Tweet Dreams

At the recent SAFFIRE Festival in Canberra I experienced a new (at least to me) phenomenon at conferences: tweeting.  Now, I've been tweeting for a while, as the hundred people who follow @scuddertravel know (which, I guess, is still more than read this silly blog).  Last year I became quite fascinated with the concept of tweeting, mainly because I started following some really interesting folks from the Middle East, as especially from Yemen.  The immediacy of the views and responses is sometimes startling.  A number of times I would hear about events days before it made Aljazeera or the BBC (I've essentially given up on CNN).  There is obviously a dark side, in that you will often get an almost hysterical overheating on topics, some of which don't really exist and have taken on a life of their own.  For the first time this semester I've incorporated tweeting into a couple of my classes, with mixed results - although I suspect some of that is my fault as well. Anyway, at the SAFFIRE Festival we were encouraged to tweet, even during the other presentations, which was a little disconcerting at first, mainly because I find it rude to tweet or play on the smart phone or tablet or laptop when someone else is presenting.  Still, it did lead to some instant feedback, which I guess was supposed to inspire more conversation.  The tweets popped up continually, in sort of a swirling prezi-like fashion, on screens around the facility, including the big screen at times.  It was a little bizarre to be sitting in the audience and suddenly see your comments spring up on the screens while the person was still talking.  My good friend Cinse tells me that this is starting to become the norm.  I'm not quite certain how I feel about it, but, as with most things, I'm open to the experience.

Of course, it almost inspired me to talk smack about other groups at the conference, knowing that it would splash across the screens.