140 Characters Conference: Twitter Is Power
Yesterday I attended the 140 Characters Conference that had for task to explore the state of now (i.e. the real time web) and I really enjoyed it. With more than 50 speakers gathered thanks to Jeff Keni Pulver , creator of #140conf, the conference dealt with all sorts of issue: communication, racism, crime, education, democracy, culture, marketing, branding, etc. You can have a look at the whole program here. What really amazed me what the diversity of the different stakeholders and how they all admit Twitter has changed things in their industry.
The speakers and attendees agreed on several points:
- Twitter has transformed the way we communicate, receive/get the news and to some extent interact with people.
- Any barriers that prevents people from using the medium should be destroyed (e.g. 30% of universities in the UK block access to it)
- Twitter might not be around in 5 years time (who knows?)
- The medium (micro blogging) should be detached from Twitter: if the company stops now, what would happen?
There are two things that struck me at the event:
Social media has a newspeak, and hearing it during a whole day might be a bit annoying. Of course I agree on the fact you have to “Listen”, “engage the conversation”, “create a community”, “humanize your brand”, “be honest and transparent”; but honestly I feel it is such a common place now. Personally I want something different; I want to hear new views on things, different angles. Which brings me to my second point.
Andrew Keen, the author of the Cult of the Amateur, just brought that to the event. He took a stance on two things: the first one being that he criticized the fact that Twitter helps us to be more human because it makes it easier to communicate with people. I think he was right, especially when James Poulter, Digital Strategist for Ogilvy PR, as asked everyone turn back and shake the hands of the people behind them. It just makes me realize it is a bit weird to talk about being social all the time and not talk to people around us. The second point was he insisted on the power that people can get from Twitter: of course it is soft power, but when you realize that 90% of the tweets come from less than 10% of the users and that among them there are lots of RT from big names, basically you end up with a few people concentrating a huge communication power on their hands. So what happens if they go rogue? Better not to know.
To Get more information on the conference you can have a look at the following articles or read #140Conf
#140con: On racism and Twitter
#140con: The rules of Twitter and things that tweet
#140con: Police test Twitter strategy
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