#SAchat Confirms Sale to Google

April 1st, 2012 | Posted by The SA Team in #sachat | Announcements - (1 Comments)

It’s no secret that Google is trying to dominate everything from self-driving cars to human-powered monorails. But one industry that continues to block out the behemoth is Student Affairs in Higher Ed. Beyond the occasional Google+ Hangouts and Google Wave retirement parties, Student Affairs and Google haven’t been the best of friends. But all of that is about to change.

In an unexpected move, Google reached out to the leadership team at #SAchat several months ago to inquire about a possible purchase of the famous Student Affairs Twitter chat. Unconfirmed reports from an inside source state that Google was ready to offer up to $10,000 in conference registration fees and a box of free t-shirt schwag.

Lots of questions still remain about what will be different after the sale is completed, but some have suggested the new hashtag might be #SAoogle, #SAgoog, or #SA+, as a way for Google to continue to make Google+ a relevant thing.

While we many never know the full deets of the secret meetings that went on between #SAchat and Google, one thing is for sure, joining the Google family will send @the_sa_blog’s Klout score through the roof!

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Trench Warfare: How I plan to win the war of visibility on Twitter

March 21st, 2012 | Posted by Chris Huebner in Engagement | Social Networks | Web/Tech - (2 Comments)

With 250 million active users and over one billion pieces of content being shared weekly on Twitter, the reality is the realty can be rather crammed. When I started my first advising job back in January, I was unofficially given the reins to the office’s Twitter account. No one else wanted the responsibility. Here I was, first job and already steering the office leftovers. I was rather intimidated at first, because up until that point I had only used Twitter to acquire information- never to create it. So I played it safe. I sent out lifeless Tweets. Guilty as charged!

Job Fair Tomorrow!…Oh to those poor students who were currently following my drab, dust collecting, antique-Tweets!

Boring right? Never had I paid any attention to strategy or even looked into what others were doing. Over the summer I was finally fed up with getting steam-rolled by the newsfeed. It was time to create some elbowroom.

I now see the utility in social platforms as a means to student engagement. When I first started I was merely pushing out information with no real direction. As I explored what others were doing and really got into social listening, I started to conceptualize how our account could be used as an engagement mechanism.

Through trail and error and the use of simple analytics, I have found a set of guidelines that I feel work for our academic advising office (and perhaps others). While I am still developing my mode of operations I am confident that my guidelines will create the framework for a much more interactive account and will meet my expectations for creating engagement opportunities for our students.

Find common ground:

According to Forrester Research Group  students fall under the category of creators and conversationalists. This means not only are students highly connected, they operate on a higher level of social activity. While they may not create as much content, they are about sharing content. It took me awhile to figure this out, but I believe the key to engaging students has come from finding common ground or unique ways to identify with my student population. While it has been difficult with the 140-character limit, I try to tie in the relevant info with a colorful anecdote. I have found that the bulk of retweets occur when I used something they can identify either personally or experientially.

Know your network:

 I know that not every one of our students follows our account. That does not mean we cannot reach them. Informal networks of offices on campus can be a huge benefit. This is something that I have learned early on.  So create ecosystems of campus partners to help provide information that you may not have access to at all time, along with a great way to increase your potential impressions. For example, I have a great relationship with our student run production office. I know a lot of our students follow their account, because they are involved in some capacity. Through conversations with their account manager, I now have a larger outlet for information, because we constantly retweet or reference what the other is doing. This nearly doubled my reach. I think the ability to nurture our network with students is just as important as this informal network of organizations and offices.

Influence through action words:

 Like many others, I too have seen the studies that suggest word choice can influence actions HERE HERE HERE . What the data will tell you is the use of verbs and action phrases like ‘via,’ ‘RT,’ ‘PLEASE RT!’ will increase the likelihood of retweets or students clicking on your links. It also has been shown that overusing #hashtags and ‘@’ will decrease the likelihood of link clicks. I initially set out to utilize these principles. If I have a clear outcome for what I am sending out, the last thing I want to do is muddle it with #hashtags. If I use a #hashtag it is to file things that will continually that I hope will be beneficial for students (club happenings, involvement opportunities, seminars).

