Twitter (AIM reporting part 2)

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Even if I have an account myself and I've read a dozen articles on the success of this company, I never really understood what it should be good for. Today is the first time I'm starting to understand where Twitter works great. And that is this:

http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23aim09

While the well-intended reporting from IJBC couldn't keep up with the events happening, it's purely logical that "decentralized" news reporting solves the problem: Since Twitter manages to gather everybody's Tweets (except Lars', as it seems), you can follow things happening at AIM perfectly. Especially now that Per's gotten beyond the "lunch break"-level.

Monica also reminded me of the AIM pictures page, that updates daily. (But please don't bother about today's pictures - somebody was apparently obsessed with documenting every single name sign in the board.)

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9 Comments

I've been using Twitter since early 2007...well ahead of the times!

I used Twitter to disseminate information at AIM in 2007 and last year to several CISVers on Twitter. Some of the tweets also tell great stories about the parties I attended too ;-)

It's much easier to update someone with 140 letters than it is to write an entire blog post. This is the primary benefit of tweeting vs. blogging. Who knows...it might be of use in the future!

Maybe next year's AIM could have a Reporting Team with a couple communication arms: Twitter, blogging, etc. They could tell us about all the things going on at the meetings (because most CISVers aren't at AIM).

Katie--that's an awesome idea. Most AIMs have two or three people that publish the daily AIM news for participants at the meeting. I think it would be great to have those same people (or others) do the same for those of us watching from home!

I'm glad that we are starting to embrace these ideas. I know that there were at least seven people attempting to watch the live broadcast of the IJR elections yesterday before the feed went down. The demand is there, and it might be a good thing, especially considering that many people (in the USA at least) wonder why our NA is spending so much money for something that is fairly foreign to them. This would be a great way to show people what exactly is going on.

updating my comment in the last thread...
maybe the plenary should have a twitter account about whats happening:)
or have some people who twit (or whatever the verb is) like a live comment just so people outside can also follow whats happening

A lot could have been drawn from this year's IJBC Twitter and broadcasting and blogging. The blog might not have been as much of a two-way communication as we wished it to be, but it was a good update on specifics. The JBPedia page was more into the sessions and the depth of the content (if you are into that and not into general idea of what happened).

Though the point I'd like to make is on the Twitter account. It was brief, simple, always up to date and exciting to read with pics and vids.

And the live broadcast was a great plus! I can't even imagine how much this could turn into something amazing if from now it gets developed for next year's IJBC/AIM... Imagine being able to attend IJBC from the comfort of your own screen...or at least just see what's happening live...

These are one of many things that seniors can learn from us juniors about :)

The ingenious part of the Twitter thing, I thought, was that it wasn't centrally organized. It was "open-source" or "crowd-source", highly subjective, but reading all the Tweets you could see the big picture.

Some points of view:

Dream: people not at AIM and IJBC would like to know at least what happens (also because are expensive events). They would prefer to be active part of it and eventually have live updates.

Fact: to achieve the above you need some people reporting 24/7, but doing the reporter is boring, or at least I assume most people at the site would like to participate actively to IJBC and AIM rather than just reporting (also because are expensive events). Also because every good reporter is also an editor, which takes time and thoughts.

Partial Solution: the unorganized reporting method of twitter, splits the responsibility but is hard to motivate each person "to twit". At least I wouldn't be very motivated.

Congrats: to the individual updating the people back home from aim09.

I wouldn't mind giving some pointers to the people organizing the AIM next year. I think Twitter is ideal to distribute the responsibility, and to collect loads of data by tagging OR increase participation by allowing people who are not physically there to participate, ask questions and inform.

I used to be active in CISV between '99 and '03, and would love to help out pointing you to good services which help to make the event a distributed experience. I often organize conferences and am very involved in new media developments. Please drop me a line if you feel like doing so:)

Thanks, Sam, the AIM team might get in contact with you! Cheers from Hamburg!

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This page contains a single entry by Nick published on August 5, 2009 7:25 PM.

AIM reporting... was the previous entry in this blog.

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