Unofficial/parallel thread of communication.
Recently associated with use of Live Chat/IRC during a F2 F meeting. But there are multiple Con Text-s possible:
during a Conference Call, to "pass a note" to someone without sharing it with everyone else
- during a conference session: probably the "best" place - socializing generally within a context created by the conference, with people of similar interests, and with lots of opinions. Yet forced into a passive role.
- meta question: given such an "audience", should the session format be changed?
I've often found conferences good for doing wider thinking about work issues: sometimes things are directly inspired by the session material, other times just by the overall mission of the conference. This is a form of "private time" (Sl Ack) that gets lost if I'm in an IRC room. Like using your cellphone too much.
during a smallish "gathering of like minds" where there's lots of overlap of experience - like Clay Shirky's infamous Social Software Summit.
- again, would interuptions and "passing the mike" be more appropriate? Or is it better to let a given speaker "finish a thought"?
- university lectures: if students are helping each other track what the lecturer is talking about, that's a big win.
But does this reduce the odds of someone asking a question out loud, and maybe getting even better clarification direct from the source?
- big business meetings, where people apparently don't need to be fully engaged at all times
- why are so many people in the meeting? What the heck is the agenda? Should this meeting be happening at all?
- small meetings - I can't see it working there.
<b>Liz Lawley on the Ny Times article</b> --Bill Seitz, 2003/07/28 04:24 GMT<br> which is here