Comments on: This Week in Shark Jumpage

By: Marjorie K

Marjorie K — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 05:04:37 +0000

In Jackie’s defense, it actually helped during the first meeting. The audience was able to express their frustration with the panel’s long-winded responses that seemed to state the obvious, through #smcla. The panelists, facing the screen at the time, were able to address their concerns as well as take questions during the presentation. I would have liked to have seen this this time. I posed several questions that were lost amongst the silliness. Overall, I think it went well though. I enjoyed the conversation and it was nice to see a different crowd in attendance.

By: Nic Adler

Nic Adler — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 00:41:35 +0000

I like this conversation. Lots of good points. One thing i would like to add is…
As a first time panelist I would say that the twitter screen was distracting. Especially when none of the panelist could see the screen/tweets but could hear the audience laughing and commenting on them while we were answering the moderators questions.

By: Cathy Brooks

Cathy Brooks — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 23:28:21 +0000

First a clarification – Tony Perkins’ AlwaysOn Innovation Summit at Stanford actually started putting live chat on the screen during the session back in 2004. It was horrid. First they had it projected on the wall behind the panel (kind of like last night), and as the chat room got more and more vicious about the panelists and the audience began to laugh the panelists were all thrown off and made to feel uncomfortable … not good. Moving forward they began moderating the session chats more heavily and in some sessions didn’t show it on the screen but did have a monitor so the moderator could watch for questions that arose.

In terms of SMC last night I actually thought there were some interesting Tweets that posted … would have loved to see them brought up directly by the moderator or panelists.

Finally I think the biggest irritation last night came from the two women in the back who insisted on talking through pretty much the entire thing.

By: jonathan

jonathan — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 22:02:07 +0000

@David: I didn’t mean for the last sentence to be a critique specific to the SMCLA panel, it was more of a statement in the abstract. I don’t think the Twitter stream was on screen because of a conscious decision to give the audience coercive power over the panel and moderator. It’s more that I don’t think it was a well-thought out decision, and I’d like organizers of future panels to consider the consequences of the manner in which they implement audience feedback.

@Sass: What Ethan said.

@Ethan: Gracias. And, amen on both counts 🙂

By: Ethan Bauley

Ethan Bauley — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:39:27 +0000

@Sass

All of these tactics you describe still create value if the moderator is reading the tweme/feed and it is not being broadcast on a screen (per j-strizzle’s advice).

By: Ethan Bauley

Ethan Bauley — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:20:02 +0000

Yeah, “I’d like to pose my question in the form of a statement” is a serious disease. The only cure is the warm, glowing, warming-glow of a good moderator 😉

One issue with SMCLA (and most confs/panels) is that everyone in the audience thinks they’re the most knowledgeable person in the room (about something), so they don’t filter themselves. It’s a bunch of egomaniac extroverts, I guess it’s to be expected 😉

I think that they need to have some real heavyweight speakers (John Seely Brown? Ian R?) that will give these bozos some perspective.

By: sass

sass — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:19:21 +0000

Uhhh.

1) SMC encourages those not able to attend the events to listen in live and to post questions for the speakers via twitter.

2) SMC encourages those not able to attend to read notes from the event via twitter

3) I saw maybe 5 non-event related posts while watching the live feed on techzulu – most of the posts were retweets of the comments made by the panelists or a discussion based on something the panelist said

4) The panel encouraged promoting music and bands on the web. Audience was simply following the panels lead

5) If the twitter feed weren’t scrolling behind you, most people would have been staring at their phones reading them while you were speaking

By: jonathan

jonathan — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:13:24 +0000

@robi: Not sure where the schadenfreude (“enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others”) is in all this. Am I being a hypocritical douchebag with this post? Yeah, pretty much. But, foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

By: David Appelbaum

David Appelbaum — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:41:29 +0000

I have to admit, the dynamic between the panel and the projected twitter screen was interesting, to say the least. For anyone wondering who said “that’s not true!” after the Sarah Palin tweet, that was me 🙂

In all seriousness though, Jonathan, I was happy to see that someone wrote a blog post about this, although your comment at the end was a little stinging – Andy’s a cool guy – Jackie’s just vocal on these sorts of issues, that’s all. Don’t conflate letting other people speak with poor moderation.

In an ideal world, the side conversation, if allowed to take place, would be focused on and would augment the existing conversation. Of course, some people will inevitably stray – especially if the panel discussion isn’t always particularly gripping. This is another, nearly inevitable characteristic of any panel that tries to discuss such a broad tropic, such as the changing economics of the music industry and SN technology, in such a condensed amount of time.

My solution to this particular problem would be to have the panelists come up with something to talk about, rather than prompting them with question. Do Q@A afterwards.

By: Robi Ganguly

Robi Ganguly — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 07:53:27 +0000

Really good points.

But, I still can’t help but laugh at having watched your Tweets (and re-tweets when you forgot the #tag) throughout the event and then, just a few hours later, seeing that you bashed yourself and others. Is this Schadenfreude I’m feeling? Funny stuff.