Backchannels at conferences. Huh? Why?

A little behind in my schedule for the year end blog posts, but the promised trade shows post should be tomorrow. The puppies ARE really cute!

In the meantime, my thoughts about official backchannels at conferences.

I would not want to be a speaker at a conference that broadcasts an official "backchannel" behind the speakers. When I speak in public, I want the audience to be paying attention to me. I work very hard to create a memorable, interesting, usually interactive session so they will. If someone in the audience is bored, I’d prefer it if they just left. If more than one person in the audience is bored, they can leave together. And if everyone is bored, well then, I haven’t really done my job, have I? And I won’t get a lot of speaking invites.

I know this "backchannel" is the "in thing" these days, but why go to the conference if all you are going to do is chat with your friends? You can do that at home for a LOT LESS money. Unless of course the point of going to the conference isn’t to learn something or share something, but rather to be seen…..MMMM?

I realize that even without a sponsored, official chat, people at a tech conference will be emailing, chatting, using their crackberries etc. Bad enough, in my opinion. I don’t even like to hand out copies of my presentations in advance because I hate it when people read ahead.   

And I suppose since we know people are going to be doing it anyway, better to have a sponsored chat room so all attendees are included rather than private little cliquey things of just the "in" people. I know, you are flabbergasted that cliques can develop in an industry. 🙂

But broadcasting the backchannel chat behind the speaker. Nope, not for me. Can’t think of a single good reason to do it.

Check out Elisa Camahort’s post Backchannel Smackdown. She makes a number of excellent points about backchannels, and has links to most of the relevant blogs involved in the Trott/Metcalfe les blogs incident — if you aren’t already bored with it, that is 🙂

Probably will write more on backchannels when I write about trade shows. And please, if there is a good reason to broadcast the backchannel behind the speaker, I’d love to hear it.  Have one if you must, but don’t force it on the speaker and those in the audience who came to hear what the speaker has to say.