You can lead a horse to water…
I listened with interest to an interview with Steve Jones who co-founded the Association of Internet Researchers (AoiR). Towards the end of the interview he was talking about features the AoIR6 conference had that others should adopt. I think he was absolutely right about the value of face to face features like lengthy coffee breaks with coffee right there in the hallways to encourage informal discussion but I think he over-sold the benefits of accompanying the conference with various Internet communications options like the conference wiki and the IRC channels that were available. I have to note that both features were woefully under-used by participants. And if you can’t get a bunch of Internet researchers to use Internet tools to complement face to face interaction despite fairly frequent prompting then I have to question their utility in any but the most geeky of settings (though I gather some Internet technology gatherings have used ‘back channel chat’ successfully).
My experience as a virtual communities consultant has shown me time and time again that people will not invest the time and energy to try new forms of interaction unless there is a strong incentive to do so. This may also explain why the AoIR still relies on email mailing lists for communication when there are any number of sophisticated messageboard systems which would do a better job of structuring communication (eg Caucus, which is open source or WebCrossing). I’m afraid that no matter what the benefits of moving to one of these platforms there would be a sufficient number of people who would hang back that would make the move impossible. (Also, I would not suggest making such a move unless most current and likely members of AoIR had broadband Internet connections, as email is more suitable for narrowband users).
October 14th, 2005 at 3:40 pm
Folks at a conference will only actively use a wiki if it is a working group style event. It was quite useful for sharing links at the Online Deliberative Dialogue Consortium event in June:
http://www.dowire.org/wiki/ODDC_Links
In July, the International Symposium on Local E-Democracy, we focused on creating a live chat space for webcast listeners to ask questions (some in the audience tuned in as well). During the Q and A we put the chat up on the screen for all to see and ask the panel moderator to make sure to pick out questions to ask from the screen. This worked. One problem was that part way through freenode decided that our HTML-based chat client was some sort of attack from one server and dumped the half of chatter who had never heard of IRC much less used an IRC client.
See:
http://www.dowire.org/wiki/Symposium_webcast
http://www.dowire.org/wiki/Symposium_chat - Go into the web-based chat, it works as long as you only have a few folks using it
Finally, the best time to use technology is before a conference to make it easier for people to introduce themselves to each other. This can shorten the time it takes for the in-person conference uplifting “hum” to take hold.
Steven Clift
October 15th, 2005 at 11:10 pm
Had the WiFi allowwed more than five nodes per portal there might have been more use. It’s hard to talk when the system won’t allow you access.
March 20th, 2006 at 7:33 pm
I agree that usage in this context has many variables and obstacles - especially when it’s an ad-hoc setup - it seems that in these cases, only when Hotels adopt the infrstructure in the same vein they do phones and faxes will we see more seamless and increased usage.
Regarding the interview on the “TechVenue Business Technology Events, Networking, & News” Blog & Podcast - I found it to be really unique and useful. It’s on iTunes as well.