Live Tweeting Interrupts Listening

At Edelman’s Third Annual New Media Academic Summit, I spent the first day listening and taking notes, and I spent the second day live tweeting. Some of my colleagues and students expressed interest in following the twitter coverage, and I wanted to deliver insight to people who did not attend. I also wanted to see what it was like to live tweet an event to help me decide whether to have my large lecture class live tweet during some of my class sessions.

I found that I missed information by live tweeting. Thankfully, I could watch the second day sessions to see what I missed.

Why was Listening Interrupted?

While listening to the speakers, I

1. followed other conference attendees’ live tweets on our conference hashtag

2. responded to other attendees’ live tweets

3. tweeted and proofed my tweets

4. engaged in discussion with non-conference attendees who commented on my tweets

It is no wonder that I did not hear everything the speakers said. Les Potter identified someone with similar problems at an exclusive session of the IABC conference. His discussion of this detached live tweeter is worth reading.

Is Live Tweeting Bad Manners?

I also felt uncomfortable looking at my computer screen while speakers were talking. I think that talking to someone who is not looking at you can be difficult, and I felt like it was bad manners to be looking at my computer screen. Perhaps it would not have been so bad if I had sat in the back of the room, but I generally find this area to be noisy, making it difficult to listen to the speakers. I prefer to sit toward the front. In a comment to Les Potter’s post, Robert Holland referred to live tweeting as an “obnoxious distraction.” His comment resonated with my experience.

I like the idea of being able to discuss what speakers are saying via Twitter; I did not like doing it while our speakers were giving presentations.

I think it would be great for meeting planners to designate staff members to live tweet a conference for those not able to attend. This way, conference attendees would not even need to consider live tweeting so that others could follow the conference from a distance. Discussion via Twitter could be appropriate during designated break times.

I don’t plan to live tweet again. Instead, I will be fully present and listen. I can post updates to twitter during a break and write a substantive blog post at night.

What Do You Think About Live Tweeting?

Conference Notes

Videos from conference sessions

Slides from Richard Edelman’s presentation

Bill Sledzik’s discussion of the conference

Karen Miller Russell’s discussions of Richard Edelman’s address, a panel from the first day, and a panel from the second day.

Christine Smith’s discussion of the conference

Twitter coverage

Thank you, Edelman, for a wonderful conference! The sessions were engaging, and it was a treat getting to spend time with the participants.

Message Design Recommendations Based on Risk Communication Research

(Cross-posted to PR Profs and PR Open Mic)

The swine flu outbreak is an opportunity to discuss basic principles of risk communication. Risk communication includes encouraging people to take preventive measures in the face of risk (anything from evacuating before a flood to taking daily vitamins) and helping people cope with risks, such as terrorism. Below are guidelines for risk communication.

1. Think through your word choice. Does the situation warrant the label of “pandemic,” or would “outbreak” be appropriate? You don’t want to scare people unnecessarily or have the opposite problem of leaving people unprepared.

2. Look for aspects of the risk to highlight, depending on whether you want to heighten or ease the sense of risk.
If you want to increase public concern about global warming, your message strategy would differ from what you would do if you were developing message points about the swine flu outbreak. Based on Peter Sandman’s research, people feel more comfortable with risks that have the following features:

• People choose their chances of exposure to the risk (e.g., whether to travel to Mexico).
• The risk is naturally created, rather than resulting from human actions.
• The risk is easy to detect, such as an illness that has identifiable symptoms.
• The problem can be eliminated.

3. Acknowledge uncertainty when speculating. For credibility, risk communicators needs to be accurate in their communication, which usually involves using tentative statements. Also, for situations like the swine flu outbreak, Peter Sandman shared the following sound bite with reporters: “Everyone needs to learn how to say, ‘This could be bad, and it’s a good reason to take precautions and prepare’ and ‘This could fizzle out.’ They need to simultaneously say both statements.”

4. Give people something to do to lower their risk. However minimal it might be, give people something to do to reduce their risk (see here and here for examples). When the Washington, D.C., snipers were in my area in 2002, I followed police recommendations featured in The Washington Post to walk briskly in a zig zag pattern. Even though I felt silly walking zig zag, I felt like I had some measure of control in reducing my risk. Also note that people tend to feel more comfortable with risk when they choose to expose themselves to it. Even providing the threat level for air travel gives people some amount of choice in deciding whether the risk is worth the trip. For more information about the importance of this guideline, see Kim Witte’s extended parallel process model.

5. Give frequent updates and repeat core messages through various forms of media. An example of this is CDC’s Twitter account (hat tip to the In Case of Emergency blog). Here is a quote from a communication expert I interviewed for my dissertation: “Nowadays, you have to over-communicate… The information doesn’t filter. We have nine or 10 ways of communicating.”