Lesson learned along the way:

I have gained a lot of insight and base my decisions through the use of Crowdbooster and bit.ly. Both platforms provide free analytics to users. I use Crowdbooster as a visual guide to examine the effects of each tweet. I can see the reach it has and how students interact with it. Two good features that are available are the recommendations tab and the ability to time tweets. The recommendations tab highlights positive interactions others have had with you and how you can best address it. You can also set up timed tweets. I know through my data, that our students respond more in the afternoon hours. I can set up a complete timeline for the dissemination of tweets for an entire week based on this data. Secondly, if I find out something is occurring next week, but I do not want to forget about it, I can go ahead and create the content and set it for a more appropriate day. This makes things much easier when I am in a time crunch.

I use bit.ly to see what is happening off of Twitter per se. You can track how students are getting to and from the links you are sending out and how often they are being clicked. Bit.ly integrates nicely with Twitter and you can tweet directly from their site. The bonus is that while students may not be engaged in your Tweet directly (i.e. retweeting or responding), you can examine traffic to and from the links you provide.

I firmly believe that without the use of these tools, I would be running on pure speculation. These platforms have really shaped not only what I am doing, but creating a better experience for those who follow.

The one thing I must remember is that building a platform that students are engaged with takes time. This is a slow process. For an account that has lain dormant for a semester and has little advertising, I am happy with the growth that has occurred.

I hope this post sparks some ideas in others who are struggling with their account and even creates some conversations on best practices. I would welcome the chance to explore further avenues through additional comments.

Chris Huebner is an academic advisor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina

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Why Did You Retweet That?

February 22nd, 2012 | Posted by Julie Larsen in Collaborative Learning | Social Networks | Web/Tech - (2 Comments)

I spend a lot of time gathering and sharing information with others via Twitter. If I have a lull in my day, I like to scroll through the last hour of my tweet stream and see what new gems I can find. Usually, I end up opening several new tabs, which I then try and read during the rest of the day. (Current tab count for those who are interested is 12, divided among two windows. It’s been a slow news day.) Sometimes I wonder why individuals share the information they do — does it have personal significance? Is it a cause they are associated with? An issue or topic that they are currently researching and learning more about?

Recently, Niki Rudolph shared an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education discussing student organizations who offer micro loans to entrepreneurs in the surrounding community. Niki and I have shared some tweets back and forth over the past couple of years, and we have even worked at the same institution (Go Fighting Pickles!), but I have never met Niki. What I know about Niki is gleaned from her Twitter bio and her tweets. She is a great supporter of women in higher education, she works in the academic affairs side of the house, and loves diet coke. After reading the article she shared, my brain was churning. What a great idea this seems to be, and how empowering it must be for the students! However, my next thought was, why did Niki share this? Sure, anyone who works in higher education can see that it’s an innovative student practice, but I was curious about the heart behind the RT. Does it have personal significance? Does she donate through kiva.org? Is she currently involved in launching a similar project on her campus?

So, I decided to ask. The result? I feel like I know Niki a bit better now. I’ve also adjusted where she sits in my mental rolodex, and know that I can bounce ideas by her that may relate to service learning and student leadership. By taking that step further to ask “why?”, I strengthened my connection with this twitter based colleague.  You can read Niki’s response question below.

