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

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.

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.

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.

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!