This month, we continue our discussion of how to go about attracting and acclimating Millennials to the realities and rewards of a career in the claims industry. One of the many points Mike Costonis makes in "The Millennial Invasion" is that the technology prowess of this fresh crop of candidates far outpaces what "the typical claims organization currently provides or accepts." While the P&C industry is gradually mingling business information and camaraderie with delivered-in-a-nutshell news in some pretty surprising ways, as I stated last month, we still have an invigorating journey ahead.

It bears mention that Twitter just celebrated its five-year anniversary, along with a glossy new record for the number of tweets rendered per second. The latter occurred on July 17 at conclusion of the FIFA Women's World Cup. Japan defeated the USA on a penalty shoot-out, spurring 7,196 tweets per second at the end of the final match. But even more compelling are the leaps and bounds made by the outrageously popular social media platform in half a decade—at last tally, users were sending about 200 million tweets per day.

Twitter's success story is perhaps unlike any other, and it all started with a dramatic shift in how we forge and nurture connections with others or, in a basic sense, how we nurture our ever-shrinking attention spans by acquiring news and data via easily digestible tidbits.

Like its social media cohorts, Twitter brings a site-specific vernacular and clever way of siphoning slivers of our "downtime" while tempting TMI-induced insanity. Of course, both have generated ample watercooler fodder, especially here at Claims Central, where there is also much to celebrate. Eric Gilkey (@PC_360), Editor at large of PropertyCasualty360.com and former Claims Editor, spearheaded the magazine's foray into flight. When confronted with scant resources and a compendium of data to disseminate to a relatively broad audience yearning for immediate updates, he responded with, well, another challenge.

"I initially proposed setting up a Twitter site because I didn't think I had the time or resources to effectively write a weekly claims-related blog," he said. Nimbleness in navigating jargon while delivering relevant, timely content in 140 characters or less? Journalistic challenge accepted…and with gusto.

Explaining the viability and nuances of Twitter to the rest of the team proved a bit more convoluted. "In the early days of the launch, our meetings were humorous," he continued. "Were we 'tweeting,' 'twatting,' or 'twittering'? Should we call ourselves 'tweeters' or 'twits'?"

Sure, this may sound farfetched by today's standards, but Jack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder, recently divulged a rather nebulous moniker-making process, one that heavily relied on random dictionary entries and epiphanies in the woods. Among the Twitter names that weren't: "Jitter and Twitch" and "Squirrel." Yes, you read that right. A squirrel that likes to store "acorns of information." Lucky for us, birds seem to more easily lend themselves to puns (in addition to being cuter than those Cheetos-coveting rodents).

On that note, I have a sinking suspicion that Twitter is a harbinger of glorious things to come, though my predictions are as hazy as Dorsey's creative process right about now. Having addressed my own technological deficiency by upgrading to a smart phone this summer, another chirp beckons me now. This one is more of the  "Angry Birds" variety, though.

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