Would you believe it?

Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz took dedication to social media to a new level in February when he announced his resignation from his chief executive post on Twitter.

Even better, he phrased his intention to leave the IT company in the form of a haiku, the Japanese poem with a traditional five/seven/five syllable structure.

“Today’s my last day at Sun. I’ll miss it. Seems only fitting to end on a haiku”, he tweeted last month. “Financial crisis / Stalled too many customers / CEO no more”.

The rather poetic and succinct announcement must be up there with some of the shortest resignations in history and ranks as the very first resignation via Twitter.

Other Twitter firsts include the first tweet from space, made in January 2010 by Flight Engineer T J Creamer from the international space station, and the first injunction served over Twitter, against an unknown user falsely tweeting under the name of right-wing political blogger Donal Blaney. Blaney’s Blarney Order – the informal name given to the injunction by bloggers – was served over Twitter in October 2009.

Thankfully Schwartz has a firmer grasp on technology than some of his peers. When BBC Five Live hired commentators Andy Gray and Jonathan Pearce for the 2002 World Cup, executive editor of BBC Sports News Graeme Reid-Davies emailed a colleague to say: “I think they’re both crap.” He accidentally copied his message to 500 members of the BBC sports staff – including Gray and Pearce.

In government, the prime minister’s special adviser Damian McBride lost his job in April 2009 after sending emails to political blogger Derek Draper. The emails, which were leaked to a rival rightwing blogger and published in tabloid newspapers, discussed the setting up of an ‘attack blog’ designed to smear Tory opponents by spreading unfounded gossip.

But Schwartz isn’t the only senior staff member to resign from a post so publicly. In March 2009, executive vice president Jake De Santis, from the financial products unit of US insurer AIG, had his resignation letter published in the New York Times op-ed column, claiming he could no longer effectively perform in the dysfunctional environment at the company.