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Against live-tweeting at conferences

jasonlefkowitz.net

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Re: Against live-tweeting at conferences

#41

Post by blinks »

kstenerud wrote: post #40

Am I the only one who doesn't see any problem with this at all? I mean, it's not like attendees are talking into a phone, inconveniencing other people. Complaining that every attendee's attention is not permanently fixed upon you strikes me as particularly vain. What about taking notes on a laptop? What about scribbling into a notebook? You should be glad that someone's interested enough to repeat the things you're s…

> Complaining that every attendee's attention is not > permanently fixed upon you strikes me as particularly vain.

I read this differently: an audience can get the most out of a presentation by paying attention.

If you're consciously communicating while attending a presentation, you're probably not getting anything out of what's being immediately said. In an information-dense presentation, that means you're not getting the most out of the presentation: unfortunate at best, and making the rest of the presentation hard to understand at worst.

Perhaps it's more useful read as an "attendee tip" than a "presenter request?"

Re: Against live-tweeting at conferences

#42

Post by Swizec »

kstenerud wrote: post #40

Am I the only one who doesn't see any problem with this at all? I mean, it's not like attendees are talking into a phone, inconveniencing other people. Complaining that every attendee's attention is not permanently fixed upon you strikes me as particularly vain. What about taking notes on a laptop? What about scribbling into a notebook? You should be glad that someone's interested enough to repeat the things you're s…

If you have a problem with people looking into their phones and away from you, there's one simple thing you can do to fix the problem - be more interesting.

No really, it works.

I love backchannel tweeting because of two things:

1. I gave people something to talk about, yay. Later on I will join in and get to see all the comments, wonderful!

2. Too many people starting to look down? Quick! Pepper the talk with something interesting, move to the next slide, the next topic, whatever. You are not being entertaining and if you are not entertaining nobody will get anything out of your talk (because they won't pay attention)!

I keep getting invited to talk at barcamps and stuff, so I must be doing something right.

Re: Against live-tweeting at conferences

#44

Post by shinratdr »

wmf wrote: post #33
betterth wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who loves to see what is going on but is never within two thousand miles of where these conferences are held, I love the live tweeting and live blogging. I get that it may be an annoyance to those who attend, but to the thousands (millions?) who can't attend, it's how we follow as best we can.

What delay would you tolerate? One minute? One hour? One day?

Why tolerate a delay when there is no need to? I'm sorry but there is no talk in the world where every single person is going to be completely engaged. This is such a non issue, like a teacher wasting an entire class to discuss a minor discipline problem.

Not every person in every room you're invited to talk to will absorb and care about every word that leaves your mouth. If they're minding their own business then just ignore them.

If you get distracted by people doing it or are bothered by the large number of people doing it, then you need to drastically improve your speaking skills. You distract too easily and/or your talks are boring.

Re: Against live-tweeting at conferences

#45

Post by shinratdr »

A talk is not teaching in front of an elementary school class. You don't deserve attention just because you showed up. You have to earn it.

If most people are live tweeting or doing other things during your talk, then I guess you didn't earn it. The last people to blame is your audience for that problem. They didn't write your presentation or choose the title of it.

It's like a director blaming the audience for walking out of a movie. We can start a big debate about the culture or how rude that is, but we won't learn anything or solve anything. We're not going to change human nature with an indignant conversation.

What you do have the power to change though is selling your talk properly to the right people, make it engaging, and stop getting distracted by people who frankly aren't distracting unless you're very self conscious. These are deficiencies in your public speaking skills, not a problem with every audience you've encountered.

Re: Against live-tweeting at conferences

#46

Post by Karunamon »

bithive123 wrote: post #35
dfxm12 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume it is being down voted because it is off topic. ...tweeting or surfing the web as though it were a slow day at the office (what the parent is talking about) is a very different thing from live-tweeting an event (what the article is talking about).

I don't see a substantial difference in tone between the article and my post. Instead of downvoting me, why not explain the difference between "tweeting" and "live-tweeting"? I don't see one there either; it seems like an attempt to avoid thinking critically about internet habits and I suspect the downvotes are more reflective of my comment hitting too close to home than it being off-topic.

Tweeting: Broadcasting messages on twitter.

Live-tweeting (see also live-blogging): Broadcasting messages on twitter in directly relation to and following the goings-on of the event you're currently participating in .

Livetweeting also has the ability to be a kind of note taking. If you've ever watched a live blog, it's the same concept, just with a shorter text field.

