

Against live-tweeting at conferences - smacktoward
http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2012/06/against-live-tweeting/

======
bithive123
People who pay lots of money (or their employer's money) to fly to a
conference and then sit in the sessions tweeting or surfing the web as though
it were a slow day at the office are ultimately just impoverishing their own
mind (like the people who don't have the patience to read books or who hate
movies that don't do all the thinking for them).

They are only dimly aware of what's going on around them and shut out stimuli
which they judge to be "boring" or "irrelevant to me" in favor of their
familiar, unchallenging stimuli. It should be embarrassing, but somehow it's
socially acceptable to be the equivalent of the guy who shows up to conference
without doing the reading because he was playing WoW all night.

I went to RailsConf with a coworker like this and although I like her
personally, she spent one of the more interesting sessions reading web comics
and remarked "Wow, that was boring" afterwards. Well, yeah, you tuned out in
the first 3 minutes.

~~~
ScottWhigham
I don't get why people are downvoting this - anyone care to chime in as to
what he said that was downvote-worthy?

~~~
dfxm12
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).

~~~
bithive123
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.

~~~
Karunamon
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...](http://live.cnet.com/Event/Googles_next_dimension_of_Maps_event?Page=0)

\--

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

~~~
bithive123
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.

------
kstenerud
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 saying to others.

Backchannel tweeting to me sounds like an excellent solution to the whispered
conversation. Now you don't need to be physically proximate to someone in
order to discuss ideas raised during the presentation. Not only that, but
you're not going to disturb other attendees doing it! Thanks to this tech,
people can add richness to the presentation they are attending.

This leads into the future. What happens when we have implants that allow us
to communicate without tapping on a device at all, but rather just by
thinking? How are you going to even know who's fully fixated upon you, and not
engaged in backchannel conversation? And would you still be offended?

Always remember: Presentations are not for you; they are for your audience.

~~~
blinks
> 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?"

------
derefr
Well, yes, if you are there for your own sake, live-tweeting the goings-on is
taking away from the experience. But if you are there for your _followers'_
sakes--that is, if you are a journalist--then live-tweeting is the whole point
of attending: you are serving as a proxy, telling them what's going on so they
can experience the session "live", vicariously, through you. Journalists have
never really paid much attention to speeches; before Twitter, though, it was
because they were transcribing everything down on paper to analyze it later.
Twitter just puts that transcription on the internet.

~~~
ddt
You seem like you know what you're talking about. Why do you think the average
live-blogger uses something like Twitter over a video app like Color? It'd
take just as long to sit through a live-blogged session as it would to just
watch an audience video of the same event.

~~~
barrkel
I'm not sure your question makes sense. People following an event over Twitter
can easily multi-task; they can just scan every few minutes or less frequently
as desired. Following the same event with video requires lots more bandwidth
(more awkward when mobile), attention, noise (or headphones), screen real
estate, etc. Unless you're extremely interested in the event, watching live
video is usually a big waste of time.

~~~
ddt
That's a good point.

------
hpaavola
People should concentrate more on experiencing and less on reporting. Live-
tweeting during conferences, taking pictures at concerts, checking in to
happenings etc. I feel that people do those just to show of how nice their
life is, instead of actually living it.

~~~
Aqua_Geek
I couldn't agree more. The last concert I went to, I felt like far too many
people were viewing the concert through their 3.5" screen than looking at the
90' stage in front of them.

I can't help but feel that these people will someday look back and have great
pictures of these events but no memory of them.

~~~
kittxkat
_I can't help but feel that these people will someday look back and have great
pictures of these events but no memory of them._

Not necessarily. I am going to _a lot_ of concerts (~3-4 per month), and I
take pictures with my phone _because_ of my horrible memory.

If stumble upon the photo a few months later, it triggers most of my memories
and experiences, but without this sort of "evidence" I'd be totally lost on
the details from that evening.

edit: And, after all, wasn't that kind of the original purpose for a
photograph? To capture an awesome moment you want to memorize?

~~~
Aqua_Geek
> And, after all, wasn't that kind of the original purpose for a photograph?
> To capture an awesome moment you want to memorize?

Good point, but it wasn't until somewhat recently that the camera taking those
photographs had a virtually endless supply of film. I think there's a HUGE
difference between taking a couple of pictures to remember the event and
literally spending the entire evening watching through your phone's screen.