6. Consider cultural barriers. At the University of Oregon Conference on HIV/AIDS in Africa, Pauline Peters, a lecturer at Harvard University, discussed cultural considerations for HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns in Malawi. Simply telling people to wear condoms to protect themselves would not work well in this environment. Many people there viewed condoms as poisonous and associated condoms with illicit sex. A best practice in developing messages is to partner with representatives of the community to determine message design and delivery.

Interested in teaching a risk communication class?
Feel free to use my course schedule for graduate students as a resource, which includes a list of journal articles and other resources. We are reading two books for the class, which I strongly recommend:

• “Effective Risk Communication: A Message-Centered Approach,” by Timothy L. Sellnow, Robert R. Ulmer, Matthew W. Seeger, and Robert S. Little
• “Trust Us, We’re Experts! How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles With Your Future,” by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber.

I reviewed many risk communication books before selecting these two, and I also paid attention to book cost when making these selections. These books as a combination work well; their different approaches can result in rich class discussion.

Update
I received an insightful comment from Peter Sandman to the PR Profs copy of this blog post. If the swine flu becomes a pandemic, the discussion points here will be important: http://www.psandman.com/ (see the top story).

Meet the Morning Crew of J452 Bloggers!

We are the early birds of Advanced Public Relations Writing! We gather on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8 a.m. to discuss social media and other topics in our Advanced Public Relations Writing class. Over the next few days, my students will respond to this post with a link to their blogs. They are eager to dive into the blogosphere, join the conversation, and meet public relations students, educators and practitioners.

Where to Go in Portland, Ore.? Check With the “Twisitor Center”

Picture from Travel Portland, Creative Commons Attribution License

I found this news release about Portland’s Twisitor Center:

NEWS RELEASE
February 9, 2009
Contact: Deborah Wakefield, Travel Portland, deborah@travelportland.com
Contact: Martin Stoll, GoSeeTell Network, martin@goseetell.com

Nation’s First “Twisitor Center” Launches in Portland, Oregon

Portland, Ore., has become the first U.S. city to launch an official “Twisitor Center.” This cyber-style cousin to the more traditional walk-in visitor information center relies on Twitter technology to connect travelers with those who can answer their questions and help plan their trips. (Twitter is a free social networking service that allows subscribers to send and receive short, real-time updates, messages and questions.)

“Other cities are connecting with visitors through Twitter,” explained Martin Stoll, CEO of GoSeeTell Network, the company that created Portland’s Twisitor Center concept. “But Portland is the first city to set up a virtual visitor center to which people can direct travel questions just by adding a simple tag to their tweets [messages].”

Twitter-users seeking information on Portland can add #inpdx to their questions. Tweets tagged with this code (also called a “hash tag”) are sought out by Twisitor Center staff members who then send back suggestions. But the beauty of Twitter is that other users who aren’t affiliated with Travel Portland can also chime in with additional tips. So, if a traveler tweets “Need a good BBQ place in Portland #inpdx,” she could end up with suggestions from not only the Twisitor Center but also from anyone else – Portland residents, foodies, fellow travelers – in the Twitter community.

“With Twitter we can be more conversational and responsive,” said Jeff Miller, Travel Portland’s president and CEO. “And this is how a lot of people make travel and entertainment decisions these days. Twitter lets us talk to travelers who prefer social networking and who wouldn’t normally visit an official travel website.”

In addition to responding to questions from visitors, Travel Portland’s Twitter stream will include several proactive tweets per day, covering such pre-defined topics as dining, green travel, special deals and recreation.

Because Twitter is relatively new to many travelers, Travel Portland’s website features a Twitter page that explains the service and connects to Twitter in Plain English, a fun, two-minute video that covers the basics. The page also links to Travel Portland’s Twitter stream, where visitors can see what others are tweeting about and sign up to “follow” Travel Portland.

The Twisitor Center is one of several online initiatives that Travel Portland is undertaking. Another among these is GoSeePortland, a social-networking website where Portland residents and visitors share tips, ratings and reviews – as well as get customized travel recommendations. GoSeePortland launched in 2008.

For more information on Travel Portland’s Twisitor Center, go to www.travelportland.com. To follow Travel Portland on Twitter, visit twitter.com/travelportland.

Link to Twisitor Center images: http://flickr.com/photos/35211583@N02/
Link to Twisitor Center video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-uLPX3NPkY

Travel Portland is the official destination marketing organization for Portland and the Greater Portland Region. Its mission is to strengthen the local economy by marketing the metropolitan Portland area as a preferred destination for meetings, conventions and leisure travel. For more information on Travel Portland, visit www.travelportland.com.

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Readers, what do you think of Travel Portland’s social media efforts? What other exciting uses of social media have you seen in the travel and tourism industry?