When I was a hall director, one of my RAs decided to spend a semester in Bangladesh. I cannot say that Bangladesh was a popular destination for study abroad students, but off Robin went. He went to see the impacts of micro-loans, or micro-credit, first hand. It was the first I had heard of such financing, and I was amazed to hear that many of the loans were directed to women, who often reinvested in their communities and were more likely to repay. The repayment of these loans was up in the area of 98%. So, when I saw the article, I began thinking of what amazing potential such programming could have on college campuses, the surrounding communities, and the students involved.
1. Service Learning. Many service learning efforts are day-long efforts, or drives on campus, or having students spending a few hours putting together care packages. I am not discounting those programs, since for many of the students, that may be all the time they have to commit, and those efforts help people. However, what amazing learning could occur when the effort is long term. An investment in the people of the surrounding community, with an end result of long term connections and students wanting to see those people succeed.
2. Leadership. Truthfully, when I first read the article, I thought, “Hey, Cindy and Chris might be interested in this.” What a great way to show students not just leadership in terms of creating nice programs, but leadership in terms of seeing the impacts of service and coordinating group efforts for a tangible end. Can you just imagine what kinds of experience these student leaders can talk about in their future interviews?
3. Skill Building. I would be remiss, as an academic affairs professional, to not discuss the wonderful application of academic learning this kind of programming can provide. Not just the business majors, but the communication majors and social work majors and engineer majors, getting a better understanding of community needs, economics, budgeting, planning, and client service is a learning opportunity that few classrooms can provide.
This is what education should be. Not just learning, but doing something with that learning that has real value, real impact on people and communities, and not just a means to a job. Employment at the end of two or four years is important, but employment with strong citizenship is even better.

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New Student Orientation: Dependence vs Independence

November 15th, 2011 | Posted by Tom Krieglstein in Education Theory | Orientation - (7 Comments)

Luggage Porter by ColbyBluth

The day before Hurricane Irene made landfall along the Eastern Seaboard, a friend asked my wife and I to help volunteer setting up an evacuation center in NYC. While helping out, I was trying to be as nice as possible to the people coming in seeking shelter. I’d stop my work to help people carry luggage up stairs, answer questions, and clean up water spills. All of which I thought was part of my job as a volunteer.

After helping a family carry their luggage up some stairs, a supervisor stopped me and said…

“You shouldn’t be helping the evacuees as much because we need to train them to know that this is a self-help facility. They need to do things on their own. Training them that we will help them with everything is just setting us up for failure because there will soon be a lot more of them then there are of us and we won’t be able to help everyone.”

As soon as she said that, I flashbacked to the day before when I was doing an orientation training at a school and the president spoke before me. In his closing remarks to the orientation leaders, he said…

“No matter what, make sure to never, ever, ever let a parent pick up any luggage.”

Then a couple days later on Twitter I saw this Tweet…

So my questions are, are we doing too much for our new students? Are we training them that no matter what they need, we are going to make it happen for them? Are we turning college into a daycare facility verses a place where you are expected to carry your own bag because after all, it’s your life?

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Twitter: My Relationship Builder

March 22nd, 2011 | Posted by The SA Team in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

Picture of the Twitter bird and a birthday cake



This post is part of BSU’s BlogFest during the 2011 BSU Social Media Week festivities.   Today’s writing prompt: “What role does technology play to help or hinder relationships?”

Five years ago, Twitter was born, and I had no idea how much it would change my life, both professionally and personally. If you told me this two years ago when I first joined the Twitter community, I would have said you were crazy.  But as many of you know, Twitter as been a transformative force in my life and helped me build so many meaningful relationships I would have otherwise not been privileged to.

When I read the prompt, my answer depends on how you use “technology.”  It can hinder relationships if there is no balance with it in your life and I have certainly had my share of challenges in this area.  I rarely look at things as an “either / or”, I am more of a “both / and” type of thinker.  For a long time, I saw the use of technology, like Twitter, as either “on it” or “off it”, mainly because I did not fully understand it’s purpose in my life.  This caused a lot of unbalance and unnecessary stress, because like many things I do, I want to be the best at it so I can teach others with confidence (this comes from my parents.)  So I was on Twitter ALL THE TIME, to learn everything I could.  But recently, I have changed a bit, and embraced Twitter with a “both / and” approach.   Like my email and voicemail, I check in on Twitter when I have the chance and mainly to respond to mentions and DM’s, and to RT good content.  I no longer try to keep up with everything (because I simply can’t), knowing that my Twitter community will RT the good stuff anyway.  I have seen myself move further away from Facebook and frankly, would disconnect my account today, if it weren’t for the work I do in Higher Education to try and build learning communities.

