This week I had the opportunity to present at the Learn@Work Conference at the Australian Technology Park in Sydney.
Taking the stage at the Learn@Work Conference
I recall the conference organiser asking me “what will you talk about?” when he called me up to invite me to speak.
At the time, I couldn’t think straight because the office was noisy. The first thing that jumped to mind was Twitter. As we explored the topic together, my mind raced and I blurted out, “Hey, I’ll do a real live tweet chat! I’ll explain how these tweet chats work and how they can be used to connect with a network!”
I had to explain what I meant. The long pauses on the other end of the phone made me realise that to some conference organisers, the concept of hashtags and twitter conversations is foreign.
“Trust me,” I said. “Let me get some thoughts on paper and write you a paragraph, come up with a hashtag and you can market this in your brochures and website! You’ll see what I mean on the day! It’ll be fun!”
(Famous last words).
And so the idea mulled in my head for a few months. (I don’t do things on the spur of the moment).
I came up with a hashtag #learnworktweet that was going to be used specifically for this audience. The key theme was going to be using Twitter to be the bridge to connections to people who you can learn from.
My main goal was: If I was to just leave everyone with a key lasting message was, “It’s just a tool. Don’t be afraid of it. Use it to your own advantage to connect with people who share your interests and passions.”
If I stuffed everything else up on stage on the day, if I had just communicated the message above – then I should pat myself on my back. I would have achieved my aim.
I wanted to demonstrate Twitter rather than talk about how I used it.
I didn’t want to be the lecturer who talked at people telling them they should do this or that without them at least having a go on it and making up their own minds if this was a tool that they could use for their own contexts. I just had to show them enough for them to have an “A-Ha” moment so they too could explore the potential of this tool in whatever way they wanted – whether it was for connecting with others in learning, antique clocks or whatever passion.
So when my time came to talk, I was introduced to the stage and I talked about my ‘Knit Chat’ story which was my introduction to Twitter through connecting with knitters around the world. Here is the slideshow that I used.
I encouraged everyone to “take out their phones, mobile devices and fire up their laptops because I WANTED them to use them” (strange, quizzical looks but you should have seen how fast those devices came out of bags).
I wanted the audience to be involved in a real live tweet chat where we were going to tweet about ourselves, our work and hopefully connect ‘in person’ outside that door during afternoon tea.
The race is on! Everyone creates Twitter accounts and joins in on the conversation!
During the presentation, I explained what tweetchats were, how to read a Twitter thread and how to participate in tweetchats. I wrote the question and explained how to answer it while constantly refreshing the screen to see the thread of conversations. I saw people who had connected into the tweetchat from overseas and explained that this conversation was now global and social.
I think this is where many people had their ‘A Ha’ moments – and it really felt like the conference proceedings had ‘moved’ from that point on as the back channel then fired up for the rest of the event.
One small tweet, one hashtag, a collection of ‘a-has’ and…inspiration.
From a short presentation, ideas abound!
A new happy tweeter!
After the presentation, many people had thanked me for showing them how to use Twitter. Others had used Twitter for some years but had never realised how to use it in this manner. I sent out a tweet with some dates and times of current Learn Chats happening in Twitter and encouraged people to join in on the conversation.
Another Aussie on #lrnchat – yippee!
So what did I learn out of all this?
People do have fears and anxieties. In a world where technology is pervading our everyday lives, I understand the hesitation and concern – the underlying angst about what these mean to our lives and our work. But the one thing that will remain true is that we are social creatures. We need others to show us the way but it’s up to us to make these tools work for us in whatever context we want. We can use these tools to connect with people who will challenge and inspire us because in doing so, we get inspired, energised and we then begin to see the world differently.
I was there!
It was an excellent presentation, Helen, and I too witnessed the “A-Ha” moments rippling across the audience.
In fact, it might have been too popular. My own tweets never got up on screen – there were too many others :0)
Ha ha, thanks Ryan. In all honesty, my mind was racing and Marc had this really weird mouse that I couldn’t adequately use without fear of losing the whole stream! Thanks again for your participation and our chats through the session. I always learn a lot from you.
Hey Helen,
I thought there were many things in your session that helped people get to that ‘aha’ moment – your knitting story, plus the opportunity and encouragement to see and use twitter in a professional dev context as you’ve mentioned, but I think the question in one of the slides you put up was really powerful too (I think I missed it in your session, but saw it on twitter shortly after – and retweeted!):
“Why do I allow my employer to manage and dictate my own professional development and in doing so, affect my future employability?”
Such a simple and well expressed question that really hits home – and probably something that a lot of people wouldn’t have thought about in this context – until then.
The backstory you provide at the start about the conference organiser having no idea what you were talking about was interesting too (and perhaps just a little disturbing?! He’s running a conference on modern learning strategies and may not know what a hashtag is…!?) – but I think it’s something that we may have talked about when we met – when you’re very familiar with tools yourself, you sometimes take it for granted that others may be just as familiar and comfortable. Always good to remember, don’t assume!
Thanks for letting me know about this. On stage, it was really hard to gauge the audience reaction because you have the lights in your eyes. It’s my third time up on stage and each time I still get the heebeejeebees because I want to have some kind of impact. I know how difficult it is – and such a passive experience to be in an audience just waiting for afternoon tea, so I try to vary it to maintain interest and engagement even though I physically can’t see it.
I’ve been thinking a lot of the conference experience actually. I think it could be improved and I have to admit that I’m thinking what value does it hold if you have an online presence or reputation – do you need to back it up with going to a conference or two in person? Anyway, they’re just mind rambles at the moment but I guess it’s coming from the point of allocated budget vs perceived value.
Interesting question re value of conferences. I guess it depends on your objectives. I don’t go to a lot of conferences, but I get the impression that they can still be reasonably effective networking events – the main benefit being I guess to build your local network and reputation (as opposed to a more global one, as tends to be the case with online connections). As something I realised – from your session actually! – is that there are still a fair few people who might go to a conference like this, but who don’t really have an online presence, or don’t really build professional networks online.
So, I guess conferences are one way to reach these people.
I don’t know though – did you make many new contacts as a result of this conference? Surely you would’ve – at least a few more twitter followers if nothing else! (Though perhaps interesting to see how many will stick with it long term…? This is something I’ve wondered about – whether or what proportion of people introduced to social tools might need ongoing support or encouragement to keep at it and continuing to put the time / effort into building their network…? Guess it goes back to intrinsic motivation and whether or not they see long term value….)
Well there’s a bit of a thinkingoutloud rant!
Thanks Tanya. Food for thought. It was just mulling around in my mind. I still believe that you need to have some form of face to face connection (but this could still occur say through online formats eg Skype or Google Hangouts) for the connection to be a bit more stronger than just purely through social media. By stronger connections I mean maybe collaborating on something; referring a problem or an issue to them as their subject matter expertise; maybe calling them out as experts on the internet…?
I did make some connections at the conference admittedly and the good things about them is that you get to meet people from overseas – just wish they weren’t so expensive (sigh). I guess there’s no real reason not to have them especially when people can attend to learn, or seek out vendors and services.
You’re perfectly right about intrinsic motivation – we all have this inside us. The trick is identifying what motivates us.
Agree- Conferences Are expensive! Also think you’re right, conventional conferences will probably become less relevant as more happens online. It’s probably just a case of prioritising one or two then following the backchannel for the others….