That stream of tweets at conferences…

A few weeks ago, I wrote the That One Tweet post explaining how one tweet managed to puncture my balloon of happy and question if my work is appreciated. All of this is caused the gremlin of self-doubt living in all of us and it was mostly a reminder to tell it to mind its own business.

Currently writing event reports, I think it would be terrible of me not to mention the other side of this. I want to take this opportunity to thank deeply and thoroughly people who use twitter to report, comment and encourage presenters and organisers of events. You rock, so here’s a hedgehog wizard to tell you as much:

I was very humbled and lucky to be at a few events in the last weeks where the audience used Twitter not only to post selfies and tell the world where they are, but also to report and keep a running commentary on talks. Others delivered beyond expectation by doing sketchnotes and posting those. I am humbled by and jealous of your creativity and dedication. Having good Twitter feedback has numerous effects that inflate my happy balloon:

• It is superbly rewarding to see people deeply care about what you do.
• It is insightful to see the tidbits of information people extract from your talks and what they considered quote-worthy. Yes, that can also be scary, but is a good reminder to explain some bits in better details next time
• It makes my professional life so much easier as I can collect feedback and show it to my managers and outreach departments.
• It allows me to show people that a personal touch and a presenter showing his or her views is much more beneficial to a company than a very polished slide deck people have to present
• It shows me that I reach people with what I do. Feedback is scarce, and whilst immediate feedback tends to be highly polarised I have something to ponder
• It gives me a fuzzy feeling when people find the need to align themselves with an event and tell the world how much of a good time they have. We have no lack of soulless events that people go to because they get a random ticket or to drop off as many business cards as they can. It feels great to see attendees go all in and praise an event for being different.
• ROI of events is tough to measure. By being able to quote tweets, show people’s blog posts and photos I have ammunition to show people why my time there and our money in the support pot of events is worth it.

So, here’s to the people who give feedback on talks and events on Twitter. You make me happy like this puppy:

Keep up the great work, you can be sure that it is very appreciated by presenters and conference organisers alike