We are used to using social media to exchange information, but how can the power of Twitter be used creatively and imaginatively for wider social benefit?  Powered By Tweets at Somerset House is showing six finalists in a competition by Twitter, in partnership with the London Design Festival, to design a product or service that is #PoweredByTweets.

Six fantastically different winners including Adeola Akande and Eloise Parfitt from Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust who created an interactive mindmap for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy to relax, and which could also be applied to other medical conditions where the patient is bed-bound.  It’s so simple and effective that you wonder why it hasn’t been done before, but isn’t that the essence of all great ideas?

Other winners include Pierre Duquesnoy and Matt Daniels’ pigeons in major cities fitted with pollution monitors which tweet real-time data, HiveWorks UK system to launch  new books using twitter and a typewriter, Mark Carroll and Alex Willmott’s tracking of language across Twitter and how it evolves (which would benefit future Oxford English Dictionaries), using Twitter to support campaigning, in this case to allow gay men to donate blood – which they are not allowed to do at the moment, with @CheilUK in partnership with Freedom to Donate and Twitter-enabled water pumps which send Tweets to donors to demonstrate the impact of their donation with @NowFeed in partnership with @WaterAidUK.

Six great ideas on how we can use the virtual world on Twitter for real benefit in the real one.  Hopefully, in a few years, every hospital will be equipped with the interactive mindscape, with real benefits for patients.