included in this post that will surely give you an idea of what not to do in the social media space.

When & How To Pay A Blogger
If you’ve considered compensating a blogger in exchange for writing about your product or service, then you better think carefully before executing the plan. Groundswell author and Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff provides some insight of his own along with the pre-requisite guidelines that were recently published by the FTC.

5 Rules for Creating Content that RULES!
Many companies struggle when starting a blog and it’s not necessarily from a lack of content to post. Sometimes the struggle stems from figuring out the best way to position or present that content. Matthew Grant eases the process with this post on Marketing Prof’s Daily Fix with five helpful rules to follow when preparing your content for publishing.

Google Wave: A Complete Guide
The announcement of Google Wave, Google’s upcoming real-time communication platform, received quite a bit of buzz this week. The feature list is pretty impressive and I can already see many ways it could fit into a web-worker’s daily interactions. Check out this guide from Mashable for the low-down. Here’s the video of the Google Wave developer preview from the Google I/O conference as an added bonus:

Turning your feed reader into a powerful monitoring dashboard
I’m a big fan of using Google Reader to aid in some of my social media/brand monitoring efforts. Mack Collier from the Viral Garden blog shares some tips and techniques on how he uses it in conjunction with Bloglines.

5 Ways To Find & Acquire Customers On Twitter
These days, the economy forces businesses to get creative when trying to finding new clients. Brian Norgard writes this guest post on the ShoeMoney blog to share five ways you can use Twitter for finding new business.

Twitterville Notebook: Jeremiah Owyang
Shel Israel continues his Twitterville series of posts by interviewing Jeremiah Owyang on the topic of personal brand.

Do You Have the ‘Four As’ To Be a Thought Leader?
Dana Vanden Heuvel writes this guest post on Marketing Prof’s Daily Fix to share the four “A’s” you might need to be a thought leader in your industry.