Conferencing, Post-Twitter
Posting en route to the IPG Autumn Conference (#IPGAC2023) in London — the first conference I’ll have attended in nearly two decades where I won’t use Twitter. A decision made for more reasons than I can list, on all sorts of rational and instinctual levels.
It’s already a useful decision: I’ve thought more carefully about this conference in advance; about why I’m attending; about which sessions I want to attend; and about who I want to meet and network with, than I have for any such event for a very long time. I used to say that conference tweeting made networking easier, and a conference more interesting and engaging, because of that simultaneous conversation — critique, sometimes — of what’s being presented. Now I find myself wondering if, in fact, it made conference attendance lazier and less intentional.
Reportedly, BlueSky achieved its biggest-ever day of signups yesterday. Yes, I was amongst those making the jump to a space which — so far at least — seems more intuitive to this Twitter refugee than Mastodon. I may or may not post there today — there clearly isn’t the volume of users in the same professional sector there yet to replicate the experience — yet if we don’t start somewhere, there never will be. Neither have I had time to master tools like deck.blue which I’m told echo the tweetdeck experience. Learning on the hoof today risks being too distracting.
So — all in all — I’m curious to discover — will today be a better conference experience or a diminished one? Will I take away more by being more attentive and less distracted? Will I meet more people because I must to make more effort to do so? Perhaps I’ll report back from the train home.
If you’ll be there, do say hello — in real life!
