It’s not possible for me to tweet and listen to the speaker at the same time. After being asked a direct question during a social media event and forced to answer, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening; I was tweeting” I decided my behavior was rude.

When I learn something new at an event I integrate the tool or concept into my business and share in another medium which allows more depth than a tweet.

Oh, you can be assured if there’s a tweet about “sweet tea” happening anywhere, I’m commenting or starting the conversation! My goal is to find like-minded folks and develop relationships. It’s certainly easier to develop a bond around sweet tea and mojitos WordPress plugins for enhanced security.

Thanks for a thought provoking post!

I too think most REBCers are just happy to be there. I’m happy when I can attend and I’ve attended way more than my fair share. And, perhaps that’s what’s influencing some of my perception and questioning. There is almost always several someones in attendance who certainly can provide a glimpse into the quality content shared at the event, with or without instruction. Should they? I’m not sure there is a “should” in this. I do know this… someone missed an opportunity to engage and influence both the attendees with their presence and the internet viewers with their sharing. In this case, there was a void. Should someone have filled it? Perhaps not. But could someone have filled it. Most certainly.

The thing I’ve been thinking about most since writing this is that signal and noise are both moving targets. They are contextual and personal. They’re certainly not objective. My listening goals may be different than others. Therefore, in any given moment, what I consider noise, someone else will consider signal. I might consider a casual tweet from one person as nosie, while the exact same message from another might be considered signal. That’s the beauty of the complexity of human interaction. So, if the goal is to impact the greatest number of people possible (and it may not be for some organizers) then that “healthy” mix is required. I don’t think I can articulate what that means, I’m just hoping I’ll know it when I see it.

You have to admit you’ll think a little more in depth the next time you tweet during a conference. Thanks for agreeing with me btw

I think most REBCers are just happy to be there. Transmitting that joy, asking questions and sending photos (as REBCNASH showed) proves that this is the priority of the attendees. I think forcing or recommending a population to concentrate on “signal” when what they want to do is “make noise” is not only inhospitable, but breaks every rule of viral behavior.

THAT would be an interesting study. There are certain speakers I would go back and find video of for example, GaryVee and Jeff are 2 of them, but I wouldn’t necessarily look at a live blog.

Well, there is at least two of us.

As an organizer of REBCPHX, I felt my obligation was to the actual participants *at the event*. It was put on for them, not those out in cyberspace.

Please don’t get me wrong, I care (a lot) about others out there that couldn’t be at the event, but I felt no obligation to make sure they got something from the event. My sole purpose that day was to make sure people physically in attendance were getting what they needed.

Now if I am *attending* an event, then I personally enjoy sharing with others that can’t be there. But I think the point Jeff made in a comment about the difference between a Word Camp and a Bar Camp is important. It’s a heck of a lot easier to Tweet out a signally nugget when you’re sitting in a structured, lecture / panel like environment than it is when you’re actively engaged in a REBC-like conversation.

But even in a more formal WCish event, Twitter probably isn’t the best tool if one is looking for a better signal to noise ratio. By its nature, Twitter is noisy…

Even if you happen to be an organizer or one that has attended a few of these – the point would be to make it a more wholesome, enjoyable and better learning experience to the ones present. Newbies will have the tendency to pay attention and take notes – those with barcamp experience will participate in the conversation, both on-line and off.

And let’s not forget the power of the hashtag for those present. I find myself torn between 2 sessions at times and it’s great to get those tidbits, whether noise or signal.

And I’ll add one more point – from the perspective of a barcamp organizer. In Miami, I was focused on the learning experience at the actual camp, I was focused on exposing new concepts to locals that were clueless about most of the subjects. I went out of my way to keep the conference small thinking quality would be better, and never did I even worry about what was being broadcast during or after the event. (I may be a minoriy in my thinking though)

I don’t think you’re wrong at all. Not that my opinion makes you right. But I’ve been thinking about this all day and can say with a great deal of satisfaction that I’m HAPPY that the people who attended REBCNASH spent their time concentrating on the content there and not on creating content for the Twitter stream. I’ve said from the very beginning, this post is not about THEIR experience. THEIR experience was clearly excellent. I’ve never questioned that. It was about the experience of watching it from afar via Twitter.

For me, all of this is exploration. Opening up to new ways of thinking. Questioning assumptions. Questioning my assumptions. And my assumptions have clearly been influenced by past REBarcamps and the content generated via Twitter during those sessions. Just as this poast was influenced by personal conversations the day before.

As contrast, I spent some time today monitoring the #WCSF stream. The volume of signal coming from it was high. Tons of sharing of really good nuggets of information. Wordcamps are different than barcamps, however. They are more formal and typically less interactive than a well run barcamp. So you’re right on target with barcamps being designed to be more participative for the attendees. But I argue that it’s possible to be interactive and engaged at a barcamp and still share information with the Interwebs. I’m speaking from experience.

