Learning with the Fang

Yesterday I was involved with an event at Uni which had a participant with a laptop who asked the question ‘Is it wrong to be allowed to be twittering whilst at a conference, in fact asked to twitter about the Future SACE’.

This is something that I (and others like danah boyd + the Nature publishing group) have been thinking about quite a lot lately. From my perspective there is huge potential upside for both participants and organisers of events when online sharing is enabled and encouraged through social media tools such as twitter, facebook, blogs, flickr, podcasts, etc. In recent weeks I have both experienced and noticed others complaining about negative effects of ‘over sharing’ and wonder how things will balance out when the default postition tips from a few connected geeks twittering from the back of the room to anything said or done at this event will probably end up online.


Lets start by looking at the UPSIDE:

For years now, I have been sharing podcasts from events online – in fact I make a decent living out of it. It has been a real joy to see event organisers beam with smiles as they observe online evidence of the impact their event is having on attendees, their immediate social networks and the world in general. Even better when they begin to sell out large venues in subsequent years. It is also a joy to read expressions of gratitude from those who cannot attend an event in person and to watch their interactions with those who did (after the initial burst of complaints about WiFi performance and lack of power outlets). A quick list of benefits:

• promotion of events to a wider audience
• greater impact/influence of the theme or purpose of the event
• great ‘google rank’ as people link to your website
• possible mainstream media coverage through re-use of your shared material
• can build community of connected attendees and their networks
• real time research, enqiry and reflection on content of sessions
• better connections between speakers and audience
• scalability by crowdsourcing tasks such as publishing notes on talks, slides, video etc
• some people (like danah and I) actually concentrate better when tweeting and googling during a talk!
• and many more…

But there can be a DOWNSIDE:

Earlier this year I was at an event that set a new ‘high water mark’ for online sharing – to the extent that the master of ceremonies had to ask people to ‘type softly while twittering’ because the noise of keyboards was distracting some attendees. This points to an underlying issue that not everybody likes to be constantly connected and sharing during talks – the root cause of danah’s ‘bitch slap’. Likewise, the disgruntled science journalist at nature has noticed that people are becoming reluctant to share leading edge science at some conferences because of all the online sharing. Some negatives:

• geeks pounding away at laptop keyboards can be distracting
• oversharing can have embarrasing consequences (ever left a wireless mic on while going to the toilet? – imagine that streamed live to the web).
• if everything is being recorded, photographed, twittered – some people will be reluctant to share interesting new insights
• even I can be distracted from time to time by the mechanics of sharing and miss things that happen ‘in the moment’

My feeling is that the benefits of sharing outweigh the downsides but there will no doubt be much friction as the default swings from what happens in the room stays in the room to everything shared online (unless by prior arrangement). As ’sharing amplifier’ tools such as iPhones (Called the 21st century steam-shovel by @mpesce) evolve and become more pervasive I am sure we are in for some interesting and disruptive times at conferences and events. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Fang – Mike Seyfang

technorati tags:seyfang, mikeseyfang

p.s. Hat tip to Cameron Neylon for his work on images to clarify intentions at conferences.