@Ellie — Thanks for jumping in and sharing the background. I figured it had live streaming and it was a way to involve the people not at the conference. I would think that if they can hear the speaker, they can hear audience ask questions when given a microphone (I’ve seen this).

I’m all for tech communications as it ensures I miss nothing and I feel like I am on equal ground. I’m also realistic and know the importance of human and face-to-face contact.

Disclaimer: I’m one of the event organizers

Thanks for posting and opening up the conversation. I agree there are pros and cons to this method, the pro being that you can moderate questions better, and the con being the impersonal touch and inability of some to actually send in their questions. (What I also like about this method is that it opens up the discussion beyond the conference walls – we were live streaming the event and our live viewers were also able to send in their questions.)

I sent a similar note to Michael explaining our reasons for choosing this method and our hope to open up questions to the live audience in a more effective way next year.

Would love to hear what you all think – what you’ve found to be most effective in taking questions in a large conference setting like this.

Thanks,
Ellie

You bring up an interesting point. I was at the conference as well and I thought the idea of asking questions through Twitter was interesting but it is certainly more controlled. Your post made me think of something else however, what would happen if an individual were blind? I don’t know if Twitter is programmed to accommodate blind individuals but if not, that would be a problem. What are your thoughts?

Jess

I like the idea of using Twitter or IM to send a message to a conference speaker, but not everyone at a conference has a laptop or other device to send a message.

Your work around sounds like a good solution for managing questions, allowing the personal interaction with the speaker.

With the addition of some type of accommodation for those conference attendees who don’t have a device for messaging, I think it would work well. Good idea!