I’ve been a longtime advocate of diverse teams. Fresh opinions add value to any problem solving exercise.
On Twitter and other social networking technologies, you tend to “follow” or “friend” people you enjoy reading. This often means following those people with whom you have something in common. The more you have in common, the more you likely enjoy following them.
Unfollowing someone who displays naivete (or is consistently “wrong”) about a topic is like “flipping the Bozo Bit“. It is natural (I’m sure I do it myself) but probably counterproductive in the long run. Now, please note that I am talking about divergent opinions on the same topic. I am not talking about following everyone; those people who tweet about completely unrelated topics are obviously not ones to follow. But people who disagree with you about relevant topics are perfect people to follow and learn from.
A corollary to this is the point that Jason Pontin makes about trying to conduct a debate on Twitter. The format doesn’t really lend itself to serious debate. The 140 character limit is probably too limiting for deep discourse. But, as it always has, microblogging can provide links to the more substantial blog entries that you post to make your point.