As I think about Twitter as a relationship builder, it really matters how you spend your time there.  I love meeting new people, helping out where I can, and connecting them with others I know.  Those are big reason why I am on Twitter.  If you choose to be part of it, you may for a variety of reasons.  If you do, I have a few pieces of advice, especially for our Bridgewater State students:

1.  Have a purpose. Are you looking to network? Meet new people? Grow current relationships?  Whatever it is, understand that Twitter is an INFORMATION NETWORK that can be social at times… it is NOT a social network by definition.  Thus, you must have a clear purpose to joining Twitter or you simply won’t get it.
2.  Fill in all your information, please. I see so many people / brands who don’t fill in their information, including a current/accurate picture, website (use your LinkedIn or Facebook URL if you don’t have your own site), and who they are / what they do.  How can I trust your content when I can’t read ANY info on you.  The first step in getting me to follow you is to have this information complete and accurate.
3. It takes time to build relationships. Be patient as you develop your online identity.  Listen more than you tweet initially, but when you feel comfortable, get to know your community members one tweet a time.

Technology has certainly been a relationship builder and it can be for you if you want it to be.  If your main technology is a mobile phone, laptop, iPad, etc., be mindful of how you use it and know that its OK to unplug once in a while.  I will certainly be doing more that this summer.

Happy fifth birthday Twitter :-)

What technology is your relationship builder or hinderer? What have been your habits and do you need to reevaluate how you use it?

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3 social media apps for listening / engaging

February 20th, 2011 | Posted by Eric Stoller in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)


I’ve been testing out 3 web-based social media apps. Built to leverage the API’s of sites like Twitter and Facebook, these apps are web-based and can be accessed from any net enabled computer. TweetDeck (Chrome only), HootSuite, and Seesmic are all amazing in terms of functionality. I tested them all out using Google’s Chrome browser. This was mostly due to the fact that TweetDeck is only available as a web app via Chrome.

Aesthetically speaking, I really like the look and feel of Seesmic. It’s been my favorite Twitter app on Android and the web-based version doesn’t disappoint. It’s feature-rich and integrates the following social media services: Twitter, Foursquare, Google Buzz, Facebook, and LinkedIn. TweetDeck works almost as well as the desktop version. HootSuite has long been a popular alternative to TweetDeck. However, I find it’s interface to be less intuitive and quite a bit more “clunky” than Seesmic or TweetDeck. The API connection that TweetDeck leverages in Chrome is impressive. Tweets stream into your web browser almost as fast as they are posted. This makes it very easy to participate in Twitter-based chats using “ChromeDeck.”

In terms of social media listening / engaging, I would recommend that you try out all 3 apps to determine which one works best for you. I’ve been using TweetDeck in Chrome for fast-paced Twitter chats and Seesmic works really well in Firefox. HootSuite offers up a paid, Pro service for folks who want access to a larger feature set. It will be interesting to see how these app providers can continue to provide such amazing apps while at the same time covering their operating costs. While these apps are certainly not as powerful as the social media listening stations that Gatorade and Dell launched last year, I’m certain that you can do quite a bit with a browser, a connection to the Internet, and one of these web-based social media apps.

Which of these 3 apps do you use? Do you use something else?

Hootsuite – (Works in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome)
HootSuite on Chrome

Seesmic – (Works in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome)
Seesmic on Chrome

TweetDeck – (Chrome browser)
TweetDeck on Chrome

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Snow/Ice Day + Tweetdeck = Reflection

February 2nd, 2011 | Posted by The SA Team in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

I write about Twitter perhaps more than I should. I could write about my 52 books in 52 weeks journey that many others are also doing. I could write some responses to some of the articles in my Gmail from the Chronicle of Higher Education because they are usually good for starting ideas. I could write about what is it like to live in a house with two 100lb dogs, 3 cats, and 1 ferret. I could write movie reviews. I could, I could, I could…but I choose Twitter because there is just SO much that comes from this service that you can talk about.

Today I have a few simple words: community, growth, gratitude.

I’ll elaborate briefly on each because if I don’t limit myself, this would turn into an e-book of cliches, raves, and analogies.

