Contemporary Learning

“Kill the pig! Cut his throat!”

In education we often talk about the internet being a place of communication and collaboration, a place where minds meet to exchange ideas, explore a multiplicity of viewpoints and to celebrate innovation in thinking, design and application. But the thing is, the internet is many things to many people, and therein lies the rub.

“The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering.”
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies, Ch. 7

Wild Pig by Anthony Grimley 2006 Creative Commons Non-Commercial, Share AlikeLicence

I’d like to devote this post to a relatively new phenomenon – the Twitter backchannel. To those unfamiliar with this mechanism, it is basically when people at a conference or meeting use Twitter to comment on what is going on in front of them. On the surface, this sounds like and incredibly powerful way to explore ideas. The backchannel gives people all over the world a window on virtually any presentation and provides the presenter with the potential to engage with an incredibly diverse audience.

Or at least that’s the theory.  The reality – it seems – is sometimes quite different.  Sometimes the commentaries of Twitter crowds can be quite savage and cruel.

Now I may be in the minority on this, but I do not believe that disliking a presentation grants people the right to belittle the presenter in online fora. If you don’t like a presentation, you have options.  You can leave.  Read a book. Check your email.  Believe me, I have endured a number of bad presentations in my time. I have sat for an hour as someone read to me all the tiny text on the PowerPoint equivalent of War and Peace. I once journeyed 1000 kilometres to sit through a keynote delivered by an angry, young man who had spent no more than 5 minutes preparing his presentation. I have seen some lamentable performances.

But I have also delivered my fair share of bad presentations. And every time I encounter a poor presentation, I think that there for the grace of Gates, go I. Fortunately, I am yet to “face the power of a fully armed and operational backchannel.”

The first time I witnessed the wrath of Twitter’s backchannel was during last year’s SXSW Conference. New Media commentator Sarah Lacy took to the stage to interview Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. It was a hard interview to watch. It was clear Lacy lost her audience in the room and the prevalence of Twitter certainly magnified this. Before the interview had finished, Lacy had somehow managed to draw out the ire of many people, not only in the conference hall but also all over the globe. The commentary of the backchannel picked up momentum as the interview went on and this is hardly surprising – Twitter has the ability to embolden hecklers. People are more likely to air their opinion when they know they know others with comparable views occupy the same space.



Now some will argue Lacy got what she deserved. I’ll admit, it certainly was an odd interview and Lacy’s behaviour was unlikely to endear many people to her. But does this mean she deserved such hostility? She hadn’t hurt anyone, and to be fair, Zuckerberg is known to be a difficult subject to interview.

Let’s look at a more recent case, described as the Great Keynote Meltdown by Michael Fienen of Eduguru.  The keynote speaker at the HighEdWeb conference was David Galper, of Ruckus , a failed music sharing service. Now I’m the first to admit that everyone has the right to express an opinion and the sharing of disparate viewpoints online is one of the most compelling aspects of the internet. And in the interests of full disclosure, I will also state that I am guilty of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time on a daily basis. But the backchannel at HEW09 could not simply be explained away as a group of people disparate presenting points of view in a colourful way – there was something else in it. Something unpleasant. Have a read and make up your own mind. I won’t list all of it, but enough for you to get a sense of the tone of the discourse.

The HighEdWeb Twitter transcript:

