Scoble
links to the various ways you can get up to date
information. It seems to me that
DayPop,
Feedster,
Technorati, et. al., are
rapidly replacing the high traffic link blogs (like Scoble!) as
connectors in our little blog ecosystem here.
Picking out two things that I found particularly
interesting. First Liz:
After lunch, however, an interesting thing happened. I posted
some critical comments about a speaker’s presentation, and a
Microsoft Research employee who I knew only by name called me out
on it. He expressed concerns about whether it was
“fair” to criticize someone who wasn’t there to
defend his or herself, and pointed out that we were a scary
audience, and should be more generous.
On the topic of fairness, it seems to me that the days of the
host deciding who gets to talk when (or more precisely, who people
should chose to listen to) are numbered. Or even, for that
matter, who gets to attend (<grin>). Furthermore, the
trend will be towards panelists that actively participate in the
backchannel. At SXSW, I did exactly that (as captured by this
parody).
Secondly, it seems to me that the ingredients that made this
audience “scary” were exactly the same ones that caused
the backchannel to emerge in the first place. The audience
consisted of intelligent people who not only were knowledgeable
on the subject area, but were ones that are prone to making their
own choices on where they want to
invest their attention. I'm reminded of Doc and David's
World of Ends.
Perhaps "audience" should join "consumer" and "content" in Doc's
frequent
on
target rants on this subject.
The other thing that caught my eye was from JOHO:
In another study, they looked at 400 early adopters of a new IM
client at Microsoft. Managers and older users use it differently.
Technophobia and switching costs are dropping. Socially, you can IM
down but not up, which is maybe why the managers like
it.
I guess social norms must vary considerably from place to place,
as IM is one of the primary ways in which I keep in contact with my
management.
No matter how it's packaged, I cannot conceive of any circumstances where it would be anything but rude to start a backchannel primarily focusing on snarky comments about the presentation currently underway.
To be honest, to start a backchannel at all, unless it is, like you say, specifically built into the presentation.
A presenter has an obligation to do the best they can on the material and try to focus it on the audience as a whole. This won't please everyone, which is why most presenters understand when a person gets up and leaves. Particularly good speakers will know to read their audience to determine if they should spead up or slow down, or crack a joke.
However, the audience also has a responsibility to at least make a pretense of paying attention -- or leave.
If I were in a room with several people participating in a backchannel, indulging in laughter on occasion inappropriate to what the presenter is saying, I would be mortified. I would probably just end my presentation, and I would leave.
Are we all ADD children that can't sit still for ten minutes and actually listen? How much is lost of what's being said because people are only listening with half their attention?
I'm sorry and if you want to strike this out Sam, please do -- but that's the rudest fucking thing I've heard of since I started weblogging, no matter whose 'social norms' this is supposedly a part of.
And to think it's being applauded. We have lost the grace of being human with each other. All it is now is screens and bits, IM and IRC and weblogs and absolutely disregarding the people at the heart of all this.
I have a whole series of essays and writings I planned and was going to post, but I no longer have the heart for it. One of the posts was going to be on disapproval. I'm not talking criticism -- in many ways being critical of a person is a compliment. It says that you think well enough of them to spend the time to construct a response to what they say. Though I'm not fond when people are critical of me as a person,......
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Shelley, I've restored the comment for the moment. To be honest, I was rushing out the door to pick up my daughter, and I didn't have the time to mark the comment up properly. Actually, I still don't know what to do with it.
Liz has comments enabled. You have a weblog. You know my comments policy, and even referred to it in your comment. And yet despite knowing all this, you still chose my place to leave this particular bit of social commentary about some part of Liz's post that I didn't even mention. I'm not sure what conclusion to draw from all this.
And the most ironic thing to me is that all that your core premise seems to be based on the need to be respectful of your host when on their premises. And then to turn comments off on your own entry that points to this one.
Because I wasn't responding to Liz in your comments Sam. I was responding to you. To what I perceive is your approval of this type of behavior.
There is no sense of fair play in playing these backdoor games at conferences or in meetings. Is this what happens when technology influences behavior so much that this type of activity is not only seen as appropriate, but as a lesson to be learned?
As for respecting of host on premise -- wherever did you pick that up? Not from me. You only have to look at the comments in my recent TypeKey post to see that. I look for honesty, even if it reviles, over polite but false behavior.
Fairness. Something to think on, in your spare time from code and conferences.
