Les Blogs, backchat and all that (messy, lots of links)
[Context: Think of this as the fat post that couldn’t squeeze through the linkblog door.]
At the risk of adding an unconstructive voice to the cacophony, here’s my post on the recent excitement at the Les Blogs conference in Paris.
First off, I wasn’t there, but I don’t think non-attendance should limit discussion. This whole thing reminds me of this slideshow presentation by Ben Hammersley, which I’m aware of thanks to Chandrasutra, who wrote on a different aspect. (Note surname Hammersley—not to be confused with Metcalfe. Which is spelt quite differently.)
Shelley Powers writes about “this whole thing,” at Burningbird—see “Backchannel is back” and “Slingshot.” She thinks about backchannels partly in the context of being a panelist at the upcoming SxSW Interactive conference.
Probably best at this point to remove the personal players from the blog debates and focus on this whole backchat-at-conferences issue. Because now it’s a war (or was a war) of personalities and their fans. (Oops, did I just say “backchat”? I meant “backchannel” of course…)
Returning to the Hammersley slideshow presentation (presented at the 2005 Reboot conference and titled, “Etiquette, and the singularity”):
The slides most applicable are 24, 25, 26, and—my favorite—27 (oh, that doesn’t apply to me, does it?). If you only have time to look at one, get thee to slide 29. (Oh, go on then, add slide 34.)
Ben Hammersley probably has more to say on this himself; he attended Les Blogs as a speaker and was using backchannel at Mena Trott’s presenation (according to a comment). I guess he’s in transit or something as there doesn’t appear to be any update yet. Given that I’m basically building a blog post around his work and that I wouldn't be aware of this if not for Powers, drop by their respective blogs for further enlightenment, won’t you?
But I cannot vouch for Hammersley. (See very end of comment.;))
I used the term cacophony earlier, but only tongue-in-cheek. It would be very useful to debate the purpose of backchannels at conferences and why they should be projected onto a giant screen behind the speakers. The main players need to be forgotten so that people can drill down to the underlying issues.
Etiquette’s the thing.
Related links:
Watch me backpeddle (twice) when the blog author unexpectedly pops in.
4 comments:
Not wanting to be rude myself, but you have to be careful not to get me, Ben Hammersley - tall, bald, kilted, spoke at the end - mixed up with Ben Metcalfe - short, spiky haired, argued with Mena.
That's pretty damn important, I think...
Hi Mr. Hammersley: Thanks for your comment.
I thought it was pretty clear who I was referring to (H. and not M.). Also that I was arguing to put away discussion of the "main players" in favor of discussing the underlying etiquette issues.
But maybe not. So just to make things extra clear I added this line:
(Note surname Hammersley—not to be confused with Metcalfe. Which is spelt quite differently.)
Using bold sort of undercuts the understatement of that sentence. But if someone is skimming it will probably grab their attention.
Hope this puts you at ease, if not, email me and it'll be back to the drawing board! :)
;-) That's cool - I hadn't had enough coffee this morning...
...or now, come to think of it...
/me puts kettle on
Hi S.D....I recently posted about this little thing on Snarkaholic.
There seems, to me anyway, to be two different civility issues that should be kept separate: blog civility and projecting backchannels at conferences.
Mena mingled the two and it caused combustion.
Blog civility comes down to things like anonymously snarking at someone (in other words, being a troll), and such. The projected backchat problem isn't just rude to the speaker, but rude to those who have paid decent money to be at a conference who don't want to be distracted by the "peanut gallery."
Often at conferences, whomever's getting the ball rolling will mention where the IRC chat is going on. If participants want to be part of it, they can go there. But to project it out ends up involving people who don't want to be involved--speakers and many audience members.
Frankly, if I were a speaker, I would request to NOT have the backchannel projected. I would think it would be my call.
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