What Happens at a Conference? Multi-Tasking, Twittering, meshing

With meshU and mesh now wrapped up, I’ve got a ton of new ideas, a few dozen Web sites to check out and lots of new connections.

Looking back at two conferences, one of the things that was particularly fascinating was watching what people were doing during the keynotes, panels and workshops. With a lots of Wi-Fi bandwidth available, it was abundantly clear that multi-tasking was alive and well.

Many people were reading e-mail, blogging, Web surfing, downloading applications, checking out speaker bios, watching videos and, of course, Twittering. Meanwhile, they were also listening to what was happening onstage, which were terrific.

In other words, people were happily connected to the Web at all times during the sessions. And then during the breaks, everyone seemed to disconnect to do some enthusiastic networking.

By far, Twitter has become the telltale technology for conferences. Offering a quick and easy way to deliver micro-commentary, Twitter provides an instant sense of what’s happening during a keynote, panel or workshop, whether things are interesting, and what the moderator and speakers should be doing.

It’s a different world from just a year ago when thoughts and feedback were delivered in blog posts – sometimes a few hours after a particular session and sometimes days afterward. Now, you get instantaneous reaction and a fascinating sense of how things went.

More thoughts about meshU and mesh on the way over the next few days.

More: Speaking of multi-tasking, Dave Fleet live-blogged both days of mesh. Cool. Speaking of liveblogging, TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld blogged on ScribbleLive – a live-blogging start-up founded by two Canadians, Michael De Monte and Jonathan Keebler.

Update: For a really good wrap-up on mesh, check out Mathew Ingram’s post, which includes a bunch of links to mesh-related videos, presentations and blogs.

Technorati Tags: mesh, meshU, Multi-Tasking, Twitter