Crowd diverts the attention in a conference using Tweets
Channel: Petr Beránek
Date: 19/11/2009

Audience comments appear real-time in a TwitterBoard behind presenter, commenting on her way too fast presentation speed at Web 2.0 Conference. The presenter actually reads the entire presentation from prepared files, the content is great, but delivery really furious. Soon the auditorium turns attention to the TwitterBoard behind presenter and while she doesn't know what's happening, flow of comments floods the scene. This triggered a massive inflow of more and more comments. I felt really sorry for the presenter - as I said content was great, slides OK, only delivery poor. This is a great example of the power of Crowds and UGC and how public has impact on things in real time. They took the TwitterBoard down during the presentation and put it back again instead of notifying her what's wrong. Next day they announced Twitter censorship "not everyone's tweets will appear". Shot in Web 2.0 Expo in New York, taking place 16th to 19th November 2009. I'm putting it here just to document what can happen on a combination of poor presentation skills (she is bright and very intelligent, but this wouldn't work under any circumstances), poorly designed presentation setup (twitterboard behind speaker - I personally think the board should be off during the speech, back on after or during discussion) and poorly managed situation (not notifying the presenter what's wrong).