Transformations Conference success - and now the Twitter feed

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Permalink Reply by Lynda Kelly on March 10, 2009 at 5:47am

Hi Angelina. i dont think there are any protocol issues. By contributing to the feed and using the hash tag I would assume that consent to use the output has been given. The backchannel is already on my blog as you mentioned (just click the Replay arrow to view) and I'll leave it there for a few weeks.

I'd also be interested in people's feedback - this was the second conference we have run now and I'd like to know where people think we should go next.

Thanks for all your efforts, it was a great event.

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Permalink Reply by Kate Stone on March 10, 2009 at 9:35am

Thanks both for organising. It's great to have a conference so relevant to our work. Re feedback, I particularly enjoyed the presentations from Colin McLeod from the AFL and Anni from Fuji Xerox. Hearing perspectives from the private sector when we're so immersed in government is useful and refreshing.

I also got some good insights and tips from both workshops (Communities and Measuring).

For the future I'd be interested in seeing if you can coax attendance or contribution from those involved in creating/commissioning or soliciting the curatorial content from cultural institutions and looking at the links between these roles and web producers, IT, public programs and UGC.

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Permalink Reply by Ken Dickson on March 10, 2009 at 10:46am

Agree with Kate Stone's comments about having private sector folks presenting - great great to get that perspective on things. Note to self for next time: don't attend a masterclass if the same presenter is in a session the following day - too much repetition.

Looking forward to seeing the video / audio captured of the presentations! Any chance the decks themselves will appear on SlideShare or something similar? It'd be great to see if anyone outside our community comments on them.

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Permalink Reply by Renae Woodhams on March 10, 2009 at 1:14pm

Hi Lynda and Angelina

Just wanted to say thanks for a fantastic conference. I thought it was incredibly relevant and it has sparked some interesting discussion at our museum. I've already started to incorporate the social networking policy that Mylee and Ellen provided and we are looking at their tutorials.

I think the most important message I got out of the two days was to do the research, know the audiences and where they hang out and then try the new technology. The excitement over new media has people wanting to try everything and its a matter of really stopping and thinking about what is technology is relevant to the communities.

I thought the speakers were excellent and I disagree that going to the masterclass then the conference was repetative. I got something different each day from Shelley and Mylee's presentations.

Thanks for an excellent two days and for the blog/ twitter.

Renae

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Permalink Reply by Sophie Lieberman on March 10, 2009 at 3:46pm

Hi Angelina

Thanks to you for a really interesting couple of days.

I learned alot from the conference and none of it what I expeceted. Indeed, my reactions to the sessions were all very conservative with a central theme of "don't do it unless it supports a wider goal".

This feeds nicely into Lynda's "20% different, not 20% more" and is a much needed personal and professional reminder to brining me back from the brink of getting too excited and taking on too much simply because of the possibility of more - connectivity, audience share, communication, projects, partnerships etc.... That said,
I have still to hear an answer to the question of which 20% of the current workload is sacrificed to the 20% different. Despite the oft repeated example provided by Carolyn Paysons 2008 contribution to the conference whereby her Director instructed cutatros to attend one less meeting inorder to blog it seems that the number of meetings increase and so we are working 20% different AND 20% more. Without Shelley Bernstein's 24/7 capabilities this will yield less and less all too soon...

This might be a segue into my lessons learned from tweeting - a process i wasn't entirely sold on and which I am happy to admit I may not have used to it's fullest advantage. While I might try one more conference tweet I would be reluctant to for the following reasons:

The lap-top factor - a large obstrcution between me and the rest of the room which makes noise (typing and other beeps) and which seems to announce "I am special" without providing any evidence for the claim.

Reportage - again, this might be me not using the technology appropriately but i felt compelled to report on what was being said rather than what i thought /was learning (depressingly little if i read the feed). It also distracted me from absorbing what was being said.

"Don't tweet this" - Twittering seemed to be causing some discomfort on the part of the speakers who, despite being in a public forum were concerned that a tweet of some of their commnets would get them in trouble. In the second masterclass Seb Chan banned Tweeting arguing that he would not be as open and that we had come to the session to hear his frank opinions and ideas (which we had). This needs to be thought about in great depth - while blogging or even a pod/vod cast perhaps wouldn't have bothered speakers the thought of "sound bytes" saw them censoring and self-censoring.

Finally, with a single feed from more than one session it was really discombobulating to have seemingly unrelated comments listed together.

I wouldn't rule out tweeting again in a conference but I would have to have a strong sense of why: "how is it adding value?", "What's the purpose?" etc... In and of itself I don't think Tweeting is for me - I don't need or want to follow or be followed - I do want to enhance experiences/outcomes with the best tools at my disposal (& that might be a notebook and pen).

Thanks again
S

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Permalink Reply by Mylee Joseph on March 15, 2009 at 4:14pm

As tweeting becomes more common in conferences it's something speakers need to think about. There's a post on Olivia Mitchell's blog that considers “How to engage your audience with Twitter” ... interesting reading.

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Permalink Reply by Sherryl Ryan on March 10, 2009 at 11:45pm

Hi Lynda and Angelina and all....
Thanks so much for organising the conference. I agree with Kate Stone that the presentations by Colin McLeod from the AFL and Anni from Fuji Xerox were interesting and I thought, they were a bit left field. It was comforting as a Collingwood supporter living in Sydney to be close to AFL at a Melbourne conference - I felt at home. Anni was a highlight! Dynamic, deliberate and persistent in her research passion and managing to do it within a commercial corporation. This makes me think there must be people across the sector who already have high level experience with developing policy, legal frameworks and implementing technology that could have made valuable contributions to the conference. The CSIRO, RMIT, UTS or other corporates may have been able to contribute some cutting edge design/communications/technology that we can all be transformed by?? It would be great to see video of some of the presentations. I agree with Sophie L re twitter (although conferences can be recorded anyway) speakers were making asides (do not twitter this) I have noticed how frank people usually are at Museums conferences (compared to others) but twitter could restrain this free speech in the future. I enjoyed the mix of people attending the conference and noted that many were from different fields - perhaps this is the most exciting part of the transformation in communication that we are working together and crossing disciplines and boundaries.

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Permalink Reply by John Tann on March 11, 2009 at 8:54am

One of the more impressive things about this conference was the lack of superfluous junk.

I registered and got a name tag. Nothing else.

No silly conference bag, no map, no agenda (a little frustrating initially, perhaps I could have printed one out and brought it with me, but we were kept well informed on-screen), no advertising (though I could have picked up some if I desperately needed it), no toy, no chocolates.

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Permalink Reply by Angelina Russo on March 11, 2009 at 12:52pm

Hey John. Glad you noticed! We're tying to create a small carbon footprint with the conference series. Over the next few days I'll be posting summaries of the sessions on http://nlablog.wordpress.com!

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Permalink Reply by Lynda Kelly on March 11, 2009 at 3:03pm

Here's someone who was following our feed I'm sure :)

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Permalink Reply by Angelina Russo on March 12, 2009 at 2:07pm

yes! he/she is following me now!

I'm summarising the twitter feed session by session and uploading to the nlablog. In the end it made more sense to contextualise it rather than put it out as rare data, which I'll do anyway at the end of the process. Funnily enough, it's taking a lot longer than I anticipated and is quite different to summarising as you go at a conference. With so many insights I feel as though the posts need to reflect the twitterer's time and efforts. Interesting outcome!

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Permalink Reply by Gretchen Jennings on March 12, 2009 at 6:16am

I'd be very interested in seeing the Twitter feed. Thanks - Gretchen

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