It reminds me of the scene in Ocean's 13 where they demolish the casino right
behind Don Cheadle, but he's watching it on TV instead of turning around.

~~~
jeremyarussell
The difference your thinking of is called percentage of time used. For
instance, I also liked taking pictures at a concert I went to, I didn't do it
to brag though, in fact they never touched the internet. (Okay technically
they were dropbox synced, but I digress.) It would seem to me that most
everything can be done with reason and in moderation without it becoming bad.

------
Argorak
Hm, I am split on that. I rarely tweet during talks, but I love the immediate
backchannel. I usually forget about some points of the talk or I cannot find
someone to talk to afterwards and the backchannel helps with that.

I learned that by force: on RubyKaigi 2009, there were IRC screens right next
to the slides - mostly for translating the talks between english and japanese
and vice versa, but also for commenting and all kinds of fun. So, depending on
your language, you had to consume the IRC channel if you wanted to follow the
talk. You could even read what was going on in another room. I enjoyed it a
lot.

As a speaker, I am okay with it: I always spoke in front of tweeting crowds
:).

------
bsphil
As someone who is not remotely as comfortable in a presentation setting in
front of a crowd of people as I am one-on-one, one of my biggest issues is a
lack of attention. It's pretty easy to see who isn't giving their full
attention, and I end up immediately thinking about that instead of the actual
presentation. I end up looking for someone who is paying attention and just
start presenting to that individual to ease my way through it. And I'm at most
working with ~30 people.

Can't imagine having to put up with it on a much larger scale and severity.

------
ecaradec
I did a presentation a few weeks ago and I found that it was awesome as a
presenter to know what people think, and how they perceived my talk : I looked
at hashtag after the talk.

I'm a total noobs at talking in public but that was very useful for me. It
also made very easy to talk with people who expressed their interest or
disinterest.

------
m311ton
I've always thought that live tweeting during conferences was incredibly lame
and obnoxious, both as a presenter and an attendee. Rarely do people add value
with their live tweets. And when I do want to find something of value at a
conference by looking at the tweets, I have to sort through all sorts of crap
where people just repeat what the speaker said.

~~~
betterth
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.

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

~~~
shinratdr
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.

------
daurnimator
Re "backchannel"s Most conferences I've been to have had official irc channels
designated for chatter during talks.

The point probably being that people chatting via text is less interrupting
than speaking out loud and interrupting.

------
cantankerous
I feel like a lot of speakers nowadays, especially those at technical
conferences, are aware that people just split their attention between
presenters and their gadgets.

It's good to be aware of your audience, but not overly so. You can derail a
good talk by misjudging your audience and making yourself look overly self-
conscious and awkward.

~~~
_delirium
You can even take advantage of it at some kinds of talks. If you assume some
percentage of your audience has a device with internet access, give them some
online supplementary material, or demo, or interactive data, or something
similar to accompany your talk. There's a lot of nice stuff you can do on the
web that's better than powerpoint slides.

I also tend to find that, at academic conferences, better questions come from
people who're following along with the accompanying paper during the talk.

------
willpearse
Good points. I also feel people tend to tweet that they are enjoying
everything, simply to make themselves look like they are always going to
interesting things and thus worth following. Similarly, no one can say
anything negative, since they are essentially going behind the speaker's back
(...in public...)

------
lnanek2
I don't know. I often note down key points on my phone anyway, just in my
notes. The times I've live tweeted, I just decided to share the note instead.
I like being able to look back at the end of the day and see the key points
from that session. I think I remember it much better with that memory hook. A
full day of conference sessions and meeting people in between can become a
blur after.

I don't read tweets while in session, but it might be a good idea to check for
DMs or something, to see if a coworker or peer wants me to ask something
during the Q&A. All the Google IO sessions may be on YouTube nowadays, but you
still have the best chance to get your question answered if you are there live
or have a proxy.

------
nsmartt
I have mixed feelings about this. I don't think it's necessarily rude since
you aren't (necessarily) detracting from the experience of the people around
you. It may be rude to the speaker, but it's become common to the point that
I'm not even sure about that.

Also, I noticed the use of "between you and I." I really hate this. It's
incorrect, and I see it everywhere. Can we put a stop to this? I know this is
a bit nit-picky, but we jump all over "your" vs "you're." This is the same,
but it's a more understandable mistake.

~~~
personlurking
Might as well also mention this

"...and her message. And you’re hurting the presenter, since the message
you’re sending to them."

'Her' then 'them'? I feel like whenever people put "her" when it's not
defined, they are actually pausing or backtracking to purposefully place 'her'
where they'd normally place 'his'. Much simpler would be 'the' or 'their', in
this case.

Relevant
[http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley/2012/0...](http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley/2012/05/lexicon_valley_seeking_a_gender_neutral_alternative_to_he_and_she_.html)

~~~
smacktoward
Hi, author of the post here. You're right, that's just a dumb mistake I should
have caught in proofreading. I've edited to make it consistent.

Thanks!

------
demewmew
As one of the commenters on the OP mentioned, live-tweeting is often used as a
means of note-taking, and much like the commenter in question, I find it's
crucial if I want to stay engaged with both the presenter and the content. I
could keep it to myself, but if it's contributing value for others by making
it public (and it usually is), why not? I do have total empathy for the
agitation it can cause a presenter, though, so I do my best to model attentive
behavior anytime I'm not jotting down a note.

------
jere
Here's a caveat: one conference presentation I attended turned into a sales
pitch and everyone knew it. I felt perfectly justified in tweeting at that
point.

------
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.

------
PaulHoule
i respectfully disagree

i was at the Times Open announcement years ago which was one of the first
events to be live tweeted

the organizers were shocked at the time but they realized that this got them
great publicity. my live tweeting, it turned out, made me some connections
with people that have helped me greatly in my work since then

------
aidenn0
I don't see how live-tweeting is significantly different (from the speaker's
point of view) with someone taking notes; either way they don't look up much
and either way their attention is on making a record of what is being said.

~~~
trentmb
Notes can be revised before they become public, which is useful if the twatter
misunderstood something.

------
rb2k_
If people are "distracted" by their cellphone during your presentation, the
problem might not be the cellphone...

------
Mz
Irony: At the end of this anti-tweeting rant, basically the first thing I see
is "Follow me on twitter".

------
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.

