Twitter Asks: What are you doing right now?

Answer: Feeling like I’m sitting next to that guy in 6th period, freshman year in high school.

 

I had the fortunate opportunity to attend the SXSW Interactive Festival this year. Granted, I’ve attended a handful of conferences during my career at Range and the content presented at these has for the most part been pretty solid. They delivered what was laid out, on that one link I visited for 45 seconds as I packed up to head to the airport.  But this conference felt different and in a good way.

 

I won’t bore you too terribly much with the panels I attended – Go next year and hear for yourself. It really was the ultimate convergence of hair gel, tech smarts, skinny jeans and superfly nerdery.  Sorta like if Austin and Silicon Valley met in Arizona, had too much to drink and produced a love child.

 

So anyway….panel…..panel….notes….coffee….panel…..free beer….dinner…..bed….repeat. Day 2 I attend one session entitled “Social Media: Defining the Metrics”. Finally, the Holy Grail! I can confidently walk into a client meeting and extol the virtues of Facebook, MySpace et al…with numbers! That means something!

 

They knew we’d come in droves, they knew and set us up in one of those big ole’ fancy ballrooms. Tons of chairs and hipsters taking their seats, snarking it up on whatever cool thing I’m obviously not cool enough to know about. (I’m getting there though – I promise once I get it all figured out, I’ll report back to you. I know. A large prodigious undertaking and yes, you’re welcome). Maybe four moderators speak and at the onset are primarily focused on explaining how they’ve talked to large corporations and the like and were able to explain the usefulness of this new era of customer/business communication. For the most part I was entertained. However the natives were getting restless.

 

A conference coup.

 

One particularly snarky-social-media-metric-seeker suddenly and very abruptly bum rushes the Q/A mic and launches into his dissatisfaction with the current discussion. “Wasn’t this a panel about social media metrics? We’re all here on twitter, and we’re getting pissed.” (Ok, I’m paraphrasing here because it was so jarring to me I couldn’t catch up to astute observer).

 

Well damn, I thought. I’m not on Twitter, and I don’t really get it. The panel, led by a rather terrible ego-maniac (my least favorite of any conference), responds with exactly what you would expect him to say. This is our panel, we’ll be getting to that, here’s how we’re going to respond. Big Tex taking the proverbial bull by the horn. Way to go!

 

Then I start seeing a wave of insurrection sweep across the audience. There are coordinated coughing fits, wild gesturing, some abandonment of seats etc…Eventually, I catch on/up that this. is. Twitter.

 

Twitter: Allowing you the ability to stay connected and in touch with everyone

 

Or, more accurately from what I’ve just witnessed:

 

Twitter: Countering the theory of social graciousness and professionalism.

 

Listen, I realize that the functionality of this can be great, empowering, productive even, but what I saw that day was using technology to act like a brat. “But Daddy, I want it now!!” Lollipop in hand, chocolate smudged on face, belly spilling out over pants, desperate and hungry for whatever it is right this second.

 

Me – speak in public? After that? Forget about it. Yes, you as the presenter should always be buttoned up and prepared, but don’t you dare be human. Because they’re talking about you and might just let you hear about it.

 

Next up: Twitter’s Implications & Innovations for the Public Speaker.