Should people “live tweet” during an event or presentation?

I recently attended a course called “Presenting with Confidence“, delivered by Steve Herzberg.  Steve is a teriffic bloke, and is someone I would describe as “keeping it real” – his style of delivery is guaranteed to have you laughing, and learning.  I mean this seriously: the good thing about Steve’s course is the relaxed and confident manner in which he presents his material - he’s throroughly prepared, and the printed material you receive is professionally produced and rich with content.  There’s a great interview with Steve here you can watch and see for yourself here just how well he communicates.

Steve and I often discuss the business value of  using “social networking” tools, and we have had some excellent debate about the value of these tools in a business context.  One such tool I believe in passionately is Twitter, and I was explaining to Steve the increase in “live tweeting” at an event or conference, and how this is transforming the behaviour of both speakers and attendees at these conferences, and adding enormous value to attendees and others interested in the event.  For more on the concept of “live tweeting” have a read of “Live Tweeting: bird-brained or brilliant“

Some interesting questions arose during my discussion with Steve about the value of live-tweeting, including:
- is it distracting for the presenter (who doesn’t get to meet the eyes of their audience who are all typing away)?
- is it distracting for the audience, because their attention is diverted from the content being delivered to the rest of the “Twitter stream”?
- does it demonstrates a lack of respect for the speaker, who deserves your full attention?

Personally I have derived enormous value from the collective contribution of others “live tweeting”", particularly after the event when I can catch up on what other’s were saying.  However I have also been distracted by it, and missed some of the content being delivered by the speaker.  I can also appreciate that a speaker unaccustomed to their audience “live tweeting” could interpret this behavious as a lack of respect.

What is needed is education and understanding of current and emerging practices.  Live tweeting is here to stay, many events now encourage it, and attendees are asking for it.  The choice is yours to embrace it or not – I would encourage you to explain to others the benefits as you see them, and let them decide for themselves.  There are no rules – but I believe we should be mindful of speakers and respect them, and show them the value that is being added (to their brand and their content)

What are your thoughts?   Do you agree “live tweeting” an event adds value or not?

Today is the launch of the book “The Perfect Gift for a Man – Stories about re-inventing Manhood”

Today is a very special day for me, as it marks the launch of a new collaborative book I have contributed to in support of an important cause – improving the mental health of young men.   Special mention should go to the hard work of local Sydney bloggers Gavin Heaton and Mark Pollard, and to the 30 people from a diverse range of backgrounds and experience who have written stories for the book.

The book is called The Perfect Gift for a Man – 30 stories about reinventing manhood.  Here’s the front cover:

You can preview and order the book here.

Some of the contributors have recorded a personal video message about the book.

This is a very important cause – please tell your communities about this book, and consider buying a copy for a man in your life who may benefit from it.

For more background on this project, the Mornings with Kerrie-Ann show interviewed Gavin Heaton and Steve Crombie here:

 

The Perfect Gift for a Man book – interview on Mornings With Kerri-Anne from Tony Hollingsworth on Vimeo.

The Perfect Gift for a Man – Stories told from the Heart

The Perfect Gift for a Man – Stories told from the Heart is an initiative to raise awareness around men’s mental health – following on from the recent #Manweek postings from various bloggers around Sydney.  Below is my submission for the collaborative book ‘The Perfect Gift for a Man’

The Perfect Gift for a Man – Stories told from the Heart is an initiative to raise awareness around men’s mental health – following on from the recent #Manweek postings from various bloggers around Sydney.  Below is my submission for the collaborative book ‘The Perfect Gift for a Man’

Fatherhood – the joys and challenges of being a man, father and husband

Today I am a husband and father to three primary school-aged daughters and have been happily married for 15 years.  I had a fantastic childhood growing up in Sydney’s eastern beaches in the 1970’s.  There are so many great memories.  When dad walked down the stairs of my grandparent’s house with a brand new Morey Boogie Board, I was thrilled.  I no longer had to ride one of those uncool blowup surfmats!  Every year we would join our family friends for “cracker night” letting off firecrackers and playing games all night.  I never wanted those days to end.

The 1980’s were my ‘formative’ years, completing high-school and university.  The school years were so much fun – I was the ‘class clown’, always able to get a laugh from my classmates.  Very cheeky, I never did anything seriously wrong but was often distracted from my studies.  I realised I just enjoyed sharing and communicating with people, was often bored with the formalised class structure and preferred a more creative approach to learning.

During the 1990’s I travelled the world, fell in love and got married.  My career in the information and data industry blossomed – you can imagine my excitement at discovering the power of the Internet.  I revelled in the ability to discover and disseminate information so quickly and being able to help people do the same.

So far, my life seemed completely free!  I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted to.  I guess you could say I had managed to avoid responsibility.  Life was a big adventure and I was enjoying every moment.

In the 2000’s our children were growing up from toddlers to school-starters, and the responsibility of being a man, husband and father began to dawn on me.  We had to build a home for our family, I had to get more serious about my career and the cost of living just kept increasing.  It made me realise what my own parents went through to raise me – they worked so hard and gave up so much so that we could receive a good education and happy childhood.  Today, I do not find it easy to carry the burden of this responsibility for my own family.  I can feel the pressures of life building on me.  It can even be frightening.

Fortunately, I have the most amazing community around me.  My dear, hard-working wife, who inspires me; my children, who amaze me with their growth, optimism and speed of learning; my family, who provide love and support; my friends and professional network, who provide love, support, mentoring and inspiration.  This community gives me reason to live, to give and press on.