If you haven't and have no idea of the concept, here's a recent one:

http://live.cnet.com/Event/Googles_next_dimension_of_Maps_ev...

--

Tweeting: Wow this conference is boring as heck, and the food sucks too #firstworldproblems

Live-tweeting: Foonly just announced that the foomatic v2 will have high-speed backchannel integration! #foocon2012

Re: Against live-tweeting at conferences

#47

Post by fratis »

bithive123 wrote: post #35
dfxm12 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume it is being down voted because it is off topic. ...tweeting or surfing the web as though it were a slow day at the office (what the parent is talking about) is a very different thing from live-tweeting an event (what the article is talking about).

I don't see a substantial difference in tone between the article and my post. Instead of downvoting me, why not explain the difference between "tweeting" and "live-tweeting"? I don't see one there either; it seems like an attempt to avoid thinking critically about internet habits and I suspect the downvotes are more reflective of my comment hitting too close to home than it being off-topic.

Can't help but agree with you here. I think tweeting (whether about the conference or not), surfing the web, reading/responding to email, etc. during a talk are symptomatic of the same inability to maintain focus and to think deeply when that's not PRECISELY what we want to be experiencing in a given moment.

Because of the fleetingness of the things we do online, even if the particulars are boring and mind-numbing (e.g., reading fifteen Cracked Top 10 articles in a row, or fruitlessly tweeting to tech celebrities in hope of a reply), we don't notice because the experience in general gives us the impression of fulfillment by virtue of its variety alone.

Re: Against live-tweeting at conferences

#48

Post by gammarator »

The value of live tweets to others is not great, either (although it is nonzero). You can only cram about half an idea in a live tweet.

Any subtlety, nuance, or context just gets steamrolled as people struggle to type in whatever catchy one-liner they managed to comprehend while reading their phone.

The lesson for speakers: have a clear message and speak in aphorisms. Also, repetition.

Re: Against live-tweeting at conferences

#49

Post by bithive123 »

Karunamon wrote: post #46
bithive123 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see a substantial difference in tone between the article and my post. Instead of downvoting me, why not explain the difference between "tweeting" and "live-tweeting"? I don't see one there either; it seems like an attempt to avoid thinking critically about internet habits and I suspect the downvotes are more reflective of my comment hitting too close to home than it being off-topic.

Tweeting: Broadcasting messages on twitter. Live-tweeting (see also live-blogging): Broadcasting messages on twitter in directly relation to and following the goings-on of the event you're currently participating in . Livetweeting also has the ability to be a kind of note taking. If you've ever watched a live blog, it's the same concept, just with a shorter text field. If you haven't and have no idea of the concept,…

I know what live tweeting is, I was inviting someone to explain how it is different from tweeting in terms of being an unnecessary distraction. With all the ways slides and videos and blog posts disseminate news following tech conferences I'm having trouble thinking of a less efficient way to do so than for dozens of people to be "live tweeting" nuggets from a talk 140 characters at a time.

This is not twitter-bashing, I really feel that as a matter of basic decency and for their own intellectual growth audiences should be actively listening and making connections so that after the talk they can have something more interesting to say than "tl;dr".

If you are so caught up in your initial reactions to a speaker that you pre-emptively distract yourself you are missing out on a lot of opportunities for insight into yourself and your community. I don't see the value in dozens of people flying to a city just to sit in hotel ballrooms and regurgitate things over the wifi.

Re: Against live-tweeting at conferences

#50

Post by droidist »

bithive123 wrote: post #49
Karunamon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tweeting: Broadcasting messages on twitter. Live-tweeting (see also live-blogging): Broadcasting messages on twitter in directly relation to and following the goings-on of the event you're currently participating in . Livetweeting also has the ability to be a kind of note taking. If you've ever watched a live blog, it's the same concept, just with a shorter text field. If you haven't and have no idea of the concept,…

I know what live tweeting is, I was inviting someone to explain how it is different from tweeting in terms of being an unnecessary distraction. With all the ways slides and videos and blog posts disseminate news following tech conferences I'm having trouble thinking of a less efficient way to do so than for dozens of people to be "live tweeting" nuggets from a talk 140 characters at a time. This is not twitter-bashin…

I know what you mean. It's kind of like when people pick out one thing you say and then spend the rest of the time formulating their response / waiting for their turn to speak and miss the rest of what you're saying. The conversation can turn out very tangential that way if they're bouncing off a very small piece of the surface of your overall point instead of the main meat of it.
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