• 12:03 pm Hear hear! Someone turn up the contrast. #heweb09 #dropshadow
• 12:06 pm Audio Fail. #heweb09
• 12:09 pm am I in a presentation from 5 years ago? #heweb09 #musicdatesthings
• 12:17 pm Watching keynote. Clearly I’m not the only one that sucks at Powerpoint. I was smart enough to not use it though. #heweb09
• 12:19 pm David Galper, ur doin gr8, and ima let you finish, but @jmspool had one of the best keynotes ever! #heweb09
• 12:25 pm  it’s awesome in the “I don’t want to turn away from the accident because I might see a severed head” way #heweb09
• 12:31 pm I think the monkey door prize should go to the 1st person to stand up and politely ask him to stop #heweb09
• 12:32 pm Would he like the immediate feedback of us all walking out? #heweb09
• 12:35 pm Beware the harshtag ye who do not know thy audience #heweb09
• 12:37 pm I am absolutely dying with laughter, BEST BACKCHANNEL EVER! #heweb09
• 12:43 pm And I thought the backchannel was nasty to yesterday’s guy… he may have been wrong, but at least he was entertaining. #heweb09
• 12:46 pm Conspiracy theory…. #justsayin  This has evolved into the most compelling social experiment I’ve ever witnessed. #heweb09
• 12:46 pm went back to my room 30 minutes ago out of desperation, but now enjoying the explosive anti-keynoter snark from a safe distance. #heweb09
• 12:46 pm Too bad they took my utensils away w/ my plate. I could have jammed the butter knife into my temple. #heweb09
• 12:48 pm  we call it like we see it… or sometimes we just get stabby. #heweb09
• 12:48 pm Last Slide THANK GOD #heweb09
• 12:49 pm I sat through the Zuckerberg/Sarah Lacey SXSW interview, glad I’m missing the current keynote trainwreck http://bit.ly/2FuA4w #heweb09
• 12:50 pm  Can someone seriously stand up and say “Why the hell are you still on stage?” #heweb09
• 12:50 pm  First presenter all day to list AIM info and not Twitter? #heweb09
• 12:52 pm  I did notice. And I was at #eduweb where it was all very enthusiastic. Just can’t believe how bad this got. #heweb09
• 12:56 pm his phone number is still up there… should we all call him at the same time? #heweb09
• 12:57 pm Thank you, social media! It’s like having a live telecast of the Hindenburg go down in flames. Oh the humanity! #heweb09
• 12:57 pm Not there, someone please post his phone number to the tag #heweb09
• 12:57 pm A bit worried about giving a conference presentation next month after seeing how you savaged the wretched keynote at #heweb09 Have mercy!
• 1:05 pm #heweb09 has become a bloodthirsty mob. No tact, no decency, no respect. Virtual lynchings have no place here and so neither do I.
• 1:05 pm Note to self: Never speak in front of the #heweb09 group. Brutal.
• 1:15 pm After reading the backchannel, rethinking my interest in getting to know the #heweb09 crowd. Snarky is one thing, brutal another.
• 1:20 pm Checking out the Twitter backchannel for the keynote at #heweb09. It’s been a while since I’ve seen claws out like this…
• 1:22 pm  Sorry, that’s tantamount to a racist saying, “But I have black friends!” This Schadenfreude-driven bandwagon is sad. #heweb09
• 1:26 pm Social media conferences just hype products. You gain nothing. Presenters are dimwits. Don’t waste your money on them. #heweb09
• 1:32 pm Death Star? Pah. I witnessed the power of a fully armed and operational back channel. #heweb09
• 1:33 pmWow, just read all the tweets on #heweb09 speaker. I feel sorry for this guy. Folks – he has feelings too.
• 1:34 pm In Galper’s defense (although I almost napped) its hard to make a presentation to 450 people. Ye without sin, cast the first stone #heweb09
• 1:46 pm  Youch! Social media keynote speaker gets #tweckeld with #harshtags at #heweb09 just now. Beware! It’s a new age 4 conferences!
• 1:48 pm For the keynote speaker, the art of clapping politely is now over thanks to twitter #heweb09

The Twitter backchannel began with a few acerbic observations about the presenter’s slides. Galper apparently packed paragraphs of text onto the slides and this was accompanied by poor quality video and dated music that was too loud.   Annoying, yes.  A crime against humanity… not quite.

Let's Talk Business by inquirer 2009 Creative Commons Non-Commercial, Share AlikeLicence

One thing a look at the backchannel reveals that once the mood of the mob was established, there was little that could have been done to turn the tide. Malcontents indulged one another and found solace in the humiliation of the source of their aggravation. I was not the only one to notice this:

“A bit worried about giving a conference presentation next month after seeing how you savaged the wretched keynote at #heweb09″

I could be wrong but the free-for-all tone of the backchannel could come back to bite us on the backside. It may well limit our options as repeated incidents such as HEW09 could possibly lead to a situation whereby some extremely engaging presenters do not submit abstracts for fear of being subjected to the vented spleens of the Bitterati (my term for an angry mob of Twitterers).

Of course, there are some lessons to be taken from this, the most obvious of which is for presenters to know their audience. Conferences can be extremely expensive and presenters should do what they can to meet the expectations of their audience. But sometimes anticipating an audience’s expectations is difficult; and sometimes those expectations have nothing to do with the backchannel anyway. A number of nasty comments made about HEW09 were penned by people who weren’t even at the conference.

The truth is everyone has at least one bad presentation in them and I wonder whether it is fair or reasonable to be judged so comprehensively for public speaking – something that is often claimed to be feared more than death.