Life can be enormously challenging for us all!  The way I deal with the challenges is to surround myself with my community, draw from their love and support and press on.  I am reminded of the Simon & Garfunkel song “I am a Rock” – for this teaches me how I should NOT be living my life.  It says “a rock feels no pain” and “an island never cries” – without those emotions I don’t believe we can live a full and happy life.

Thinking about Manweek

This week is Manweek - brought to my attention by Servant of Chaos last week at Coffee Mornings. It’s about men talking about their feelings. Not easy – as I am finding now, since I’ve been thinking about this post since last Friday.

I’m going to be brief (it’s a way of me getting out of this easily – but the thought that is in my head is that I am very good at relationships in general (business and personal) however I don’t think I am good at communicating my feelings to those I care about most – particularly to my immediate family. I am going to talk about my father now – a man who reminds me of the good qualities shown by Walt Kowalski – Clint Eastwood’s character in the movie Gran Torino I have the utmost respect for my father – he works hard at everything he does, is a good man but is easily misunderstood. Sometimes I think we misunderstand each other – and that I believe is due in part to the difficulty in communicating our feelings.

With this in mind, I am going to try to be a better communicator of my feelings. Meanwhile, I am going to say this: dad, I love you – you’re a great inspiration to me, and I look forward to sharing many years ahead of happy family times, and great memories.

Phew! This post was extremely difficult to write, but at the same time, it makes me feel good to write it. For those men reading this, and who may also feel that they cannot communicate well with a loved one, perhaps try writing something down – a letter, an email, a blog post.

Barcamp Sydney 5

Barcamp 5
Originally uploaded by Halans

Sitting room only during one of the sessions. That’s me sitting next to http://twitter.com/cadbloke on the right foreground.

Barcamp Sydney 5

Barcamp 5
Originally uploaded by Halans

Catching up on the tweets between sessions at BarCamp Sydney 5

Daisy The Spoodle Maroubra Beach December 2008

Daisy The Spoodle Maroubra Beach December 2008
Originally uploaded by Tony Hollingsworth

Playing around with Flickr, and it’s ability to post to my blog. Love this shot of the dog taken at Maroubra Beach in December last year.

New Blog Post: Coffee Mornings – Single Origin Roasters, Surry Hills

Finally got back to Social Media Coffee this morning – the atmosphere and crowd was as energising as I remember it back in December last year. I was greeted by one of the chaps offering tastings of their new Timana Colombian Coffee – delicious – prepared via plunger, it was very smooth, not at all bitter to taste. I’ll be back.

I was pleased to be able to catch up with the charming and adorable Beth Etling from startup The Insight Exchange. Unlike any tradtional events company to date, Beth has joined forces with futurist, entrepreneur, keynote speaker, strategy advisor, and bestselling author Ross Dawson and I look forward to attending their first luncheon event next week – The Power of Influence. Contact me (leave a comment) if you’d like discounted tickets to this event.

Another highlight was introducing the team from the award-winning artisan baker Brasserie Bread to coffee mornings. I recently met Brasserie Bread’s CEO and Director David James and online comunity manager Mei Tan – these guys are really interested in educating and engaging with their valued customers and embracing social media as a way to do so. Just this week they have started a new blog, and joined Twitter. They have had a Facebook page for some time now – it’s really encouraging to see traditional “bricks and mortar” businesses like Brasserie Bread be open to embracing these new forms of communication.

I really can’t fault the service at Single Origin Roasters too – there must have been 60 people there this morning and they were hand-delivering our coffee and breakfast orders in impressive time. Well done guys.

I look forward to making more regular appearances and getting to know people at this event – every Friday from 8am.

New Blog Post: Social Media Coffee at Single Origin Roasters, Surry Hills #fb

G’day folks, I feel compelled to blog about this morning’s incredible experience: Social Media Coffee, held at Single Origin Roasters cafe at 64 Reservoir St, Surry Hills.

This event, which had the atmosphere of the “unconferences” like BarCamp and WordCamp – is a good excuse for a get together for some very bright minds operating in all things online communities, digital and social media.  I thank my Twitter pal Neerav Bhatt for introducing me to this event. A quick Twitter Search later, and I was locked in.

Two hours later, and after pretty much constant chatting meant I managed to meet some inspirational people, such as:

- Beth Etling, ad:Tech’s Marketing and Content Director;

- Sarah Peacock, dmg World Media’s Marketing manager

- Matt Moore,  Knowledge Management specialist at Innotecture;

- Neerav Bhatt , professional blogger.

- Neil Phillips, Principal Consultant at Uniqueworld;

- Scott Drummond – Communuity Manager at Sports Hydrant.

Another key takeaway was Matt Moore kindly referring to me several interesting resources:

- the interesting IBM blogger Jasmin Tragus – who writes the wonderwebby blog.

- James Robertson from Step Two designs – a vendor-neutral intranet and content management consultancy.

- David Allen – Getting Things Done.

What I love about unstructured events such as this one is the directions conversations can take and topics covered.  The above group was just a small snapshot of the people there today – in fact there were more than 100 people there, plus a fantastic band playing.  The cafe itself and in particular Gav and Nick (the cafe’s friendly proprietors), was a sublime experience, and will be posted about in The Food Zeitgeist soon.

Update: 15th January 2009, via Ben Cooper on Twitter I stumbled upon this great video, by Scott Drummond, which captures well the experience that is Single Origin Roasters:

 

Single Origin Gypsy Friday from Scott Drummond on Vimeo.

Online Communities – presentation to primary school community

I recently presented to my local school on online communities and the implications for our children.  This was prompted by my desire to share some of my own experiences with social networks with other parents who may be curious yet somewhat inexperienced in this area.  Particularly with our children having greater access and in many cases greater abilities than our own in navigating through and communicating with others on these networks.

I’ve embedded the presentation below: