Well, here I am, just 3 days after Future Summit 2009 ended in Melbourne. Only now have I got around the posting a blog post about it, but better late than never I say.
So I’m not going to talk about the discussions or outcomes of the Future Summit, but rather focus on its use of Twitter as a broadcast and interaction medium and what I took from this. I’ll start by saying one very important thing: I wasn’t there. I was relying almost completely on the Twitter feed provided by a number of very dedicated and clued on Twitter personalities who did a great job.
The idea behind the Future Summit feed was (from what I’ve read) about trying to remove existing media hierarchies. This meant bypassing newspapers – too slow & bureaucratic; blogs – also too slow; television – not interactive. This left Twitter, the microblogging service taking the world by storm at the moment. What it also left us with was a 140 character limit.
As great a job as the Twitter correspondents were doing during the two day summit, though, I still don’t feel that I have a really well developed sense of what was said there. 140 characters, it must be said, doesn’t replace a full video feed. It also doesn’t replace blogs. It is, primarily, an interaction medium. There have been many events – really serious events – which have been covered by Twitter in very meaningful and constructive ways. I think in the vast majority of these cases, Twitter has been used as an interaction medium rather than a broadcast medium.
I think the tweet above demonstrates what I’m trying to say here – there’s a very broad brushstroke idea of what is being said, but it leaves more questions than it does answers. More often than not, the nuances of argument which were no doubt taking place at the Future Summit were lost in translation to 140 characters, and although it’s been noted that approximately half the questions asked of presenters at the summit came directly from Twitter, I suspect many of them digressed somewhat from the issue at hand due only to the fact that most people reading the Twitter stream would have had no idea what was actually being argued.
The best interaction I’ve seen with broadcasting, Twitter, and interaction is the interaction between tweeters during television shows (Stephen Conroy appearing on QandA a but over a month ago comes to mind). I think that with this in mind, the inclusion of a video stream of the Future Summit combined with the already established Twitter correspondents would be a great way to get people involved and interested in what’s happening. Rather than focusing on simply reporting the events of the summit, the Twitter contingent could then focus on being the mediators between the world of Twitter and the conference without needing to summarise very complex ideas into 140 characters for mass consumption.
That said, @futuresummit being reserved for some kind of coverage as was already present would also be good.
Overall, I get where the organizers of the Future Summit were coming from with this idea, and it is a good idea. I think the best (albiet old) idea here is that we don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater – lets not throw out old media completely in place of new media, because new media in many ways has grown out of traditional media forms such as television and video, and doesn’t quite work 100% without it.
Wow Bill, firstly thanks for following along on our twitter feeds! Your post is excellent and sums up a few points that were also running through my mind whilst tweeting from the summit. You say, ” I think in the vast majority of these cases, Twitter has been used as an interaction medium rather than a broadcast medium” , and yes I agree. From a simple tweet we found many people started to interact back, ask questions, feed suggestions etc. Twitter was a powerful tool within this event for the following reasons 1. Exposes the event 2. Getting people curious about it 3. offering an avenue for people to add their opinion 4. Giving a voice for the people that could not attend 5. offering real time tweets – fast and informative 6. showing that future summit is innovative and always looking to use new forms of communication and engagement with it’s community – plus so much more!
This was a big first step for The Future Summit and I’m stoked they chose to utilise twitters media power. There are now further steps that can be taken and as you suggest , video streaming would be a powerful tool to implement next year.
Great write up Bill – keep pumping it out there!
High fives
Sam Mutimer – aka – Sam 2.0!
Thanks for your comment Sam!
I realise that post may have come across a bit negatively, but I definitely get what was happening and I really wish I’d had more time on Monday and Tuesday to properly soak up the stream.
All your 6 points are really valid, and I think that the Future Summit is considering Twitter as part of the future of media is a great thing, because I people on Twitter realise its power in allowing interaction and developing very real connections with both people and events.
I think my main issue is that Twitter on its own just isn’t enough – Twitter takes really good care of the interaction side of things: nice, relevant questions and replies, and really a good way to get interacting with the event generally.
I actually think that Twitter would maybe even been more powerful as a broadcast medium if a video stream was provided – as they say, many hands make light work! In any case, I think feedback from people following along with the video stream would have shown more engagement with the cause.
To me, it was plain that you and everyone else on the Twitter team at the Future Summit was really getting into it. I know it really made me wish I was there, because the level of engagement and interest in what was happening, and the commitment you all made to covering the event was phenomenal – I think the problem was that most of the time I felt that whatever I was saying back wasn’t necessarily informed enough at that moment to be entirely relevant!
Anyway, before I make this comment longer than the original post, thanks again for tweeting the event. It really was great.
I think Twitter does not have a shape and fits any mold it wants to fix itself with. It is always complementing to any type of media. It’s co-existence factor completes what people are looking, for example TV broadcast with Twitter as a tool to talk back.
Yes, I was hoping too that conference would air at least on FoxTel or at least online but there wasn’t. The impact of Twitters feeding the reactions (interactions) will even more greater.
Hey Bill, thanks for your comments, I would have loved to get Mogulus going and providing webcasts and really combining both webcasts and twitter. The background to it was an idea that emerged after an Australian Davos Connection event in April, 2009. I had a chat with Michael Roux and we decided on the fly to get a good young twitter junkie and go for it in terms of a blog, twitter feed, video capture at the event. With Steve we also agreed to give it a go with a collection of Social Media people and see where it went. It was the first time that people outside the conference could actually get a window, although only 140 characters wide, into what was going on.
Some other feedback we got was that we were just repeating not opining, it was interesting because we were effectively hammering out as fast as we could what was being said and occasionally adding a view, especially when Julie Bishop was speaking.
I think the vibe from the twitter crew on the ground was a bit around “there seems to be a lot of talk but not much action” but they are seeing that most of the action happens after the summit from the ideas and connections are made.
The other big benefit was the intrigue and dialogue from the over 50 leader set with the youths from the twitter set. It is only a beginning but I am sure we can take it further in the future. Thanks for the feedback, it is a good perspective and we will look to keep expanding.
Hi Bill,
Thanks for the post mate. I’m really going to be echoing the thoughts above me here but agree with you that a stream would have been great medium to better communicate what was going on at the event. This is certainly something we will be doing next time around and potentially at this years upcoming Australian Leadership Retreat (http://www.ausdavos.org/australian-leadership-retreat.html). We’ll see, but it’s certainly something I am very much keen to have a play with and see how it goes.
Overall, I think the tweet stream worked pretty well at helping people get a feel for what was going on in the room, but agree that it didn’t quite communicate the deeper levels of the intricate topics discussed. I always found the questions from twitter, however, surprisingly relevant given that they only had a 140 character understanding of what was going on. I thought most of the questions from twitter were quite intelligent and actually helped lead the chatter away from well worn paths the participants were treading and direct it down a new/more action orientated focus.
Cheers for the considered thinking on Future Summit.
Steve