Civilised behaviour in decline on the internet

It seems to me that anonymity and the emotional detachment of typed communication lead to a decline in basic civilised behaviour. The dark side of the web is evident, such as two recent examples I have come across.

Australian David Thorne uses the web and email to troll, to annoy, and apparently to amuse a large number of readers. The fact that he is quite cruel about it at times is irrelevant. On the web, novelty is all. Because we don't get to see the other side of the story, we all laugh along. If he behaved this way face to face he'd be labelled a pillock.

Or take the poor woman at a recent conference who had her big moment as a presenter totally destroyed by bitchy snide people playing with the new toy of the "Twitter back-channel". Personally I think they should have their Twitter shoved up their back channel. [More examples here]

The Crowd is not displaying much Wisdom. In fact it is displaying adolescent abandonment of basic human courtesies.

[Moved up from comments:

Most speakers are nervous and exist in a fragile equilibrium during their presentation. When things go wrong only the most relaxed speakers can pull up.

If a dancing clown appears on stage in the middle of your presentation and constantly hurls abuse at you, it's not your fault if your presentation goes downhill from there. If he then abuses you because of that decline it won't help things.

If we want to only go to hear slick professional speakers and stand-up comics then fine, but if we want to hear thought-leaders and high achievers then we have to treat them with kindness and respect, whether or not they are the flashest speaker on the planet. Many many people have valuable things to say but are nervous in front of a live audience. they deserve respect and patience to allow them to present.

Imagine if a certain group of people decided it was socially acceptable to throw things - the number of people willing to speak would drop. This will have the same effect. i don't have a problem with people twittering during a presentation (though I think they do themselves a dis-service). I do have a problem with it being projected so that the whole crowd responds to it in unison. And I do have a problem with supposedly mature adults descending to a pack mentality and/or childish rudeness as a result.

And to all the people who were involved in any twitter pack-attack on a speaker, I'd like to see you get up there and do better under those conditions, assholes.

It ought to be a speaker's choice to have a back channel fed live for some reason - the default is not to have it. I for one will not present in front of a live backchannel. I see it as no different to people talking to each other during my presentation or having a magic show going on behind me.

I've worked for one of the less popular corporates. That should not diminish my rights as an individual, as a human being, to basic common courtesy, and if I'm brave enough to get up in front of a big audience one basic courtesy is to pay attention and to be supportive.

It seems to me that the audience will get more value from a presentation by actually thinking about what the speaker is saying and considering the implications instead of multithreading. Twitter is like electronic attention-deficit-disorder - it diminishes the experience (and the learning retention) for the twitterers and the twitterees. But if they want to then it is a free world. With a public backchannel it also diminishes it for everyone else too.

In time I assume people will mature in their use of social media just as they slowly are doing with mobile phones. We may get to a point where we can all be trusted to use a projected back-channel sensibly and where it adds to the presentation instead of detracting. Right now i don't believe that is the case. A back-channel has potential to do some interesting things for a speaker who is skilled and prepared and has someone helping. To project it uncontrolled is just stupid, and any consequence is not the speaker's fault. The mental age of any group is inversely proportional to the number (and I reckon also less than the minimum age of the individual members).

Even unprojected, twittering is still going to have negative consequences. As a speaker I know it throws me whenever an unexpected wave of tittering goes through the crowd: once we get enough people responding to comments that the speaker can't see, twittering-tittering is going to make public speaking harder.

I don't know why people can't just sit still, shut the f*** up, and listen.

See more discussion in the comments...]

Comments

Back Channel

I respectfully disagree. To filter the back channel would only give it more power. People are best policed by their peers. To be an organization that is transparent enough to allow this is the goal. I personally have had all sorts of things "said" to me via twitter.

With great power comes great responsibility.

In the US, as I cannot speak for the rest of the world, corporate greed has taken a toll on the common person. Social Media is giving a voice back to the people who are actually "doing the work".

As a business owner who has worked with the power of social media and had hit both help and bite me, I keep going, for the needs of the many are greater than the needs of the one.

