So on January 20, I got the chance to launch a Tweetchat for the Montreal Press Club, of which I'm a board member.
I'm so glad for the opportunity - I honestly feel that once it's up and running, and we work out all the glitches, that it's going to become a fantastic resource for both francophone and anglophone journalists to connect and discuss the big issues in the city. There's far too wide of a chasm between French and English chasm, and my big dream is to narrow it however I can.
I was a bit dismayed that for all of my bilingual, obsessive marketing of the event on Twitter, only a few MPC board members showed up. But I have to remind myself that Rome wasn't built in a day (sigh, cliche, but I've been up since 5 am so you're just going to have to deal with it). However, I am going to go ahead and call it a success, for these reasons:
1. It actually happened. We now have a Tweetchat, and it's no longer in the theoretical stage. That in itself is worth celebrating.
2. It gave me my first experience of being a Tweetchat monitor - and I had the opportunity to learn, and make mistakes - like not including the damned hashtag - a few times over. The small audience just means there weren't a whole lot of people around to judge me for it. ;-)
3. Many of the participants had never participated in a Tweetchat before. This gave them the opportunity to get their sea legs before this thing takes off like wildfire.
I did learn a few key things about scheduling, however.
First, it was downright foolish to schedule our kick-off Tweetchat event right before the State of the Union address was about to be broadcast. Twitter was already preoccupied - and journalists weren't interested in participating in a fledgling online experiment when everyone was gearing up to live-tweet this important speech. So there's that. No more competing with SOTU. Got it.
It also somehow managed to slip my mind that Tuesday at 8 pm is when #muckedup happens - @Muckrack's very popular journalism Tweetchat. Even though it's mostly focused on discussing US issues, I know I've participated in it more than once, so to have thought that scheduling our Tweetchat for the same time wouldn't have any impact on our attendance was pretty .... fanciful. Sure, I'll go with fanciful. So next time, we'll be sure not to schedule the Tweetchat at the same time that other one is going on.
We'll be doing it again in late February, so watch this space to find out how you can participate!
I'm so glad for the opportunity - I honestly feel that once it's up and running, and we work out all the glitches, that it's going to become a fantastic resource for both francophone and anglophone journalists to connect and discuss the big issues in the city. There's far too wide of a chasm between French and English chasm, and my big dream is to narrow it however I can.
I was a bit dismayed that for all of my bilingual, obsessive marketing of the event on Twitter, only a few MPC board members showed up. But I have to remind myself that Rome wasn't built in a day (sigh, cliche, but I've been up since 5 am so you're just going to have to deal with it). However, I am going to go ahead and call it a success, for these reasons:
1. It actually happened. We now have a Tweetchat, and it's no longer in the theoretical stage. That in itself is worth celebrating.
2. It gave me my first experience of being a Tweetchat monitor - and I had the opportunity to learn, and make mistakes - like not including the damned hashtag - a few times over. The small audience just means there weren't a whole lot of people around to judge me for it. ;-)
3. Many of the participants had never participated in a Tweetchat before. This gave them the opportunity to get their sea legs before this thing takes off like wildfire.
I did learn a few key things about scheduling, however.
First, it was downright foolish to schedule our kick-off Tweetchat event right before the State of the Union address was about to be broadcast. Twitter was already preoccupied - and journalists weren't interested in participating in a fledgling online experiment when everyone was gearing up to live-tweet this important speech. So there's that. No more competing with SOTU. Got it.
It also somehow managed to slip my mind that Tuesday at 8 pm is when #muckedup happens - @Muckrack's very popular journalism Tweetchat. Even though it's mostly focused on discussing US issues, I know I've participated in it more than once, so to have thought that scheduling our Tweetchat for the same time wouldn't have any impact on our attendance was pretty .... fanciful. Sure, I'll go with fanciful. So next time, we'll be sure not to schedule the Tweetchat at the same time that other one is going on.
We'll be doing it again in late February, so watch this space to find out how you can participate!
