You know how every conference we attend these days has its own hashtag? So we can all tweet about what we're learning and how awesome the event is? Well, there is a dark side to the conference tweet: tweckling. Fair communicators, you can probably figure out what that means.
As event planners and programmers, what can we do to discourage tweckling? Should we? Check out this article from the Chronicle and post your thoughts on this. Oh, the humanity!
"Conference Humiliation: They're Tweeting Behind Your Back"
http://chronicle.com/article/Conference-Humiliation-/49185/
I remember reading about the #heweb09 kerfuffle. If you are feeling masochistic, you can read the whole backchannel here. I can see both sides of this: How horrifying it must have been for the presenter to learn about the comments later, and how insulting it must have been for the attendees to have paid to hear a presentation that was clearly out-of-date from a presenter who obviously did not know his audience.
ReplyDeleteThere was a robust Twitter backchannel at a web conference I attended recently. I found the collective notetaking edifying, and I made a lot of connections that I would not have otherwise. That said, there was also some silliness and snarkiness, and it could be distracting trying to keep up with the feed.
I can relate a story about how tweckling can create a better presentation. My favorite presentation at that web conference was engaging, well organized, and well delivered. Later, I learned that the presenter had been tweckled a bit at a previous conference and as a result had put a lot of effort into reorganizing her talk. At my conference, there was nothing but praise for her.
This issue is not going away any time soon - thanks for opening up the discussion!
Just read this speaker's experience with a Twitter backchannel projected during the talk. It didn't go well.
ReplyDeleteWhew! It's nasty out there! However, Jessica's comments show two ways that twitter bachchannel chatter can be helpful. I really like the idea of broadcasting tweets as speaker is talking--it does make it more of a conversation. I might be more inclined to attend a big conference if this sort of interactivity was undertaken. My last go to, the CASE conference in Chicago was BORING on every level--something like this could liven things up considerably! And it doesn't have to be mean. I've done my share of less-than-buzzworthy presentations--it would be cool if in the midst of one, the twitter screen would let me know it was time to move on, to offer concrete examples, to admit alternatives, etc.
ReplyDelete