Last week, I was fortunate to be one a several “Official Bloggers” for the World Innovation Forum. Since then I’ve written several blogs on the great sessions and information I got there. What I haven’t shared, yet, is how much fun I had. I really saw the power of Twitter first hand! Let me explain…
There was a special section at the event reserved as the “Blogger’s Hub“, which was sponsored by Pitney Bowes. They had tables, power, and wireless internet ready (mostly, anyway) and waiting for us. Our job during the event was to capture the essence of what was being said on stage through our “tweets” – 140 character micro-blog posts and to take notes for sharing our insights later on our blogs.
This was my first “live feed” event as a tweeter so it took some time getting used to listening, distilling, and tweeting. At first, many of us were saying almost the exact same thing. Once we got to “know” each other, though, we started to play off of each other. If someone had captured an idea well, we “re-tweeted” it (re-sent what they had said) rather than restate it ourselves. We even started getting into discussions back and forth debating what had been said. My favorite was when the inside jokes started flying. At one point, one tweet was so funny that there could be heard a low chuckle amongst the Blogger’s in the Hub.
When a friend asked me to describe what it was like, the best I could come up with was this: It was like being at a cocktail party, listening to someone else speak and being able to hear other people’s thoughts on the topic at hand. Sometimes it was just a restatement of an idea for the benefit of those not present (which was VERY helpful!) and other times it was an opinion or observation which could lead to debate or realization of similar thoughts.
The most unexpected benefit of participating was that I met some wonderful, smart, and talented people (that’s us in the picture!). We laughed one night at dinner when we thought we got “peppered” and were quick to forgive when we realized it was an honest mistake. The experience fostered admiration and maybe even friendship with people behind the avatar. Could there really be something to this twitter? Follow me, engage in the discussions, and find out!
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Hey Julie!
Nice post on the Twitter experience at WIF 09. I really enjoyed what you were posting, and I am flattered that you RT’d some of my stuff. It was a great learning experience and it was a great deal of fun too. There is so much richness in the stuff we posted, and I hope your readers will check out the stream of conversations at http://tinyurl.com/pld876.
It was nice to work with you, and I hope we’ll stay in touch. All my best!
Jeff De Cagna
Twitter: @pinnovation
Great post from fellow WIF blogger on the roles people play in Live Tweeting a conference.
http://twurl.nl/v0xub0
Hi Julie,
Thanks for the memories & recap – it was great meeting & tweeting with you! I agree that tweeting the conference added a dimension of richness to the experience by including virtual participants worldwide.
And for any of your readers who haven’t met you in person, let me just add that the fun spirit and lively energy that infuse your writing shine in real life, too. It was a pleasure to spend time with you!
Andrea Meyer
Twitter: @AndreaMeyer
Julie,
Nice post and great meeting you at the conference. It’s the connections to information and people that makes tools like Twitter powerful. I thought it was a great innovative idea to have a diverse group of bloggers attend the conference. It extended the reach of the conference beyond those who were there and has us talking about it much longer afterwords too.
Cheers,
Stu Miniman
Twitter: @stu