Twitter Use at #STC11 Summit

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Ben Woelk

Hi Stan,
Take a look at Karen Mardahl’s Archive (https://archivist.visitmix.com/kmdk/1)for the breakdown for the next 13 Tweeters. I’m not sure how many “one-off” tweeters existed.

The actual twitter streams need more detailed analysis. (I tweeted as @bwoelk and @stc_rochester using HootSuite to administer the two streams.) I’ve added a postscript in this blog post linking to Vanessa Wilburn’s content analysis from #stc10. I believe you’ll find her analysis to be insightful.

I think you’ll find that Twitter was used in two ways at both conferences: conversations among the people producing the tweets and new and retweets of content from the sessions. Personal conversation would also occur in Direct Messages which will not appear in the curated tweets.

I don’t know if there’s a way to tell how many people were watching the #stc11 and #stc11LD hash tags. I suspect that the reach of the top 12 tweeters is pretty extensive. I’ll try to provide some more analysis in another post, but I think that the potential audience of the #stc11 and #stc11LD tweets is probably 400 or more listeners for each person tweeting.

Did we know each other? I followed 7 of the top twelve prior to the conference. Some of us had met F2F at last year’s Summit, but many of us had met only through various social networks (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, the STC Ning site.) Around 50% of the top twelve were in the top twelve last year.

There were two purposes for Twitter at the conference: networking and content sharing.
Ben

Stan Stansbury

I don’t know what I expected, but what strikes me is how tight the tweeting circle is. 12 people wrote roughly 70% of the tweets from the conference. Sounds like a clique/SIG to me. Not that it matters, or is bad. Was the remaining 30% done by another 10 people at 3% apiece? Or was a there a continuous curve ending in a whole bunch of people who did just one? That would make a big difference to my view of tweeting. Do the top 12 tweeters all know each other? Or are they separately reporting back to different audiences? Again, that answer would really affect my view of the value of tweeting.

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Karen

I just had fun with Wordle. I fed it tweets only – no names of those tweeting. I removed 622 counts of STC11 and an unknown number of RT. Those two words dominated so much that everything else was illegible. Now you can read the words, at least.

https://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3668550/STC11_on_15_May_2011

BTW I’m pleased you found value in the Archivist material, Ben.

Paul Pehrson

I was both a tweeter and a presenter, and I don’t have any problem with people tweeting during my session. I actually had my iPad up with me on the podium during my presentation so I could watch for any tweets where I was mentioned, to see if people had questions or comments about the content I was presenting. (I didn’t have any in-session comments to respond to this year, but I also didn’t advertise that I was doing it. I wanted to see if it were possible before I invited everybody to join.)

I talked to one #STC11 attendee (who we’ll call Tom) who was disappointed that so many of the tweets were just tidbits of the presentation they were attending. Tom would have preferred to see discussion on the topic, rather than regurgitation of what was said.

I can see that from both sides. If you aren’t present at the session that is being discussed, then you need to the context of what was said to understand the conversation ABOUT what was said. There are two audiences: the audience who is actually at the event, and the audience who is not. These audiences have different needs/reasons for following the twitter conversation.

Karen

I wrote up my own blog post about this tweeting thing as seen from a distance:
https://www.mardahl.dk/2011/05/22/conference-conversation-curation-frustration/

Tweeting is here to stay, but how we can do it and use it in the best possible way?

I like the idea of a designated twitterer. I know that has been discussed in the past. I think @willsansbury and @mojoguzzi did an excellent job of this in @bnunnally’s session. Will was quite good in general, and I was very grateful for them.

Having a designated person for tweeting also means having a designated monitor of tweets. At least, that’s what I’ve been hearing. Someone can monitor the basics (is the sound poor in the back?) as well as questions. The speaker cannot do this – not well, at least. I’ve tried it in webinars, and it’s pretty tricky.

I think these designated people can really help move the conversation about the topic and in a constructive way.

I recall being in a discussion in 2010 about how to tweet – smartphone, tablet, laptop. I’d prefer tablet or laptop. I have been hit with connection difficulties at STC conferences. I come from Denmark so I have no 3G plan in the States. I am totally dependent on local wifi. I wonder how that figures into this equation. Were there people who would tweet, but who did not have a device or a connection at the desired tweeting time?

I’ve ended up taking notes on paper, and that means no tweets, but a potential for a blog post.

Sarah

I don’t think people are going to accept the idea that they need permission from the presenter to tweet.

Speaking as a presenter, tweeting doesn’t bother me. It’s a vast improvement over either glazed-over faces or snoring (!). Yes, this has actually happened to me. Etiquette note: If you’re going to sleep, could you do it in the back rather than the front row?

Speaking as an attendee, I have to say that there’s usually plenty of time between salient points to condense them and tweet them without missing much. There are a few presenters who are the shining exception to that rule.

Char James-Tanny

I look at it this way: people have many options when it comes to deciding where to sit during that session block. They’ve chosen to sit in my session.

I don’t have a problem with people tweeting while I’m speaking, and I don’t find it rude. Actually, I don’t have a problem with people doing just about anything at that time, although I do frown on talking 😉 (It isn’t fair to those who came to hear me speak if they have to try to ignore other conversations.)

People have always multi-tasked in sessions, especially since smart phones arrived. (Heck, I gave a training session once in Chicago during which a woman planned her wedding ;-).) The difference now is that they seem to be more involved in the session than not because they’re tweeting or blogging about the session itself.

Beth Agnew

I don’t think it really affects the speaker when someone is tweeting during a presentation. This happens all the time in my classes! I generally ignore any device usage during a class or presentation. Sidebar convos are worse.

The immediacy of Twitter is what gives those who cannot be there for the live presentation the feel for the event. I wouldn’t read tweets at all if I were there live, even if tweeting myself.

My personal preference, however, is to be fully engaged with what the speaker is saying, take notes, process & synthesize the info in my own mind, then tweet my observations. Any lack of immediacy is made up for by more thoughtful responses.

Remotely, however, Twitter is a very useful tool. Thanks to the tweeters at the Teaching Professor Conference (#TPC11) I learned a lot, even though I couldn’t attend.

Michael Opsteegh

I think official or designated tweeters is a pretty good idea.

On one hand, as a presenter, I wondered if I had lost everyone’s attention. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the extra exposure from the outgoing tweets during my presentation.

While I wondered how engaged attendees could be if they were distracted by Twitter, they could have sidebars without disturbing the rest of the room or derailing the presentation, and they could field questions for people who were not fortunate enough to attend.

Tweeting during the presentations is a mixed blessing, but one that I am sure is not going away.

Christine Brouillard

I’m still on the fence about whether tweeting during a presentation is good or bad. It’s great for the people who aren’t able to attend the session, but it seems distracting (bordering on rude) for the people who are actually there. I definitely wasn’t paying attention as closely if I was tweeting or reading tweets during a session.

rick

Thanks Ben, for this analysis. The huge RT in the Wordle confirms what I’ve long suspected… the overwhelming majority of folks on Twitter simply retweet content from other folks instead of actively creating/adding their own content.

Tony Chung

Ben: Seriously–RT and AMP; are top ranked words? LOL! I’m ok losing top posting to my boy Roger, but I’d like to see a filtered report that ignores the common words and articles. Thanks again for this report. it’s always a fun look back.