Comments on: Pubcon’s Twitter Fail

By: Ash Nallawalla

Ash Nallawalla — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 22:36:44 +0000

Re webmasterworld handles on the Pubcon name tags – in the early years, many of the attendees used to guard their privacy fiercely. I went out with some others to Kinko’s and had business cards printed with just my handle anallawalla (not terribly anonymous) and some minimal contact information. As you noted, people add various things to their name tag manually, be it Twitter, their WW handle, country etc

Good tip about the session hashtags. I’ll suggest it to the panels where I’m presenting.

By: Monica Wright

Monica Wright — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:29:48 +0000

I just saw this post referenced in your twitter feed, and although I (sadly) could not attend PubCon there is a lesson here that expands outside of just this one event. I agree that Twitter handles, Linkedin profiles, etc. are staples for any reference to online identity. Twitter names can be on a name tag at a conference, on a resume, in a slide show presentation, at a sales pitch, on a business card … it’s an integral part of what we do as online marketers. I have also wondered why the Twitter names aren’t provided in the conference brochures that are handed out – which could also serve as an index of hashtags for specific tracks. I use that thing as a a reference at all events, and keep them as reference for names and businesses. Just another service in the queue, I suppose.

By: Serhat Pala

Serhat Pala — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:08:00 +0000

This is not really about the twitter, but something to improve. And I think it comes before being more twitter friendly.

Brett, was it really so expensive to provide wireless access to PubCon? There was one, I was able to access through the spreading of the speaker access details. In this day and age,and especially for an event like PubCon don’t we need an excellent free wireless access?

By: Neyne

Neyne — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:37:43 +0000

Hi Brett,

Thanks for commenting. My response:

1. There is plenty of room on the tag. I have added my twitter handle by hand under the name of the company

2. You could have made it a required field + a check box for “don’t have twitter”, checking of which would void the twitter name requirement

3. Of course that having only nicknames makes no sense. Together with real names it does make sense.

I appreciate your taking seriously the comments. They have been done with the intention of improvement and I am glad you get that.

By: Brett Tabke

Brett Tabke — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:08:30 +0000

We have had numerous numerous discussions of how to integrate twitter more into the conference. We completely understand where you are coming from.

The reason we didn’t get id’s on the nametags is two fold:
1- logistical. There is only so much room for stuff on the tag.
2- only about 20% of the people filled in the ‘twitter id’ field when they signed up.
3- we have had alot of experience with nicknames on nametags. Our first 5 conferences were done noly with nicknames from webmasterworld on tags. It was major controversy when we went to real names. There is alot of history there.

Most of that is addressable and I will talk with the team about your comments for sure – most appreciated.

thanks
brett

By: Amrit Gill

Amrit Gill — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:22:18 +0000

You’re totally right – pubcon is lagging somewhat on the uptake of technology, yet we online marketers places the conference on the pedestal above everything else. Trying to follow this online is a bit of a pig – the live blogging is excellent but I only have time for that in the evenings. Tweets are 140 chars and can pretty much blow my mind with enough inspiration – yet I’m hardly seeing those kinda tweets.

Another thing I’ve also noticed is the content – come on guys – a lot has changed over the past few months, but I’ve hardly seen anything new – are people holding back? I hope its not simply turning into one big sales pitch 

Keep up the good work commenting – its almost like I was amongst you all!