Community

I use Tweetdeck and currently have about 15 columns on the desktop application. When I open it I immediately see feeds for #SAchat, #StudentActivites, #highered, #edtech, #saLEAD, amongst a few others. My favorite part about this is that Twitter went from being a professional development and news delivery service to something resembling a block party. No longer is it necessary to wait for a regional/national conference to discuss higher ed with colleagues. No more is there the need to stalk Facebook to start conversations or catch up on what is going on in your colleagues lives.  No more is there a need to count on the newsletters from professional organizations to hear about the latest practices in the field. Twitter is now an on-demand, at your desktop, come and get it venue for all of those! When I open Tweetdeck…it is like opening my front door to see the neighbors and say hello. While we may not see their faces or some may not follow you back, people are sharing, teaching, and learning. I can’t help but think that sometimes looking at the #SAchat feed is like Tim Allen on Home Improvement walking into his backyard to talk to Wilson, the sage who never showed more than his eyes from behind the fence.

If you want to see this community in action, watch some of the self made hashtags some have created to support each other including: #saGrow #saDOC and a much smaller, more focused one that is great to follow to keep some #saDOCs going with support, #statsjail.

Growth

Watching Twitter and a following some of the thought leaders (@ReyJunco, @EricStoller) and social media celebrities (@EdCabellon, @StacyLOliver, @The_SA_Blog) in higher education has led, to what I think, has been the most developmental year in my professional career. I joined Twitter as an #saGrad when it first arrived on campus but did not know how to use it. I became engaged with 2 years later Twitter while in a position that had allowed me the time to explore this realm of social media. Since then, I have moved into director position at my alma mater which is a huge opportunity with lots of responsibility and an obvious need to growth professionally with my approach, thinking, and presence. Twitter has been my advisor throughout this entire process. As I continue to grow in my position and expand my reach on Twitter as well as other social media avenues – it has been those that I follow that have served as my coaches. In addition to those already mentioned, following the likes of @Kathy_Petras @OberBecca @DebraSanborn @CarolynGolz @CindyKane @jefflail @tbump and…well I could go on for a while with all of the followers that have taught me something since day 1 but remember I said keeping it brief. The point is this, Twitter has become the watering hole for professional development due to the community I follow and participate in. Twitter has become the backchannel for the larger conference that takes place in Higher Education, it’s called “everyday in the office.”

Gratitude

As I have already given shout outs to many Twitter users that show up on my stream and whose tweets I constantly favorite to read later, I must give thanks. I am a better professional, communicator, creator, writer, contributor, participant, supervisor, student, mentor, coach, advisor, presenter, and person for the growth, support, connections, network, skills, advice, role models, and opportunities that Twitter has afforded me.
And it should come as no surprise that the catalyst for all of this was stumbling upon 6 letters and 1 character: s-a-c-h-a-t and #.

Thanks for reading. I hope this post encourages you to reflect today if you are sitting at home on this snowy/icy day away from the office.

Cheers,

Joe

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Living in the Backchannel: In Real Life

January 27th, 2011 | Posted by Joe Ginese in #sachat - (5 Comments)

Living in the backchannel has led us down a path of what it is like to connect with people before you leave for a conference, how the knowledge sharing in the backchannel could become overwhelming and fulfilling, and how contributing to the backchannel led to a more focused approach to note taking during sessions. Now, in the finale of the series, I will share with you what happens when the backchannel becomes a reality channel.

It started with the keynote speech during lunch which featured not only a panel including Dr. Susan Komives but a table including Chris Conzen (@clconzen), Becca Obergefell (@OberBecca), Fred Kuo (@FredjKuo), and Robyn Kaplan (@Rkaplan13). Immediately the smart devices came out and the others at our table were curious about what we were doing. They listened to our explanation of Twitter, how we used it, and how it was a resource. By the end of the keynote, they had signed up and started tweeting but the best was yet to come…

With the keynote coming to a close, the moderator offered up a Q &A session for the audience. This meant the opportunity to ask Dr. Komives a question and get the answer straight from her, IN REAL LIFE! I was overwhelmed, I had no questions. So I did what any Twitter savvy person might do…I went to the backchannel and the backchannel didn’t disappoint.

I stood up and addressed Dr. Komives, “Hi, this question is for Dr. Komives coming to you via Twitter actually from Cindy Kane at Bridgewater State….”  Snickering, she answered the question, commenting that she knew Cindy and that she didn’t know how to use Twitter but perhaps she would learn. I immediately offered to teach her if she’d like which was greeted with some subtle laughter from the audience. Nonetheless, it had happened, Twitter was brought to the forefront and people were now aware of the power behind it – the backchannel was in real life. (Social media side note: Dr. Komives mentioned that she knew Cindy because they are Facebook friends.) Still, the best was yet to come…

Throughout day 2 of the conference a tweetup was being planned and organized throughout sessions and the lunch, this would be the backchannel in real life to the nth degree. After sessions, a select group of professionals milled about the second floor lobby trying to match faces to Twitter profile pictures. At first it was like a massive blind date; you had known this person via Twitter, conversed with them via Twitter, now it was time to get together and talk. After a few familiar faces popped up and a few tweets searching for people as they stood on opposite sides of the lobby were sent – the tweetup was underway. For almost 45 minutes, opinions, knowledge, wisdom, ideas, thoughts, stories, tweets, and a few “who should I follow?” answers traveled within the amoeba shaped ring of professionals. This was the power of Twitter. It had brought conference attendees whose only contact with each other (for the most part) had been electronic communication (some of whom only knew of each other for a matter of hours!) together. This was one of the most unique experiences LEI 2010 offered yet it wasn’t on the schedule, it was purely attendee driven, and it was organized via Twitter. It had empowered new professionals, re-energized seasoned professionals, and inspired all to utilize the backchannel in the future.

As I am out of words for this post, I will leave you with an image courtesy of Mike Severy (@MikeSevery), showing upwards of over a dozen professionals networking and discussing leadership topics in more than 140 characters and in real life at the tweetup. The backchannel had become a reality channel.

 

Joe Ginese (@JoeGinese) is the Director of Student Activities and Orientation at Nichols College in Dudley, MA.

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Living in the Backchannel: Day 2 of LEI 2010

January 3rd, 2011 | Posted by Joe Ginese in #sachat - (0 Comments)

In case you missed part one of this short series, you can check it out here: Living in the Backchannel: Pre-conference and Day 1.

Day 1: 152 total #LEI10 tweets.
Day 2: 422 total #LEI10 tweets.

With a difference of 270 tweets between the two days, an argument could be made two ways; 1) more people started tweeting (true) or 2) those who were already tweeting, tweeted even more (also true). It was a combination of both of these scenarios that led to the explosion of the Twitter activity on the second day of the Leadership Educators Institute (LEI) 2010. I left the first post of this of this series with a few cliffhangers of the explosion of the backchannel, what happened when my phone ran out of battery, and an epic tweet-up. Allow me first to paint the picture of what happens when a backchannel explodes with a metaphor of sorts.

Imagine you have an idea, that idea is akin to a 40-watt bulb. It lights up your desk, and perhaps your office. Others locally recognize the work you are doing and often will sit by your desk to grab some of the light from your 40-watt idea. There are literally thousands of these 40-watt ideas in higher education let alone floating around a leadership conference.  Now you might get a glimpse of what it was like to be a contributing participant of LEI – a place where my 40-watt idea joined other 15-, 25-, 50-, and 100- watt ideas and together they lit up the University of South Florida Student Union. Here these ideas led to sharing,  contributing, and brightening the light from one another to enhance, challenge, and redistribute the glow to others.

This is fantastic! However, in this scenario, only those in the room can see the light and benefit from it. This is hardly a light that you can bottle up and bring home with you. (I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t get by customs if you tried.)

But what has 2010 brought to LEI? Twitter! Twitter blew the roof off of the USF Student Union and concentrated the light of from the ideas into a beam in the sky like the Bat-signal! Only instead of Batman’s trademark symbol it was “#LEI10” that served as a beacon to follow towards resources and dialogue about leadership practices.

Now practitioners from all over could look to the sky, err Twitter, and see these illuminating ideas. No longer was the light only cast on those in the room, it was cast to the world! Or well, those paying attention to their Twitter feeds but I digress…back to the point.

