Forgive the possibly offensive title of this post. I’ll explain. I attended the first day of the Mesh 2008 conference today here in Toronto. This is a brand new conference for me, although it’s now in its third year. Although I have online and offline relationships of varying degrees with perhaps a dozen people who were attending, I still found the “networking” to be incredibly stressful. In fact, at lunch, I bailed completely and went off to eat on my own, despite the fact that there was a free catered lunch available at the MaRS Centre, the conference venue. It felt too much like the first day of high school in the school cafeteria for me. So you’ll know where I’m coming from when I talk about one of the sessions I attended.
CBC Radio’s Nora Young hosts a radio program called Spark! and her session was being taped for later broadcast as a show. She spoke with Microsoft researcher Bill Buxton on the subject “Does Location Matter?” which I thought would be about the benefits of telecommuting. It turned out to be mostly about the advances in video conferencing software and how to use it to work and socialize virtually with our colleagues and friends. It was fascinating stuff, but I was hoping the conversation would be broader.
We interact in a variety of ways with others online, but it’s mostly in the course of doing several other things at the same time. I can post a Twitter message, comment on a blog, and carry on an IM conversation all at the same time, possibly interacting with three different people, while at the same time writing in Microsoft Word or working with an image in Photoshop. I call these “micro-interactions” because they usually involve very little time, and are usually quite focussed on a particular subject or question. I’m reacting to a specific thing the other person has posted, for instance. These interactions have a defined purpose and they require little etiquette because online, interruptions can be dealt with later.
I’m finding more and more, though, that when I meet some of these same people offline, I’m finding the interactions more difficult. The idea of giving or getting “full attention” seems a bit overwhelming. I often fear that in offline situations, we won’t have enough conversation to keep things running smoothly. I also dread the awkwardness of introductions and departures, and knowing how long to just “hang around.” These are all non-issues with people I’ve met and known offline, because there is established etiquette. But I find that the more we interact online, the more awkward we get when we can’t interact the same way in the physical world. Among even good friends whom I’ve met online, our face-to-face interactions can sometimes feel awkward. “Just hanging out” can be difficult without some issue or topic to focus our energies toward.
Paul Collins tells a funny but illuminating story in his book Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism. He describes a speaking engagement at Microsoft in which the heads of more than half the audience are down over their laptops, a scene familiar to many conference speakers nowadays. When he asks what’s going on, his host tells him the audience members are watching the streaming video broadcast of the very talk they’re attending. It’s joked that many web geeks are probably mildly autistic, and that their legendary social awkwardness may actually be symptomatic of Asperger’s Syndrome, but it’s not really a joke.
The incidence of autism in general is rising rapidly; some statistics say it now affects one in 100 births. It’s interesting to me that the number is rising just as more and more of our social interactions are moving online. If I’m finding my own feelings and confidence around social interactions changing, I wonder how it will be for the generation of children who are growing up with the sort of “micro-interactions” I’ve described earlier?
Now all of this could just be unique to me. Maybe I’m just having a bad day socially. But I’m glad that it forced me to think about some of these issues. I’m very curious to see what others think about this. Feel free to comment below, or should you see me wandering around at Mesh tomorrow, by all means stop me. At least we’ll have a defined topic to discuss. 
Tagged as:
friendship,
interaction,
mesh08,
socialmedia
Tonight, I attended CaseCamp for the first time. Inspired by the original BarCamp “unconference,” CaseCamp is a marketing event where people present case studies and lessons learned, and the crowd can comment and ask questions. Pioneered right here in Toronto in 2006 by Eli Singer, the event is now in its seventh iteration, and has been wildly successful. Perhaps it’s become a victim of its own success.
Before I continue, I want to recognize all the hard work done by Eli and his group of volunteers and sponsors. But now that I’ve made that disclaimer, I’d have to say that I came away slightly disappointed this evening. Part of it is my own fault. Today was a very long day for me. I was up at 6:00am to travel to a financial services conference being held in the far northeast of the city. My journey by transit was an hour each way. I was only able to attend half the day because I had to get back to my office for a 90-minute conference call with a “social media platform” (ie. blog software) vendor, whose sales representative seemed incredibly unprepared, not to mention tacitly unconvinced by the product he was selling. So as I headed over to Circa night club, I was already feeling pretty exhausted. Nevertheless, navigating a crowd of close to 500 people in a night club setting where the music was turned way up was not conducive to any kind of networking for me. Call me old and crotchety, I don’t care.
The actual case studies were enjoyable, and I took some notes that I think will be useful. But the large setting (with haphazardly arranged plastic patio chairs) made it difficult to find a seat. And the size of the crowd made it difficult to hear all the questions. Overall, I’d divide my complaint into two:
- The venue was unsuitable: A night club might seem like a “cool” place to hold a business function, but not if the music drowns out attempts at conversation. As well, their inexperience putting on “conference” type events showed, with poorly-arranged seating.