Chris

P.S. TWO count them TWO movie lines in there, but sometimes it was said better by others.

Chris

concentration

To clarify my last comment (written in haste as I rushed out to cricket): i don't have a problem with people twittering during a presentation (though I think they do themselves a dis-service). I do have a problem with it being projected so that the whole crowd responds to it in unison. And I do have a problem with supposedly mature adults descending to a pack mentality and/or childish rudeness as a result.

It seems to me that the audience will get more value from a presentation by actually thinking about what the speaker is saying and considering the implications instead of multithreading. Twitter is like electronic attention-deficit - it diminishes the experience (and the learning retention) for the twitterers and the twitterees. But if they want to then it is a free world. With a public backchannel it also diminishes it for everyone else too.

We also need to work out how a speaker is supposed to deal with it. It is hard enough watching the time when speaking, let alone watching a stream of comments too.

In time I assume people will mature in their use of social media just as they slowly are doing with mobile phones. We may get to a point where we can all be trusted to use a projected back-channel sensibly and where it adds to the presentation instead of detracting. Right now i don't believe that is the case.

Getting the whole picture...

Generally speaking, I'm with you.

If I'm sitting in someone's presentation, I am there because I *want* to be there. I want to hear what they have to say. Often times, the speaker may offer a provocative question or other intentional device to engage or stimulate the audience that requires (at least some of) the presentation to work its way through to a conclusion over time -- not necessarily the next 15 seconds.

While I don't mind the new tools that we have at our disposal, it would be a mistake to confuse such tools with actual communication. The assumed background and context is missing -- you can't convey that in a few hundred characters of text. Of course, that's more than enough characters for mis-communication.

Put that in your PDA and Tweet it... :-P

kengon

Moderate and Summarize

Yikes, public speaking by firing squad... the speaker should have some control over their presentation and how to deal with this new technical feature. I can't help but feel that there is an easy middle ground for this...
When doing webinars I have had audience members submit questions and comments during the presentation.
A moderator / administrator manages these and feeds them to me either prearranged. i.e. at the end of a section, or at the end of the presentation.

In a tweet world, it should be easy to gather a sense of the comments / questions and provide them to the speaker.
It could be as simple as the moderator either with interjecting with a " we seem to be getting a lot of feedback about slide 17, can you provide some more information about that." Or a question posed at the end of the presentation.
Timing would be subject to the speakers preference.

Bleeding edge

I read with great fascination the account of the backchannel fiasco. But my main reaction was (& remains) a sense of wonder, that we are experimenting with these novel forms of communication. Clearly the experience in this case was not good. But put it in the broader context... that we are even doing these things and falling on our collective faces in these ways...

Without (hopefully) sounding too Pollyanna-ish, it does seem that this might carry some greater seeds or silver linings...

Charles T. Betz
http://www.erp4it.com

just sit still

See my comment that i was posting the same time you wrote this. a back-channel has potential to do some interesting things for a speaker who is skilled and prepared and has someone helping.

To project it uncontrolled is just stupid, and any consequence is not the speaker's fault. As someone already mentioned, the mental age of any group is inversely proportional to the number (and I reckon also less than the minimum age of the individual members).

Even unprojected, twittering is still going to have negative consequences. As a speaker I know it throws me whenever an unexpected wave of tittering goes through the crowd: once we get enough people responding to comments that the speaker can't see, twittering tittering is going to make public speaking harder.

I don't know why people can't just sit still, shut the f*** up, and listen.

official hashtag

From discussion of this on twitter (yes i do use twitter, at the appropriate times), Cadence_ITSM said:
Maybe you can just ask anyone tweeting to tag it with your official hashtag #IfImDoingThisImNotListeningOrPayingAttention

two people to do a presentatio

The experts on this stuff suggest you now need two people to do a presentation; the speaker and the twitterer, who does as you say, monitoring the back-channel and prompting the speaker. And that interaction should be rehearsed. Public speaking isn't getting any easier.

