Today’s post is courtesy of the lovely and talented Ms. Rachel Reuben (@rachelreuben).

Rachel is is the Director of Web Communication & Strategic Projects at the State University of New York at New Paltz. She’s a member of the blogging team at http://doteduguru.com , and published “The Use of Social Media in Higher Education: A Guide for Professionals in Higher Education” in July 2008. Oh yeah, and she’s smart and fun and I’m delighted to have her guest post.

One of the sentiments I hear most on Twitter is: “The Twitter community is so helpful.” And, they’re right. So, why don’t we experience this more in real life?

I’ve found being hooked into the right network on Twitter has made a world of difference in my every day life — both professionally and personally. I get helpful tips for everything from developing a code of conduct for my online community, to how to make the best hamburger.

After a challenging afternoon at work, I recently tweeted about this helpful phenomenon, and it made me wonder why aren’t so many people we interact with in real life like this? I want to live in a Twitter world. Is this too idealistic?

@AmberCadabra responded, “What do you think the difference is? Birds of a feather flocking together and that? Or something else?” So, here’s my best guess at what causes this phenomenon.

In great part, we come to Twitter to find like-minded people. We are attracted to those with similar interests in real life. In certain fields and geographic locations it’s especially hard to find them physically nearby. Twitter gives us a virtual world filled with creative, brilliant, entertaining, people, and most of us have at least one common thread — we aren’t afraid to ask for help, and we’re equally as happy if we can provide it. It’s natural we flock together. We realize, there are more people like us out there. We’re not in this alone. There are others going through similar professional challenges and life changes. It’s a support group where you can hide behind your avatar, and not have to be in a room facing other people. Others who have been through similar situations are happy to jump in and share their lessons learned, or even just to be a virtual shoulder to cry on. There’s something ridiculously comforting knowing there are perfect strangers out there who support you, even if it is only 140 characters at a time.

I’ve developed some incredible friendships with people I only know through Twitter — most of whom I’ve never met in real life. Every single one of these relationships started because they were helpful to me, or I was fortunate enough to be helpful to them.

We tweet about our professions. Regardless of our individual fields, there tends to be overlap with social media. If I’m looking for help on something technical inside a Ning community, I don’t have to just reach out to my colleagues in higher education. Community managers across the globe spanning all industries can and often jump at the chance to help. Twitter difuses geographical boundaries. It sort of reminds me of the old-school chat rooms in Prodigy and AOL in the early/mid 1990’s, but in a much more immediate and focused way.

Imagine what the world would be like if real-life was like our Twitter world. You’d go to a grocery store and there’d actually be a real-life bagger, and s/he would ask if they could bring your groceries to the car for you. (Oh wait, that does exist at Publix in Florida.) You’d go into a Wal-Mart, where everyone has aprons that say “how can I help you?” and they actually would, instead of nervously avoiding eye contact and running away from you when you can’t find something in their behemoth of a store. You’d sit in on a committee meeting at work and offer to help with the next task at hand, and everyone in the room jumps at the chance to help as well. You walk into a packed auditorium and ask if anyone knows how to fix your broken Facebook application, and half the crowd stands up and shouts the answer to fix it.

In reality, most grocery stores I frequent don’t have baggers, would never offer to help bring groceries to your car, and are never around when you need help finding something. Committees tend to be filled with naysayers and difficult individuals who aren’t there to really contribute much.

But… what if they did? What if Comcast repair technicians were all as helpful as Frank Eliason is on Twitter (@comcastcares)? (Side tweet: Is Frank giving customer service workshops to regional directors who supervise these technicians to spread their service throughout the organization?) What if every single employee at Home Depot responded as quickly and kindly as @thehomedepot does — including follow-ups 24 hours later? Do these companies have the same inward culture as they appear with their Twitter personas?

If you’re representing your company/business/brand on Twitter — are you being helpful? Or, are you just “listening” and there for damage control? Excellent customer service is still the foundation of solid business success, and Twitter provides the perfect way to expand your customer service initiatives into this space. If you’re helpful on Twitter, that will build a strong foundation for relationships outside the Twitter world, which is, unfortunately where the far majority of us have to live most of our life. We could use more helpful people in this real life world.

What do you think it is? How does Twitter breed helpful people? Is Twitter doing the breeding, or are we just flocking together as Amber suggests?

I don’t know about you, but I want to continue being useful and surround myself with helpful people who reciprocate. I’ll wait here over in this Twitter world.