I am often privileged to attend presentations by highly qualified, interesting people with incredible ideas who have done amazing things. Invariably the session opens with the moderator advising the twitter feed and hashtag names for our event and encouraging us all to tweet during proceedings.
The eminent guest then proceeds to deliver a carefully crafted presentation in which he/she has invested significant time in order to communicate the key message. To get the gist of that message, - and the most out of the money I paid to attend – I need to listen to the presenter’s arguments so I can decide whether I agree or not.
But can I properly understand that context if I am busy tweeting?
Like me, you have probably attended in-house personal development courses that tell us we don’t listen enough, that we are so busy thinking of the next thing we are going to say that we don’t really hear what the other person is saying. (Okay, so maybe it’s just MY personal growth area).
Is this what is happening when we tweet during a presentation? Are we so busy planning the micro content of our social media posting that we fail to grasp the macro message of the presentation?
Or is something else going on? – Part II: “Why am I really at this event?”
