AAM and Twitter Follow-Up

It was too easy to miss comments/tweets while actually at AAM, so I have just gone through all of the tweets tagged #aam09 and #aam2009. Yeah. Here's what I learned:

Stats:
-- There were roughly 1350 tweets on #aam09.
-- There were roughly 90 tweets on #aam2009, most of which were cross-posted on #aam09.
-- There were roughly 220 tweeters, most of whom only tweeted 3 times or less.
-- There were probably only about 20 or so people who really made use of Twitter during the conference and populated the conversation.

Thoughts:
-- Twitter could easily replace blogging as the preferred method for sharing ideas about sessions at conferences. Why? Because it is not reliant on the availability of free wifi! No free wifi in the conference session rooms means an increased incentive to text and tweet instead, despite the fact that the 140 character limit makes sharing in a substantive manner difficult and that the Twitter interface can make it difficult to follow ideas in a coherent fashion and increases the likelihood of losing information. Also, it is quicker and easier to connect with others through Twitter than through blogs--read a tweet you like, follow that person!

Trends from the AAM Conference:
-- Relatively few sessions were actually documented in a thorough or coherent manner via Twitter.
-- A few people were vocally following from home. It is unclear how many people were "lurking."
-- The number one top topic of conversation was the Muse Awards winners.
-- A lot of the tweets were about the host city, food or random facts/trivia from sessions or hallway conversations.
-- Vendors and session presenters used Twitter a fair amount to drum up business.
-- People promoted museums, exhibits and other fun places around the host city.
-- People made book recommendations.
-- Often sessions weren't tweeted, but instead links to notes and slides from sessions were tweeted.
-- I don't think any of the collections/registration sessions were documented through Twitter.

Hot Ideas Being Tweeted:
-- Using technology to engage/reach audiences
-- Content creation
-- Curating conversations
-- Responsiveness to communities
-- Collaborations and community building
-- Predictions for the future

AAM and Twitter

As promised, below are my results from my impromptu and highly unscientific survey on who was tweeting #aam09.

First, a little background.

This is the first conference I have ever tweeted about. In fact, I think that tweeting at and about conferences is still relatively new. And, quite frankly, I am still in shock that Twitter has suddenly exploded in the way that it has--I left my account dormant for over a year because it just seemed, well, silly. So I was very curious to see how useful Twitter could be as a tool to share thoughts about a conference with colleagues both at the conference and those back at home.

I quickly heard complaints, or at least less-than-positive commentary, from various sources: 1) that the quality of the tweets was relatively low, with little content on sessions or lessons learned and more about where people were eating 2) that mostly vendors were tweeting.

The first comment, while disappointing, can be excused. Most people think of Twitter as a personal social space and so are more accustomed to tweeting about meals out and social activity than about the future of museums. Also, the 140 character limit that makes Twitter the micro-blogging site that it is creates an inherent barrier to real sharing of ideas.

But the second comment really peaked my interest: was it true that mostly vendors were tweeting #aam09? Who were all these tweeters who were all a-twitter about the conference, food or otherwise?

So I decided to try to find out!

The results were less than stellar. Now, granted, as @Lidja pointed out to me, there were some big flaws with my survey. I had intended it to be quick and dirty, like a tweet, but she argued that it was too quick and dirty, so as to lack the ability to create meaningful responses. But I was really looking for just an easy way to see if it was mostly emerging museum professionals (EMPs) and/or vendors who were tweeting.

Here are my results. 12 people responded. Then again, I only announced the survey on Twitter and it's easy enough to miss tweets unless you are online right when they happen.

Question 1.
Are you...
10 an EMP (that answers that question, I guess, except that most of the people I was retweeting and replying to are definitely not EMPs...)
2 other (consultant; non-attendee)
1 a mid-career museum professional
1 a vendor
0 a senior/executive level museum professional
0 a volunteer
0 a board member

Question 2.
Do you work in...
4 technology
3 collections
3 education
3 marketing
2 admin
2 visitor services
1 development
1 exhibits
1 programming
1 volunteer/docent management
1 I told you I was a vendor
1 Other (would if)
0 Finance
0 HR
0 Membership
0 Operations

Question 3.
Do you currently work in a museum?
8 Yes!
2 No, but I wish I did.
2 No, and how many times do I have to tell you--I'm a vendor!

Question 4.
Does your museum use Twitter?
5 Yes!
4 I don't work for a museum, but my company/organization uses Twitter.
2 No, but I sure do--tweet! tweet!
1 No, but it wants to.
0 What's Twitter?

