Never mind the technology, where’s the learning?

The Backchannel is becoming increasing important and although a feature of many technology conferences, few that I have attended in the last few years have used or developed it effectively. In this post a year ago, I remember speculating on why this might be, and the work that it entailed. But that was BT (Before Twitter) became popular. At this year’s Naace Conference, Twitter made the backchannel far more successful for those at the conference and those outside particularly as we displayed the Twitter stream on one of the two large screens, giving it equal prominence with the speaker presentation. It’s worth considering how and perhaps why this was.

1. It tapped into a ready made community that were coming to the conference, and gearing them up to tweet at the conference was easier that using other technology. We did this by using Twitter and the associations other forms of communication with members in advance, together with simple techniques to create a buzz and expectation like producing a badge that conference delegates could get if they were prepared to tweet the conference;
2. At previous conferences the request for bloggers to help with a communal blog fell on deaf ears. They much preferred to blog the conference on their own blog, than contribute to another, or doing both seemed like too much extra work. Adding a simple tag (#naace2009) to their tweets was easy, and since their username appeared on each post, they retained complete ownership of those posts. Tweeting to the backchannel, that more could be said using the comment feature of the session’s blog post also increased interaction on the blog;
3. It reduced the ‘transaction cost’ of the conversation. Last year we used Coveritlive embedded in the session posts, but this meant you had to find the blog and post and contribute once again to a system in which someone somewhere might be moderating your comments. Coveritlive now includes Twitter feeds, but this again is controlled;
4. Using the backchannel to engage both those at the conference and outside was also important. We persuaded the Minister, to answer questions via Twitter following his recorded presentation. By making this open and unmoderated meant that both those in the hall and outside had the chance to ask him questions. We missed a trick by not streaming the video externally, which would have added value to this Q&A for those outside, but we live and learn. But it was interesting to note that he was still answering questions 15 minutes into the next presentation. Indeed, he was so taken with it that evening he discussed it with a fellow MP, who then referred to it in his blog.

In conclusion, the conference tweeters achieved top trend on two days and number two on the third, briefly being more important than discussion on the iPhone or Michael Jackson.

It’s also interesting to note the topics that were covered amply displayed in the following Wordle:

Tags: naace, naace2009, twitter, backchannel, conference, education