Me turning on my comments or not, is a way of turning this issue back at me, Sam, and I'm getting to old to play that game. And too tired. As for these comments here, delete or not -- I don't care.
<P>Here's the <A href="http://www.kbcafe.com/iBLOGthere4iM/PaSSAPI.wsdl">WSDL</A>, <A href="http://www.kbcafe.com/iBLOGthere4iM/PaSSAPI.cs.txt">C#</A> and an <A href="http://www.kbcafe.com/iBLOGthere4iM/PaSSAPI.asmx">abstract implementation w/ documentation</A> for PaSSAPI. This is a Request For Comments in order to first introduce and receive feedback for making this a great API.</P>
<P><STRONG>Where did PaSSAPI come from?</STRONG><BR>PaSSAPI started as an <A href="http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/1443.html">idea</A> of <A href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/stories/storyReader$419">Dave Winer</A>, which I stole from him when he didn't pursue further. Dave introduced the idea of Portable and Simple Syndication, which would allow <A href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss">RSS 2.0</A> element to be used w/in other XML grammars. Originally, Dave called the format PSS. I renamed it PaSS and <A href="http://www.kbcafe.com/iBLOGthere4iM/?guid=20031207192457">released version 1.1</A> last December. PaSSAPI is an API built on top of PaSS.</P>
<P><STRONG>How did I develop PaSSAPI?<BR></STRONG>PaSSAPI was developed entirely by writing a <A href="http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl">WSDL</A> file that described the methods of <A href="http://www.xmlrpc.com/metaWeblogApi">MetaWeblogAPI</A> and <A href="http://www.blogger.com/developers/api/">BloggerAPI</A>. The first implementation is entirely in <A href="http://www.w3.org/TR/soap/">SOAP</A>, but I plan to release an HTTP GET and HTTP POST version in the near future. I may also add methods and welcome suggestions.</P>
<P><STRONG>Why not just use MetaWeblogAPI?</STRONG><BR>MetaWeblogAPI uses a great Web RPC called <A href="http://www.xml-rpc.com/">XML-RPC</A>. Unfortunately, I wanted a protocol that worked equally w/ SOAP, HTTP GET and HTTP POST. By allowing use of SOAP, you can actually send PaSSAPI request over alternate transports like <A href="http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc821.html">SMTP</A>. XML-RPC is bound to HTTP. Also, XML-RPC method calls cannot be expressed in WSDL and I'm pretty upset at <A href="http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc821.html">Microsoft</A> and <A href="http://www.ibm.com/us/">IBM</A> for this failure.</P>
<P><STRONG>Why not just use AtomAPI?</STRONG><BR><A href="http://bitworking.org/projects/atom/draft-gregorio-09.html">AtomAPI</A> uses another great Web RPC called <A href="http://www.intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/REST">REST</A>. Unfortunately, REST like XML-RPC is bound to HTTP and cannot be expressed in WSDL. </P>
<P><STRONG>Is PaSSAPI competitive to AtomAPI?<BR></STRONG>Not really. I didn't take the time to incorporate the ideals of Atom into PaSSAPI. If you want to use REST and Atom syntax, then I suggest you continue to use AtomAPI, but if you want a lightweight protocol that works out of the box w/ existing tools, then you might want to consider PaSSAPI.</P>
<P><STRONG>What do you mean by Works Out-Of-Box?<BR></STRONG>Any tool that sucks in WSDL can be made to work w/ PaSSAPI in minutes. Trying to do the same in WSDL incompatible technologies takes man-days, if not man-months of effort and is generally <A href="http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/topten/fugitives/laden.htm">bug laden</A>.</P>
<P><STRONG>What do you mean by lightweight protocol?<BR></STRONG>By lightweight, I mean that the entire protocol is described in a 400 line XML file and requires very little code to implement.</P>
<P><STRONG>What is down the road?<BR></STRONG>First, iM going to listen to the feedback, then I plan on incorporating some of the feedback into the API and finally I will start releasing tools, like C# and Java client and server interfaces.</P>......
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Sam DuDE, didn't know if your blog accepted HTML or how many characters on a trackback. Guess it doesn't like HTML and doesn't cut off either. What's your thought on HTML in track excerpts? No-No?
Perhaps Elizabeth and others should be a little less self-indulgent and remember that good manners are never out of style. If one doesn't want to listen, then leave and if ill-tempered comments are not to be taken "too seriously", they shouldn't be offered at all.