Projecting the feed unmoderated for all the audience to see is clearly a distraction and potentially damaging

It ought to be a speaker's

It ought to be a speaker's choice to have a back channel fed live for some reason - the default is not to have it. I for one will not present in front of a live backchannel. I see it as no different to people talking to each other during my presentation or having a magic show going on behind me.

Many many people have valuable things to say but are nervous in front of a live audience. they deserve respect and patience to allow them to present.

I've worked for one of the less popular corporates. That should not diminish my rights as an individual, as a human being, to basic common courtesy, and if I'm brave enough to get up in front of a big audience one basic courtesy is to pay attention and to be supportive.

imagine if a certtain group of people decided it was socially acceptable to throw things - the number of people willing to speak would drop. This will have the same effect

Healthy conflict does not require degradation

These 2 examples seem very different to me.

The first one I can't even figure out what totally happened, but all I can tell is some personal gripe went public. Frankly, I don't have a problem with that, in fact the adoloscent in me would love to have the guts to expose the liars and cheats that have taken me for a ride. Kowing that I have the technical and communications skills to do it and choose not to do it is what feeds my strength, plus I'm giving those loosers any free air-time on my effort.

The example of the speaker getting pummeled by twitter though is really a sad situation. I personally blame the event coordinators. Unbridled feedback is never healthy. Shoud she have been taken to task on her unprepardeness, lack of enthusiasm and fluency. You bet! People paid with their time and money to be edcuated and she failed. However, it should have been done through survey's and of course any postings to a big screen need to go through a moderator. That's event management 101. In the end though shame on those people for taking to the extreme level they did.

Looking at the next generation behind us, I'd not get my hopes up that respect, tact and decency are going to be increasing. I'm trying to do my part with my kids. :)

a dancing clown

Matt, one point I've been meaning for a while to pick up on: "Should she have been taken to task on her unpreparedness". Most speakers are nervous and exist in a fragile equilibrium during their presentation. When things go wrong only the most relaxed speakers can pull up.

If a dancing clown appears on stage in the middle of your presentation and constantly hurls abuse at you, it's not your fault if your presentation goes downhill from there. If he then abuses you because of that decline it won't help things.

if we want to only go to hear slick professional speakers and stand-up comics then fine, but if we want to hear thought-leaders and high achievers then we have to treat them with kindness and respect, whether or not they are the flashest speaker on the planet.

And to all the people who were involved in any twitter pack-attack on a speaker, I'd like to see you get up there and do better under those conditions, assholes.

I Don't Want To Be A Dickwad!

Very interesting discussion!

I expect there'll be lots of tweeting going on at the upcoming Pink Conference in Las Vegas. I'm not sure what we (the event organizers) can do to control this though. Apart from the obvious scenario of taking responsibility for what we might project onto the big screen - if we were to do a live Twitter feed - I can't accept that event organizers should be held responsible for people tweeting in sessions about the session itself, or the speaker. That's out there in the ether and short of having people check their phones at the door (yeah, right!) - what can we do?

Getting back to the live feed up on the big screen. I notice that Eddie Izzard does this as part of the warm-up to his one-man shows. I haven't been to see it, but my guess is that there's likely a feed of tweets with a specific hashtag. How, or if, he moderates this - I don't know. Certainly in Vegas we'll have to think about a moderation process. With almost 2000 people in attendance - you only need 1 "Dickwad" to spoil the party.

Hmmm. Thanks for the prompt, Matt.

Wisdom of the crowd?

Wisdom is inversely proportional to the number of people involved. Committees get more bizarre as their size increases. Large crowds lead to mass hysteria - we stop talking about wisdom (or it's small size) and start talking about stupidity (hey - I live in Dunedin, I get to see big crowds doing things like the undi 500 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXiTvZGR64U )

now - when you're talking about crowds the size of twitter the crowd effect becomes stunning. Individuals can be smart, people on-mass are idiots, without care, feeling or sympathy.

And yeah - I've been a part of the crowd-idiocy too, the power of the crowd is hard to resist.

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