Can the Real Time Web Let Me Be in Two Places at the Same Time?

Yesterday, the Real Time Web Summit hosted by Read/Write Web took place in Mountain View, CA.  What's the Real Time Web?  Here's a good basic definition from the introductory post on the Read Write Web Blog:

Real-time information delivery is fast emerging as one of the most important elements of our online experience. No more waiting for the Pony Express to deliver a parcel cross-country, no more waiting for web services to communicate from one polling instance to another. This is information being available to you at nearly the moment it's produced, whether you're watching for it or not.

My colleague, Marshall Kirkpatrick, who works with Read/Write Web, had invited me to participate, but I was at another convening about network strategy and evaluation scheduled at the same time.

With Real Time Web, you could possibly be in two places at the same time, maybe not physically. I could have sat in the convening on network strategy and evaluation, but also have dipped into Real Time Web Summit live stream.  There are trade-offs.  This multitasking would have robbed me of deep learning of anything about either topic.  That's why I decided not to follow RTWS in, well real time.

There is value in "almost real time." that is circling back to the real time information shortly after the event to pick out some ideas to chew on. 

Reading the "ant trails" of information coming from a conference or event when you're not actually in th eroom doesn't provide you with the optimal learning experience.  It's partly because you can't make the face-to-face connection and that deeper understanding you'd have from being the room and getting the full context.   It's a mediated experience.

Also, coming back to ant trails if you were not participating in real time can be really overwhelming to make meaning of the information (unless you are already an expert on the topic.)  Of course, I could save a huge amount of time and information overload and just order Read/Write Web's Report on Real Time Web, print a hard copy, and read it.

I probably shouldn't get too much further in this blog post without asking myself why I'm interested in this topic at all and raise a skeptic question:

• Does Real Time Web have any value or benefit to nonprofits?

I'm not sure why this topic caught my attention. Yes, there is a delicious list of tools to explore which include some of my favorite types of tools - aggregation, analytics, monitoring, collaboration, blogging, microblogging, and more!  

My interest just isn't in the tools.  I think there are some definite social implications that interest me:

• Speed and quality of information
• Constant stream of information - where do get a chance to reflect?  Or does that happen in real time?
• How does having a shorter time for reflection change learning?
• How does this change our brains and the way we process information or even learn?  Is it good or bad for humans?
• It adds more choices, how do we filter, prioritize, etc.
• How do we sift through this information effectively to get what need for learning, action, content creation, etc?
• How does this change our connectedness on online social networks?
• What are the implications for security and privacy?

I don't think these are necessarily evil.  What interests me is if this is the next evolution of the social web - what is the culture shift that needs to happen within a nonprofit to embrace it?  Of course, I want to also know what the value or benefit is to nonprofits?   Real Time Web for nonprofits is early adopter land right now .. just saying.

Rob Cottingham, one of my favorite stand up comics, cartoon artists, and social media/nonprofit gurus, got to attend the Real Time Web Summit.   He "cartoon blogged" the event.   Here's some links:  

RTWS Vendor Fair

The Real Time Web Can Wait

Mortified In Real Time

Comments

[Joitske hulsebosch]

Hi beth, I have the same experience with partial participation. You get a sphere impression, but don't get much out of it. That's why I don't like twitter streams from events where I'm not participating. I wonder though whether it makes sense to real multi-taskers?

[Beth]

What I wonder is how we can improve the quality of the real-time information so it does make sense? 

[Beth]

reposting Joitske excellent comments here so I don't loose it in my email box

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Joitske Hulsebosch


hi, yes, that's puzzling me too. We tried to do a twitter report by having people answer the question: what idea or insight or question do you take away from your workshop session? For the twitterers this was weird, they are used to 'free twittering'. For the non-twitterers it took a lot of persuasion to take them to the twitter table that we set up (some said: yes, I can answer that question, but NO, I don't want to twitter :). I have the impression it doesn't make a lot of sense to them.

If you'd do that AND have someone pull out the interesting things, maybe that could work?

cheers, Joitske

ps did you hear we have a we are media session here with a group of nonprofit consultants in Amsterdam? Petra Kroon is one of the organisers and she invited me!

[Robin Mohr]

I think the benefit of real time web tools is not for people who need to be at two conferences at once, but to enrich the experience for people who couldn't get to even one conference or meeting.

For my nonprofit, the costs of travel (in dollars and in environmental impact) are becoming more of an obstacle for our members, who have traditionally participated in a rich series of in-person meetings across the state of California.

The first step away from needing to be in the same room was the conference call, but people complained that 1)it lacked the ability to make sure people were looking at the same documents, 2)it is hard to interact with more than a handful of people on the phone, and 3) there wasn't enough personal connection. They couldn't see each other's faces, read their body language, interact in the margins (you can't whisper your funny side comment to the person sitting next to you on a conference call) or informally network with people before and after the working sessions (if you're not in the same room, you don't casually run into people you wanted to talk to).

Now the webinar format is conquering the problem of getting everyone the same presentation slides or documents to look at. But it's still largely one way communication, and still difficult for more than a few people to have any interaction.

I think that the backchannel and real time web tools will fill those gaps. For example, quickly IMing your snarky comments to a friend or tweeting something you think is valuable to the group but not worth interrupting the speaker for. The more of the personal interaction we can create for people who are not physically in the same room, the more benefit they will get out of alternative/electronic meeting formats.

The adoption curve will take time but the impetus is coming from several directions. As people get more used to the tools, they will be better able to use them, and as the technology improves, based on actual usage, the tools will become inherently more useful. As more people prefer not to or can not travel, they will feel like they have to accept alternative meeting formats, and as the tools improve, electronic meetings will get more like in-person meetings and that will make people like them more.

[Martin Kelley]

For me, the eye-opening moment was planning a conference with Robin and one other person. The three of us knew each other pretty well and had all met one one-on-one but had never all three been in the same room together. A month to go we scheduled a conference call.

I was on Skype on the East Coast calling Robin on her Bay Area land line and our co-leader Wess on his cellphone in Los Angeles. But the amazing part is when we opened up a Google Doc we shared and started cutting and pasting agenda items we were talking about. Someone made a reference to a video, found it on Youtube and sent it to the other two by Twitter. We also had a secondary wiki going and some backchannel IM (if there were any snarky comments they must have been between Wess and Robin!).

This is qualitatively different from the two-places-at-once scenario because we were using real-time web tools to be *more* present with one another. Our attention was more focused on the work at hand.

I'm more skeptical about the live tweeting phenomenon. There's so much useless noise. Last week a nonprofit I follow used it for a press conference and the flood of tweets was useless trivia. So what that the politician you invited actually showed up in the room? That he actually walked to the podium? That he actually started talking? That he ticked through your talking points? These are all things we knew would happen when you announced the press conference. What would have been useful were links to background issues, a five-things-you-do list, and a five minute wrap-up video released within an hour of the event's end. They could have done real time buzz: if they had posted an update every half hour w/one selected highlight and a link to a live Ustream.tv link I probably would have checked it out. The difference is that I would have chosen to have my workday interrupted by extra posts. In the online economy, attention is the currency and any unusual activity feels like a kind of mugging.