Live, On Stage, a Twitterstream - 140conf

In case you missed The 140 Character Conference in New York City (140conf), this is a glimpse of what you missed:

The Twitterstream came alive, personified, on a stage.

Jeff Pulver did a phenomenal job bringing together a broad and pretty diverse group of Twitter Characters.

The conference was run like a Twitterstream. Very tight time limits - 10-15 minute individual presentations and 20 minute panels - forcing everyone to tighten their points, squeeze out the superfluous, distill down to the salient points.

Not every moderator or panelist (or audience member) was able to shake off their traditional (long-winded) communication styles and get that naked that quickly, but some in particular who nailed it and were standouts were

Laura Fitton @pistachio
Ann Curry @anncurry
Chris Brogan @cbrogan
Liz Strauss @lizstrauss
Jeremy Epstein @jer979
Sharon Glassman @sharonglassman

and especially Christopher R. Weingarten @1000TimesYes and Jessica Gottlieb @jessicagottlieb.

If you were coming to Twitter to learn the basics of Twitter, this wasn't the place. This was next level discourse and rather than learning the nuts and bolts, it was learning through the exposure to different experiences and perspectives, even to those that the crowd boo'd.

Christopher Weingarten said this incredibly well, probably with the F-bomb insterspersed liberally, so this is a very clean summary of what I got out of one of his points:

It is NOT a good thing to just follow what and who you know and like. The great thing about Twitter is the potential for discovery, the random encountering of things that are not familiar, that are not within your comfort zone.

So this conference was a Twitterstream of discovery personified. The second day is still underway. I'm looking forward to all of it.

How have you felt about the conference if you're at it, listening in or following the #140conf stream?

Comments

[Jeremy]

Great analysis of the day and, of course, thank you for the shout-out. That's some good company.

[Jessica Gottlieb]

I am so far beyond flattered.

Christopher R. Weingarten is who I want to be, should I ever grow up. And really... my gawd, short list and I'm so insanely flattered you will never know.

[Howard Greenstein]

You certainly rocked the day. It was great to have you there.