And the way I do it in the future will surely change. For many reasons.

BTW, what did that feel like to be wrong?

Okay, maybe let’s try this: This is not a free event.
Everyone who shows up here takes themselves away from money work for that day or two days, plus any travel expenses, not only the organizers, but the attendees could all be doing something else during that time. You could easily say that everyone at a barcamp is a volunteer, and the spirit of barcamps, from my understanding, is that active participation is a necessity for a successful camp.

Why should there be any responsibility foisted on anyone other than participating in full during the camp, and even that is up to each individual. As someone who wouldn’t organize, but might attend, twittering takes the experience from full engagement to reporting. I’m not convinced that is in the best interest of the attendees. Which brings us back to designating someone or two as official sharers, objectivity is going to be at risk as it would have to be someone who isn’t there as a sponge, someone who is already familiar with the content, in which case they are likely to be in an organizational role.

I think there might be some correlation between the rebcnash attendees paying attn and taking notes and the unsolicited comments to me of what a successful camp that was- there was a heightened learning experience.

I hear about the “spirit of barcamps”. I don’t think creating responsibility for sharing info, fits the spirit of barcamp, as I understand it, it’s more of an organic process. Really and truly not trying to mess up the cornflakes, but I believe that while I might be the only one to speak up about this, I’m not the only one who is thinking this. At any rate, I’m not going to go on and on about it, my .02 and I’m done.

I do agree that serious sharing is not best done through twitter hashtags. You’ll lose the objectivity, and the sense of anarchy to move it somewhere specific, but that’s the trade-off you’ll have to make.

Like you reserve the right to change your mind, I reserve the right to be completely and utterly wrong- it happened to me before… Once.

“If you want to control the output at an event…” I have no such desire. If I’ve given you that impression, then I’ve done a poor job of communicating my intent. What I’m wondering, out loud, is what responsibility, if any, the community benefiting from a free event like this has to share more significant information. I can see both sides of the argument. I personally feel compelled to share more information that’s being shared, but I’m quite convinced that this in not best suited for a twitter stream that’s hard to wade through.

And I reserve the right to change my mind.

If you want to control the output at an event, and it sounds to this casual observer that you might, create a designated site with a designated spokesperson, tweet the site info on a regular basis to drive people there, otherwise, we get the joy, fun, and delicious frustration of wading through the twitter stream.

I heard really good things about rebcnash, btw. One attendee told me privately that the content was solid and useful, drama was non-existent- one of the best re.net conferences that participant had been to. Congrats to the organizers and the attendees- good work all around.

http://www.notorious-rob.com/2010/03/30/very-slow-live-blog-of-harreis/

At the NAR Conferences, the REALTOR Magazine Staff pumps out near live coverage on the Speaking of Real Estate Blog.

I see the value in distributing signal, But depending on an unconference crowd to do it via their Twitter streams is like herding cats.

I think the goal in social media outreach during a conference or event should be to give people an idea of what’s going on there, not so much to assist them in being able to virtually participate. Part of it is the signal, but a bigger part is creating wish that they were there.

Still, it really was a fabulous event. Wish you could have been there.

The best anyone can hope for with a post like this is thought provoking dialogue, with all parties involved working to make each other better. Thank you for making that your goal and understanding that it’s mine as well.

I am quite certain there are probably many good reasons for the results illustrated in this post. I’m equally certain that I will be rethinking both how I tweet at conferences and how I look at conference twitter streams. Although I agree with the approach Ines illustrates in Miami. Way too many social events organized around social media involve people staring into their phones and not into each other’s eyes.

And I also think that in “classroom” settings like a barcamp, it is possible to find a balance between the need for quality face-to-face time and the personal brand objectives that motivate some forms of tweeting. An absence of tweeting at a bar tweetup should be more common, but the desire to be present doesn’t have to preclude the dissemination of great information while in a session. I’ll call it a more more formal kind of note taking.

Like you, I monitor official hashtags for the same reasons, but I also look to the stream for small nuggets that I can latch onto. I rarely monitor live, instead choosing to come back to archives of the conversation for sifting.

I agree with your “momma duck” analogy. And you already know this is not even a side swipe at the conference itself. I contemplated waiting to post this after adding a few more REBarcamps to the mix, but I find WAY TOO MANY reasons NOT to blog. I feared this would just be another and I’d miss the opportunity to start this conversation.

Is Twitter the best place for the content? I don’t think so. I think it is a good place to draw attention to the content, but it’s not where the content should live.

What tools are needed? I think we need more tools that allow us to curate content and create repositories for the best we find. Some of those tools will be best handled by conference organizers and some will be best used by those who attend. (I’m still working this out in my head, so bear with me

Finally… you have NO IDEA how badly I wanted to be in Nashville. I’ve shared with you how much I love that city and have so many friends who live there. Tell Matt I said hey and I’m glad you two got reconnected. Your both good people.