The backchannel had exploded and while over 400 tweets occurred on the second day of the conference, so many more were watching. I know this because during a session where we were asked to stand up and introduce ourselves, I was greeted by unmet colleagues who responded with, “So it’s you who has been tweeting all this time.” A combination of embarrassment and achievement rose within me as my cheeks flushed. The point wasn’t that they knew who I was or recognized my name which doubles as my Twitter handle, the point was and still is as @CindyKane has so eloquently put it, they were lurking and they were learning. Perhaps at their next conference they will take the jump and contribute to the conversation.

In my next post I will illustrate how my connection to Twitter was suspended for one session due to a dead phone battery shifted the way I now think about my conference experience. Stay tuned!

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Living in the Backchannel: Pre-conference and Day 1

December 15th, 2010 | Posted by Joe Ginese in #sachat | Conferences - (4 Comments)

Before reading you may want to make yourself familiar with what a backchannel is by reading the #SAChat transcript from the 12/9 chat on the topic.

#LEI10. That simple six character term has completely transformed my perspective of what it means to be engaged at a conference.  It is the Twitter hashtag for the 2010 Leadership Educators Institute. The conversation started in late October by @NASPATweets and Chris Conzen (@clconzen) with reminders for registration. The Twitter stream then went silent until the end of November when the conference was just a week away. Then December arrived and #LEI10 came alive.

Think about how you’ve connected with fellow conference-goers before a service like Twitter. Perhaps you posted it on your Facebook profile status or sent an e-mail to a listserv asking who else was going. In both of those cases, you were throwing up a signal flare in a forest and hoping someone not only saw it but responded to it. With Twitter, that hashtag becomes a lighthouse, or the North Star of the conference, not just a flash in the pan call for help. The hashtag serves as a beacon to guide participants to a place where lively discussions are happening in real time and, as a result, connections are breaking through the barriers of the virtual world and being made in real life. In the days leading up to the conference, Twitter allowed me to connect and be aware of what “tweeps” were going and who I’d get a chance to meet in real life. This may seem frivolous but you can’t tell me that when you go to a party and do not know anyone else that is going your anxiety level isn’t heightened just a bit. With Twitter, a conference where you are surrounded by strangers from all over the country became a conference where you and a group of your tweeps can meet up. This made the conference not only a professional development opportunity to learn new skills but also a chance to deepen friendships and strengthen your network. It is organized, sponsored, and supported by the association running the conference (in most cases) which adds legitimacy and purpose to the usage of it.

On the first day of the conference, the backchannel provided fellow tweeps a chance to locate each other right from the start of the keynote speech with tweets like this one from @LeslieMPage:

During the opening speech 55 tweets were sent responding to questions posed by the speakers, posting resources the speaker had shared, and sharing quotes that struck a chord. A perfect example from @OberBecca:

Now, I have followed a backchannel before for other conferences so I had an idea of what types of tweets would be most helpful and what would hopefully engage those, who are not in attendance, to contribute. What I did not expect was the amount of effort and time it takes! Contributing to a backchannel can turn into a part-time job while attending a conference. You can find yourself so involved in your tweets and other participants’ tweets that you forget that you are in the room with the person providing the information. My analogy for this is going to a concert and focusing on the screens on the side of the stage that give you a close up of the performer, rather than looking at the actual performer. How is that any different than watching the performer on TV? If you are in their presence, pay attention to them! With Twitter, your mobile device can turn into that screen at the concert right in your lap and in place of being a participant of a conference, you are now a bystander. So, as great a resource as this could be, remember to be mindful of the presenters and be careful not to be rude.  Educate conference-goers of what you’re learning by tweeting resources, quotes from the presenter, or questions posed by the audience. Do not tweet that the lunch spread looks delicious or that the room is chilly.

The first day of the conference backchannel rendered 152 total tweets of which I contributed 31. The backchannel had sucked me in. It was exciting, it was fun, it was leading to more connections, more resources, and had me more engaged in a conference that I had ever been before. I’ll get into my experience of the second day of the conference in my next post which will highlight the explosion of the backchannel (over 400 conference tweets!), what happened when my phone died resulting in being cut off from the backchannel, and an epic tweet-up.

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