#tcc21st

Expectations were high - Expectations were surpassed!

Although I started with high expectations for TCC 2016 given my past experience, I didn’t anticipate that those expectations would be surpassed.

I was surprised with the difference that the use of Social Media - Twitter in this event - would make in conference participation.  I did not imagine the impact this would have when Dr. Bert introduced the concept in class.  To me, one of the greater weaknesses of e-conferences is the lack of community that F2F events engender.  At a F2F event you meet fellow students/professionals interested in the same material.  You get to know the people seated next to you or have conversations with participants during lunch breaks. Often times, there are receptions each day after the conference.  And presenters get to see the attentive (or sometimes not so attentive) faces in their audience.  But at an e-conference, participant interaction is limited mostly to viewing a list of people who have “entered” the e-room to listen or to hearing cohorts ask questions or chat.

However, with Social Media the building of a community significantly increases.  I used Twitter and in doing so was kept informed, on a real time basis, of other’s expectations and reactions to ongoing presentations.  Soon I began to follow the comments of participants and found their mini-reviews to be very helpful.  I am sure that presenters appreciated the comments and words of encouragement from the many tweets.  And the Conference use of Twitter kept us all currently informed.  Still not the full F2F experience, but much more valuable than I ever would have guessed.  Twitter wasn’t a distraction at all!  I’m sold!  Next year, I will need to try out the “Cafe” experience and see how this impacts that community feeling.

A clear advantage of an e-conference setting over a F2F event is the cost savings and the resulting increase in participation.  Personally, I could not afford an annual journey to Hawai’i to attend an F2F conference.  I’m sure that participation levels would plummet if the conference was a “real world” event.  In a real sense, the e-format democratizes this learning event.  People from all different socio-economic levels can participate and “gather” from all around the world.  And, this year I experienced almost no technical difficulties in participating - no dropped connections - no chipmunk presentations.  So we can all participate and sound as if we are in the same room!  Very nice!