What follows is a guest post from Andrew Blanda, which he initially posted on his own blog. Andrew followed along with what was happening at Future Summit by engaging with those twitter users who were present at the actual event. I found he’s debrief below illuminating when considering the future of events and how this discourse can live within those not physically present at the event.  

May 20, 2009

Yesterday, I was a remote participant in the Future Summit held in Melbourne on 18th & 19th May 2009. I participated through Twitter, by interacting with attendees at the event, responding to questions & posting comments to various twitterers attending the various sessions on the program.

To me, it felt like I received a condensed, highly concentrated (as in I received the core nuggets of each presentation as it happened) presentation without the fluff. Do I feel like I participated? Absolutely yes! Through posing questions to the attendees and having questions and comments retweeted helped me better understand what was being presented and also to get a feel for the mood of the audience.

Things I liked:

• I got a good feel for what was presented
• I could ask questions
• I threw in some of my own comments (which were commented on by others)
• I had a number of my posts re-tweeted to a wider audience
• I picked up a number of new followers (which seems to be the holy grail of Twitter [to some people!])
• Having the Twitter back-channel provide on-the-spot comments from the sessions
  

Things I missed:

• The ‘hubbub’ that occurs in audiences when something contentious, alarming or incorrect is mentioned
• The camaraderie of the audience who shared some of my thoughts/comments – it would have been great to be there and interact with others

Things I inferred/picked up from the comments being made by the attendees:

• For one of the sessions, the panel kept asking/answering their own questions, not allowing the session to be participative!
• From the tweet messages, the wrap-up from Julie Bishop seemed to lose the audience and not really achieving it’s intention (of bringing everything together to a close)
• There seemed to be no actions/action plan we could see/walk away with
• Ultimately, I felt like I had been participated in this event, probably more due to the retweeting and interactions with other tweeters.I may even have opened up a can of worms with this comment I made:

It sure is a waste gathering people together to hear the panel talk amongst themselves! Save the CO2 and webcast it 

Who’s to know that next time they don’t just have it as a webcast, or a combination of webcast & live sessions – Twitter certainly helped me get a feel for things in real time!

I’d like to thank @SamMutimer, @mspecht, @kcarruthers, @geehall1, @amoyal, @nathanhulls + others for all retweeting my posts/asking questions! 

A final thought on Andrews post. We will be endevouring to stream some parts of the Summit live next year, pending how feasibile this is.