In a few places in the transcript voices of reason can be heard:

“I feel sorry for this guy. Folks – he has feelings too”

and

“#heweb09 has become a bloodthirsty mob. No tact, no decency, no respect. Virtual lynchings have no place here and so neither do I.“

Unfortunately these comments were ultimately drowned out by the noise of vitriol finding a voice. Now I know some of the comments were merely hasty attempts to add to the perceived humour of the occasion, but here and there the cadence of the backchannel were measured by the demonstrative sounds of a schoolyard bully beating his chest.

The internet can be a harsh place, a place where anonymity and distance can incite passionate discourse. There’s a duality to the web we cannot ignore – it is a place where multiple viewpoints can be represented brilliantly, but it can also be a place where the lowest common denominator is occasionally characterised by virtual thuggery and pettiness.

At times, I have to question the so-called wisdom of the crowds.

On his blog Web Strategy, Jeremiah Owyang Silicon Valley offers numerous suggestions as to how speakers should integrate social mechanisms into their presentations.  Similar advice can be found at Pistachio Consulting.

One of the most proffered pieces of advice regarding this matter is that speakers should monitor the backchannel. I can see the strengths of this. However, I must say that personally I would find it counter-intuitive to carry out this activity. Perhaps this is a failing, but I find that presenting in a formal context takes all my concentration and I would find it difficult to multitask like this. I think my corpus callosum is too thin to (1) follow Twitter whilst presenting, and (2) respond to the views expressed in the backchannel whilst addressing the original intent of the presentation (not to mention taming the nerves which accompany speaking to large groups of strangers).

I have seen the suggestion that the speakers could have someone else monitor the backchannel – or to take Twitter breaks – and this is something I’ll take under advisement. Now I enjoy Twitter as much as the next tweep, but I sometimes question whether it deserves the revered status some people grant it.  We must remember that not everyone tweets during presentations – is it rude to let the backchannel steer the conversation or should a presenter be more focussed upon the pursuing his or her original intention in their delivery?  Perhaps too much attention paid to the backchannel may actually alienate those people who are not a part of it. Also, should all presentations be a dialogue? Should every speech be reactive?  I wonder how some of the great orations of our time would have sounded with the Twitter backchannel co-authoring the content.  

Martin Luther King Jr. - I Have A Dream Speech by estrategyblog.com 2007 Creative Commons Licence

Owyang suggests speakers should ‘practice two-fisted speaking‘ i.e. presenters have two devices in hand: the PowerPoint clicker in one hand and a mobile device in the other, monitoring the backchannel. I’m not sure I feel about this. It almost suggests an adversarial arrangement i.e. monitoring audience sentiment seems predicated on fear of what the other is saying.

This latest Twitter incident introduced a new word into my lexicon – the harshtag, a pun or sorts on the ubiquitous hashtag. For those who don’t know, the hashtag is often used by Twitterers to group tweets around an event or topic. I find myself increasingly torn in my feelings about the hashtag. Whilst it is an extremely powerful way to tie together related tweets together via Twitter Search, lately I have seen more and more Twitterers game the system by associating their tweets with popular hashtags such as those orbiting around a conference. But I digress…

Of course, there are many positives to be gained from Twittering at conferences including meeting up with others, exchanging ideas as they are being presented and the sharing of supplemental resources. Terese Bird noted in her blog post ‘Is it Polite to Tweet During Lectures?’:

“I found that tweeting during keynote and other presentations helped me to digest what was being said. Perhaps the practice of distilling what I heard into 140-character tweets was forcing me to boil down the presentations into a series of take-home messages which I could retain more easily. Moreover, while I am excellent at losing pens and little notebooks, I can’t lose Twitter, so I can go back onto Twitter and re-read the notes I took at ALT-C.”

This is one of those topics where there are so many sides, it is difficult to take a firm position without opposing reasonable viewpoints. However, I think we can take it as read that if we are expecting students to operate in online spaces in a collaborative way, we must set the tone and conduct ourselves with the sensitivity and thoughtfulness that we would hope to see in them.

Face in a Crowd by vividbreeze 2007 Creative Commons Non-Commercial, Share Alike Licence

Related Links

• Twitter, the ultimate conference ‘backchannel’
• How to Present While People are Twittering
• Is it polite to tweet during lectures?
• Audience of Twittering Arseholes
• Backchannel via Twitter
• Anatomy of a Mob
• Twitter-heckled Key Note Speaker – Know your Audience!
• Twitter Battering of Keynote
• Worth 1000 Words: Behold the Backchannel
• How Speakers Should Integrate Social Into Their Presentation
• The Great Keynote Meltdown of 2009
• speakers: learn from twitter hecklers
• My reflections on HighEdWeb