Comments on: The catalytic effect of a Twitter backchannel http://teleogistic.net/2009/05/the-catalytic-effect-of-a-twitter-backchannel/ Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:06:04 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Boone http://teleogistic.net/2009/05/the-catalytic-effect-of-a-twitter-backchannel/comment-page-1/#comment-1264 Boone Tue, 05 May 2009 20:07:37 +0000 http://teleogistic.net/?p=138#comment-1264 The audience question you bring up - whether the #blsci gang is the same one that will care about your weekend shenanigans - is, I think, at the center of the popular fascination and discomfort with Twitter. On one hand, cranky anti-twits complain that they don't want to hear what so-and-so had for lunch today. On the other hand, proponents see this as part of the "ambient intimacy" that Twitter fosters: seeing the human side of a colleague makes our relationships more real, more civil, more humane, more comfortable, more productive than might have been possible under the traditional formal/non-formal divide. Ultimately, both sides have some truth to them, and there are various positions on the continuum between the total commingling and the complete separation of the public and the private that one might occupy. I think everyone is still trying to figure out where is the right place on this continuum to be, and what criteria we should use to decide the question. The audience question you bring up – whether the #blsci gang is the same one that will care about your weekend shenanigans – is, I think, at the center of the popular fascination and discomfort with Twitter. On one hand, cranky anti-twits complain that they don’t want to hear what so-and-so had for lunch today. On the other hand, proponents see this as part of the “ambient intimacy” that Twitter fosters: seeing the human side of a colleague makes our relationships more real, more civil, more humane, more comfortable, more productive than might have been possible under the traditional formal/non-formal divide. Ultimately, both sides have some truth to them, and there are various positions on the continuum between the total commingling and the complete separation of the public and the private that one might occupy. I think everyone is still trying to figure out where is the right place on this continuum to be, and what criteria we should use to decide the question.

]]> By: hillmill http://teleogistic.net/2009/05/the-catalytic-effect-of-a-twitter-backchannel/comment-page-1/#comment-1241 hillmill Tue, 05 May 2009 01:23:01 +0000 http://teleogistic.net/?p=138#comment-1241 @hillmill here, interesting post, Boone. The symposium experience definitely sold me on some exciting aspects of twitter. You're right that it can be a fun performance space, and it absolutely spices up the usual conference setting. I got really attached to the ways it enhanced the event with another layer; something to pull focus to particular questions, a way to express responses as they were happening, and to create mini-dialogues within dialogues that could flourish & grow elsewhere. Those dialogues could also get distracting, though, and I don't think that the relentless multi-tasking aspect of it would necessarily be right for everyone, or every conference. It also made me aware of that old audience question-- were these new #blsci followers the same ones who would care what I happened to be thinking, say, on a Saturday morning after reading the paper? As a new Twit I'm still a little confounded once I get let out of the cozy confines of something like the symposium, where the context & rules of engagement are somewhat more clear. As it is, I already have too many windows open on my computer at once and I just can't see getting Twitter on my Treo if it's gonna translate into paying for more texts. But I already have the sense that I'd be missing out on some great conversations if I abandon Twitter, and I'm curious to see my few lone followers grow into the kind of organic community that I was chatting with Suzanne about today... @hillmill here, interesting post, Boone. The symposium experience definitely sold me on some exciting aspects of twitter. You’re right that it can be a fun performance space, and it absolutely spices up the usual conference setting. I got really attached to the ways it enhanced the event with another layer; something to pull focus to particular questions, a way to express responses as they were happening, and to create mini-dialogues within dialogues that could flourish & grow elsewhere.

Those dialogues could also get distracting, though, and I don’t think that the relentless multi-tasking aspect of it would necessarily be right for everyone, or every conference. It also made me aware of that old audience question– were these new #blsci followers the same ones who would care what I happened to be thinking, say, on a Saturday morning after reading the paper? As a new Twit I’m still a little confounded once I get let out of the cozy confines of something like the symposium, where the context & rules of engagement are somewhat more clear.

As it is, I already have too many windows open on my computer at once and I just can’t see getting Twitter on my Treo if it’s gonna translate into paying for more texts. But I already have the sense that I’d be missing out on some great conversations if I abandon Twitter, and I’m curious to see my few lone followers grow into the kind of organic community that I was chatting with Suzanne about today…

]]> By: yamasas (yamasas) http://teleogistic.net/2009/05/the-catalytic-effect-of-a-twitter-backchannel/comment-page-1/#comment-1294 yamasas (yamasas) Sun, 03 May 2009 01:10:36 +0000 http://teleogistic.net/?p=138#comment-1294 [twitter] http://tinyurl.com/df3c75 http://tinyurl.com/df3c75 [twitter] http://tinyurl.com/df3c75 http://tinyurl.com/df3c75

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