Social Reporting at Digital Inclusion and beyond

How can we make the most of a socially reported event? How can we report in ways that facilitate participation better?

The inclusion of social reporting at conferences over the last year has been a very significant breakthrough, particularly in traditional forums that have previously had closed doors and relatively limited reporting by the mainstream media. The G20 Summit was a compelling example, with a very busy Twitter stream throughout two days giving live reports from inside the Summit - with the ability to comment and ask questions about the content - and outside - with ongoing witness reports on the protests that are only now reaching the mainstream media.

So, we've got social reporting into conferences, meaning people can see the content even if they're not in London with enough money for the ticket. Web streaming is in place, when it holds up. And the audience is in place, connecting and sharing those feelings that used to go unvoiced.

So where do we take it next? What are the things that people want to achieve at conferences and what are the things we can do as social reporters to help them to be achieved? Looking forward to the Digital Inclusion conference next week, I had a think about some of these elements - all additions welcome:

Networking: this is possible on Twitter as well as the associated social networks often set up with conferences. We can encourage and facilitate more networking, especially for those people new to the social web.

Participation: As connected, engaged types we can take it for granted that we're being invited to jump in and participate but many people do not. If the structures for participation exist and we can get our hands on the link in quick time, we can point them out.

Building stuff: We're inviting people to participate in the conversation, but what about the action? Many conferences are actually about engaging people around a particular point of view and this can be irritating for those people who are already engaged. Can we help facilitate unconference-like hubs of activity in which people are responding directly to ideas being put forward and even helping to build solutions before the conference is even finished? Can we make direct connections between the policy-makers and those who are building and working on solutions on the ground who will be watching at home and who often lack experience or capacity to consider tendering?

Connecting viewpoints: how are those in power engaging with the Twitter streams? Are they? As with any opportunity to consult, people find the experience of participating without anyone obviously listening frustrating. We need some more constructive channels than just the state-comment-argue format. Again, this might be about showcasing ideas and solutions.

Learning: we take it for granted that everyone is there to learn from the speakers. This is pretty old-school. Can we encourage more teaching/learning, mentoring/menteeing at these gathering points? We can link to grassroots projects gathered through something like the Twitterlizer as case study examples for policy-makers and activists to learn from.

Making better use of the 'long tail': the vast majority of people are watchers, not participators. This has been well documented. But if everybody has an area of passion, ideas that could be developed into action, something that they would take responsibility for, are we missing out on a whole lot of action by simply having them sitting at the back not saying anything?

Accountability: political speakers are there because we voted for them. They don't just speak, they set policy. Social reporters can ensure that more voices are reaching them and encourage the use of tools that increase accountability. So we need a toolbox to refer people to.

Language: Perhaps the most important point. If people are actually going to be included like we want them to be, we have to always keep in mind the people taking their first steps online. I'm sure we will be using jargon and shorthand but wherever possible our role is to translate from one sphere to another so that people can see the opportunities, good intent and useful nuggets that (normally) lie within event the longest speech, PDF and Powerpoint (or, for the love of God let's hope Keynote) presentation.

Next Post >

Comment

You need to be a member of Digital Engagement to add comments!

Join Digital Engagement

Comment by clarewhite on April 23, 2009 at 4:13pm: Thanks everybody, all useful points.
And sorry David, of course I was creating an 'other' without thinking it through, must have seen too many political speeches when I wrote it :)
Brian, it's good to note that backchannels need to be considered and thought through as a disruptive influence in their own right. I've always thought projecting the tweets in full view while someone is speaking runs the risk of becoming disrespectful to the speaker at best.
Ian - it will be great to find out more about reporting for different languages, the translation issues apply for different cultures too. Plus, of course, as we carve out lessons on how to develop digital engagement in Britain it's really important to remember that many other countries are way ahead of us on this, many so-called developing. I always like to end this point with a link to http://globalvoicesonline.org/ :)

Comment by David Banes on April 23, 2009 at 2:33pm: Some interesting thoughts - weve twittered repeatedly from events and conferences with good feedback from all - if you are twittering then #NDIC seems to be the accepted tag - feel free to join us @abilitynet

Can I also just take a little exception to the idea that speakers at conferences are "big" people telling you what to think, as someone who speaks at many events I would say that most of what I say is my precis of what I have been told, seen and found through interaction with people with disabilities and those supporting them - as such Ive been twittering and asking the community for ideas that might go into my presentation - someone needs to collate and collect all that material and present it in their own form, that is often what presenters do

Hope you enjoy the conference and feel free to say whatever you like on twitter in my bit of a workstream - avoid the libellous !

Comment by Brian Condon on April 22, 2009 at 9:35am: Hi Clare
I agree with a lot of what you say - and the way you have thought about it is very helpful - thanks!

In particular, I like the 'Building Stuff' idea. And the need to get away from the 'Big People' on the panel telling us what to think.

I've got a lot of experience of running Community-based events - through the Access to Broadband Campaign and latterly with the Community Broadband Network - it's difficult to do but when it works (and it does!) it's awesome - and a much more positive experience than last week's Digital Britain Summit (I've written about that here: http://tinyurl.com/cmz5rf).

One thing we need to bear in mind is that the advent of live realtime feedback in events (through the web and things like Twitter) can actually feel very threatening to some speakers - and that needs to be thought about. I like it! But I remember the audience reaction at a conference in the US about 5 years ago - where I took my laptop when I was speaking and actively monitored the 'backchannel' both while speaking and in the panel session. Interesting! So while I agree that in old style events - the power balance is too much in favour of the platform participants we also need to make sure that we don't push things too far the other way.

We are also potentially adding both complexity and cost to the delivery of events. Trying to organise a realtime video feed and web participation from an event in a Village Hall or Market Town is doable - but hard - and it was even a challenge from the heart of Central London as we found out last week! (Dave Briggs did a brilliant job BTW).

I hoppe my comments are helpful.

Cheers

Brian

Comment by Ian Clifford on April 22, 2009 at 9:22am: Hi Clare
Telecentre-Europe has been social reporting events (with varying levels of staff(from 1 to 20)) since last year, and the impact is immense. The issue for us is language, but not in the sense that you meant. We need to ensure the blogs and twitters we write are in multiple languages to ensure as wide coverage as possible. Although this conference is in the UK there are many people watching worldwide(and maybe there would be many more if the social reporting were multi-lingual). Digital engagement is a worldwide challenge, and the efforts of and thinking in the UK are seen across the world as groundbreaking and decisive. It is an export that we dont value or measure. A first step will be to ensure that our social reporting is inclusive for those abroad. I look forward to meeting you next week!