I don't have enough respondents for the results to be statistically significant--they could all be spurious and meaningless. But that doesn't mean that this exercise was a waste of time. For one thing, these results have posed all sorts of follow-up questions that I am now mulling over: How big are these museums? What disciplines do the museums represent--art? history? science? Why are they Twittering? Do they find Twitter useful? Would they recommend other museums and organizations sign up and start tweeting?

So really, rather than having results for you, I only have more questions!

Almost-Live Blogging at AAM

Well, here I am at AAM. My intent was to live-blog the sessions I attend, but sadly, there is no free wifi in the session rooms! So I will be posting somewhat after the sessions... I am also tweeting about the conference. You can follow me: @museum_flavor and you can follow everyone tweeting about the conference by following #aam09. I will also be posting less personal thoughts on the sessions (and possibly more in depth) over at WestMuse, the new WMA blog. There is also the official AAM conference blog. So for all those who can't actually be here in beautiful Philly, there are lots of ways to play along at home!

Thoughts on Communication

Several interesting blog posts and news articles have me thinking about the changing nature of communication and how we view it. First off, from the Chronicle of Philanthropy we learn that a) the average age of a Facebook user is rapidly rising, and as it does so, its value for fundraisers will increase because b) social networking sites are increasingly being used for personal communications over regular ol' e-mail.

Next we have an article and a blog post that quite succinctly answer the question: Is anybody really listening out there? The answer is a resounding, "Yes."

From Donor Power Blog we see exactly how word of mouth (and he uses a great term from the Church of the Customer, Wominomics) can help or hinder us.

And from ABC Entertainment News--that's right, folks, Entertainment News, we see how Demi Moore's twitter feed may have saved a woman's life. This is not the first time that Twitter has been used in a real-time effort to spread information to appropriate parties, but it certainly is a great example of just how mainstream it has become as a platform for quick and effective communication.

Lessons learned? Use Facebook. Use Twitter. Be good to your constituents and listen to what they are saying about you. And be assured, people are listening to you.

What Does it Mean When the Plants Start Twittering?

# Thank you for watering me!2:42 PM Mar 30th from web

# URGENT! Water me!2:06 AM Mar 27th from web

# Water me please.12:40 PM Mar 25th from web

These are actual tweets from Pothos. Pothos is a plant. That's right, a plant. As of this posting, Pothos has 3,139 followers on the increasingly-popular social media site, Twitter.

How does Pothos tweet? According to the Huffington Post,

Botanicalls, a device that sends wireless signals to Twitter. It's made of soil moisture sensors that transmit information (too much moisture? too little?) through a circuit board to a microcontroller, just like a mini-computer.

Granted, this is kind of neat, but why am I posting about this here? Well, quite simply, because I am of two minds about this.

First, if using Twitter is so simple a *plant* can use it (think of those old Castro Convertibles commercials for the sofa beds so easy a child can do it), then clearly non-profits can get with the program and start tweeting.

But on the other hand, as Neatorama puts it, "Twitter is all the rage these days, sure, but plants Twittering? Has this fad gone too far?" Should non-profits being trying to make serious use of Twitter as a social networking tool if it is being trivialized to the point of being used by plants?

Or is this just indicative of a growing concern in the business world--the mixing of the professional with the personal? Are the lines between the two blurring--and should they be? Are thee benefits to the new fuzziness that is ensuing from professional networks in online spaces designed for socializing, such as Facebook and Twitter?

Jason Dick blogging over at A Small Change raises this valid point:

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told not to mix personal with professional. But that is exactly what we ask our volunteers and board members to do all of the time. How many of your top supporters ask their co-workers and business associates to partner with you?

Where do you feel the line should be? How do you maintain it in your own life and online personae and interactions? Does Pothos invalidate the use of Twitter for serious purposes?

The Thing Meets 1st Fans Twitter Art Feed

Just a quick note because I think it's neat when different parts of my life sort of intersect. I just received in the mail issue 4 of The Thing Quarterly, a self-proclaimed object-based periodical. Every few months, another piece of art in the form of an everyday object that somehow incorporates text arrives at my doorstep.

Back in the museum world, the Brooklyn Museum just announced that they will be collaborating with Brooklyn-based writer Jonathan Lethem, having him on the museum-based Twitter Art Feed.

Basically, the idea behind the 1st fans Twitter Art Feed is to use popular micro-blogging social networking site Twitter as a conceptual art space. Each month, the museum invites another artist to participate, sort of like a virtual artist in residence.

McCain Tweets Against Museums

Holy cow! John McCain is on Twitter? I guess that pretty much means it's officially mainstream now. Time to get active on it again I guess. But using Twitter to speak out against funding for museums, wow, I can't get behind that. I'm glad that some of his colleagues replied in kind!