However, having just attended the 140 | The Twitter Conference I have a somewhat evolved perspective. I’ve never been at a conference where literally the vast majority of the audience was not only not looking at the speaker but also furiously typing or seemingly paying attention to their laptop and mobile device screens.

What I quickly found though was how powerful it was to read the #140tc (twitter hash tag) stream of what participants were “tweeting.” All of sudden I got the benefit of insight into the collective wisdom, thoughts, emotions and reactions of the whole audience of 300+ people – not just the 1 or 2 “experts.”

A couple of other benefits of this, on-the-surface-otherwise-rude, phenomenon:
- panelists could respond to real-time attendee thoughts or questions
- if panels were straying or uninteresting, there was a stream of very interesting input to pay attention to
- people who were not in attendance could actually participant by reading the stream or asking those in the room for clarification or even to ask questions of panelists
- created social connection – I met 1/2 dozen people based on their “tweets” at the conference that I wouldn’t have at a more traditional conference

I’m summarizing some of my other learnings in a series of blog posts “What I Learned at 140 | The Twitter Conference” http://www.smokejumping.wordpress.com

Brent (@smokejumper)

Plus, a lot of people are live blogging the talk – so they kind of need their laptops out.

As for the Twitter thing – I see what you’re saying – but this is the age of multi-tasking And I can concentrate and type at the same time.

As a speaker myself, I don’t mind the laptops.