- There were simply too many people: Close to 500 people is unmanageable for this type of event. Even had I been a bit less tired, I still don’t think I could have managed to introduce myself to many people in a crowd of that size. I recognized about a dozen names on the wiki signup page, and thought I’d have no trouble finding some people I knew. I was wrong.
I was hoping that CaseCamp would be similar to another “unconference” event that I attend as often as I can, Third Tuesday. Though more narrowly focused on public relations practitioners, the events (at least in Toronto) are held at a pub with a function room. The volume of music is much lower, the vibe is more laid back, and you actually sit around tables to listen to speakers. In this way, you can introduce yourself to the people around you first, and continue the conversations there afterward. Most importantly, the number of people hasn’t (so far) exceeded 100. I believe that this is a key issue. While online social networks can scale significantly, in the real world this isn’t possible. Groups larger than 100-150 become difficult to navigate. I certainly felt that way tonight.
What I’d like to see for the next CaseCamp is a “soft” cap of 150 attendees. After that, another group should be created and another venue found for the next 150. In this way, there is value for everyone. If that means featuring different cases at each, then so be it. Presenters could be rotated for the next event if necessary. As well, this makes finding venues a bit easier and certainly less expensive.
Part of tonight’s CaseCamp schedule was the afterparty, in which 5 DJs would spin tunes for the campers to dance to after all the case studies had been presented. People were invited to join from a few other events taking place tonight, such as StartupCamp and CopyCamp. I’m glad that the organizers extended the invitation to these others, and I’m sure they’re leveraging the very expensive rental of Circa night club, but honestly, the last thing I want to do at 9:00pm on a Tuesday night is dance, especially after a 15-hour day.
In conclusion, I think the exploding popularity of the event has even caught the organizers by surprise, and I’m sure that some of these thoughts might be crossing their minds as well. I very much enjoy the concept of CaseCamp and will look forward to seeing what the next one looks like. For any of you who were there tonight, first of all, sorry we didn’t get to talk! Secondly, what are some of your impressions of the evening?
Tagged as:
casecamp
Kevin Kelly is at it again. And all I can do is link.
Borrowing some ideas from Chris Anderson’s Long Tail concept, Kevin postulates that to make a decent living, an independent creator (musician, artist, writer, whatever) need only amass a thousand “true fans,” defined as people who will buy whatever the maker creates. The challenge, says Kelly, is that the artist has to maintain direct contact with all of these people or they will stop feeling “connected” to you. The good news is that the web has many tools (blogs, RSS feeds, podcasts) that allow creators to maintain direct connections with their fans.
It’s a compelling argument, and the discussion unfolding in the comments is enlightening, with people jumping in with examples of successes and failures. Go over and have a look. Then come back, if you’re a True Fan of mine!
Tagged as:
longtail,
Marketing
I’ve always been a big supporter of the BarCamp concept (a free self-organizing “unconference” where everyone is expected to contribute or participate), although the original BarCamps are way too technical for me to understand, never mind contribute. So I was happy to find out that CaseCamp Toronto is happening again on April 29th. CaseCamp is a marketing version of BarCamp, with people presenting case studies, and because there’s a big crossover with my favoured tribe of web nerds, there’s usually a heavy dose of social media wonkery. For some reason, these only appear to happen in Canada. My only disappointment is that it’s happening at the exact same time as two other potentially interesting events: StartupCamp 2 and Raindance’s free “99 Minute Screenwriting School.” If anyone makes it to either of those two, would you mind reporting back? And if you’re interested in CaseCamp, sign up soon. There are almost 100 people coming already!
Tagged as:
barcamp,
casecamp,
entrepreneurship,
Marketing,
publicrelations,
raindance,
screenwriting,
startupcamp
Ok, I’ve been back from SXSW since yesterday afternoon, but I’m not quite ready to do the full writeup just yet. In fact, I’m extremely distracted right now. At Jane McGonigal’s amazing keynote last Tuesday, she pointed to a new ARG (alternate reality game) that she’d been working on for the upcoming Beijing Olympics. I’m a HUGE Olympics junkie and the trailer she showed just knocked my socks off. So now, I’m immersed in the mystery of The Lost Ring. This isn’t the sort of thing one person can figure out on their own, so if you decide to try to figure it out, jump into the comments here and let’s join forces.
P.S. One of my favourite things about the game so far is the extensive use of Esperanto, the “world language” that hardly anyone speaks. It’s tied into the hopeless optimism of the Olympic movement, and that gets me all choked up, but it’s also supremely geeky.
Tagged as:
esperanto,
games,
gaming,
olympics,
Sports