I agree Sam, IM is a mainstay for contacting my management. It is much less intrusive than the phone and allows for in-depth communication in an asynchronous mode.
KJO, the comments in the backchannel were not what I would consider to be rude, or ill-tempered. They did raise some legitimate questions about whether the presentation was well-targeted at the audience in the room.
The material that ended up in the "back back channel" (which, btw, was not a closed channel) was pretty innocuous, goofy stuff, often unrelated to the speaker. And it was also self-limiting; when it started to get out of control, the result was that the participants themselves realized it and moderated their own activity.
Every venue has a different set of norms and expectations, and both presentations and backchannel have to take that into account. With any of these technologies, I strongly believe that a "first, do no harm" guideline needs to be in place--but what that means will vary based on context.
Backchannel is why we bring laptops to presentations. After all, it is far more polite than whispered or sotto voce comments that we'd make instead :-) Following up on digressions inspired by the talk (or even acquiring context for unfamiliar but unexplained terms) via google is another strong reason.
Remember, if your audience is im'ing about your talk - they're engaged in it, they care, you've got them thinking, and that's the point. If they're just surfing cnn (or the conference schedule to see what else is in this time slot), you've lost them, and everyone's time is being wasted...
On this one though I feel like I have a point I'd like to make that no one else has broached yet.
I am preacher. As in on sunday mornings. So I know a thing or two about public speaking and audiences.
So let me say this:
It is the speakers primary responsibility to be knowledgeable in his subject matter, and engaging to his audience.
If you, the speaker, are doing your job then any backchannel conversation going on will no more or less harmful than the occasional quick conversations that naturally occur in an audience as you present.
If you, the speaker, are finding that the backchannels in your presentations are not related to what you are saying then perhaps you should re-consider your skill as a speaker, or your topic.
On this one I put the burden on the speaker to entertain and engage his audience.
Some discussion recently about the new backchannels that are appearing at technical conferences. If you're not familiar with the term, in this case it means that the people in the room, with their wireless enabled laptops, all communicating on an IRC channel while the presentation or talk is happening. Liz Lawley started an invitation only one at a conference she attended, and others such as Clay Shirky, David Weinberger (whose permalinks are broken), and Sam Ruby have all chimed in, favorably, on the concept. I......
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Sam, I like your world of ends comment. Part of what I notice at conferences is that "audience" members are often there at least as much to be in conversation with each other as they are to listen to "presenters".
Many conferences are jammed with lots of people and lots of presentations in a short time. I think we in the "audience" use chat and blogs to connect with each other during presentations in part because that is when there is a block of time with "hands free".
It's no excuse to be disrespectful, but I think, with some of these conferences, people are pretending to go for the presentations but actually going for the backchannels. Even true of some of the presenters.
In the last post I introduced the topic of accountability and freedom of expression and tied Creative Commons in with backchannels and comments, and we could even extend this association to the ethics of weblog editing. I find it ironic that some of the people who support backchannels at conferences, also support editing and deleting of comments in their weblogs, and have actually done so with comments associated with their backchannel postings (though the comments were restored with Sam Ruby's post). Can we not say......
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Anyone who's blind knows that staring intently at a presenter is not entirely necessary to be "paying attention." Even sighted people can listen, look at their laptops most of the time, and look up at appropriate moments. It's their attention, not yours, and it's laughable in the extreme to suggest that leaving a presentation is less disrespectful than sitting there intently typing about it with other attendees.
The issue was not that people weren't looking at the presenter. It was that an unofficial backchannel split the attention in the room, to a point where it manifested itself physically as laughter not synchronous with the presentation. I know of very few speakers that would not have been disconcerted by that.
I would rather people leave than start a backchannel to talk about my presentation among themselves while it's still happening, yes. I would hope that they could contain themselves sitting in a chair without being online for a brief period of time.
Studies show that as we get older, we're supposed to get better at giving our attention to a specific speaker or concert or play or event, not worse. So we assume kindergarten kids can't sit still for a presentation, but we assume adults can.
From this discussion we also have to assume that if one can't attend a meeting without chatting in a bachchannel during it, one also can't attend plays, sporting events, poetry or other readings, concerts, political rallys, and other events where one assumes that the participation of the audience is relatively limited to some combination of looking and/or hearing, or perhaps even feeling if appropriate.