Now that I’ve had some time since the Enterprise 2.0 conference, I want to reflect a bit on the experience of liveblogging directly from the conference. I have a feeling this is going to be a lengthy post, so if you’ve no interest in liveblogging pros and cons, you’ve been warned.
(Quick Summary: there’s more value in more commentary and analysis, less in transcription).
My own liveblogging from Enterprise 2.0 was inspired by many useful liveblogs I’ve read from events – especially David Wienberger (who is able to liveblog while participating as a panelist and chatting on backchannel IRC). Noting the presence of power strips in the seating areas and a working, stable wifi network (as opposed to SXSW), it just made sense to me to share the notes I was taking.
But then a comment by Andrew McAfee made me think more critically after the fact than I had at the time.
McAfee notes:
Finally, I used to think that short talks at conferences were low-pressure events, since they’d be heard by relatively few people and remembered by even fewer. A quick Google blog search, however, brings up about 30 blog posts commenting on my keynote. These will persist unless their posters take them down, and will add to the Internet’s record of my work. This is more than a bit scary for me as a speaker, but for me as a conference attendee this is great news; it means that the overall quality of talks will go up. No one wants to be examined from that many angles and found lacking.
(Just FYI – McAfee’s keynote is also freely available online in video from Altus – to me that would be even scarrier than the blogger’s reaction).
This got me to thinking, about liveblogging in particular, and asking a number of questions I probably should have thought more about a few weeks back:
- What’s the proper etiquette for liveblogging, other than sitting in the back and typing as quietly as possible?
- Does one need permission to liveblog a conference keynote? What about a conference panel session?
- Would that be permission from the speaker(s)? the conference organizer(s)? both?
- What’s the difference between blogging about an event – summaries, excerpts, and commentary – and liveblogging an event? Is it just the time difference, or the percentage of the event covered?
- Does liveblogging get in the way of more substantive commentary?
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