Jul 8th, 2009 |
Last week I joined 70 of my GC colleagues at the first Web 2.0 Practioners Conference held at the Canada School of Public Service in Ottawa’s lower town. My first impression of this group of attendees was its level of diversity – age, discipline, department, and opinion about Web 2.0. The latter meaning mostly that while the group was generally unanimous in its appreciation of Web 2.0 for government, participants had many differing opinions about how Web 2.0 should be approached in government, what Web 2.0 tools should be introduced to government employees and the public and when these tools should be implemented.
The first in a series of four, this conference was pulled together in a matter of weeks thanks to the efforts of a small team with a big vision. It was promoted to federal public servants by word of mouth and on GCPedia (the GC “Wikipedia-like site designed to increase collaboration and information sharing amongst federal government employees). In fact most every other conference logistic was handled through GCPedia including planning, registration, agenda, table discussions and community development.
This event was also the first one that I attended with a Twitter board displaying the running Twitter commentary from conference participants and their communities. I have tweeted during other events recently and am fairly comfortable – though far from prolific – in the Twittershpere, but, to see the stream of comments in real time was fascinating and it gave me a whole new appreciation for Twitter and the value of broadcasting a message in 140 characters or less.
Within minutes, tweets were coming in from curious readers not in attendance wondering what this event tagged #w2p was about while others were thanking conference participants for the great tweets. That was my “ah ha” moment.
Might be time for a quick Twitorial:
- Twitter: A free, social networking tool allowing users to stay connected with other relevant users.
- Tweets: Individual posts of 140 characters or less responding to the question – “What are you doing?”
- HashTag: Label used to identify a common subject or theme often incorporating the cross hatch (#)
- Twitter Board: Running commentary of users connected by a common subject or theme.
So here we are, about half of us tweeting away; sharing what we are learning with our Twitter communities. In my case, I have 56 people following me, but if you do the math using that relatively low number of followers, the proceedings of the Web 2.0 Practitioners Conference (according to those tweeting) were broadcast to almost 2,000 people. What’s important to note here is that through this simple social networking tool, I and my colleagues were conversing about something we found noteworthy enough to share with others who find us relevant enough to follow. Yes, we were having a conversation – just like we would have had in the good ole’ days at the water cooler, in the elevator, at the coffee shop. Beauty is, the conversation now takes place in real time and with a greater number of people.
