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The upcoming Twitter discussion I blogged about on June 1 (see below) took place last Wednesday, here's my top impressions:

First, you can see the full transcript here, posted by the event sponsor Ashoka. Its nice to have a transcript packaged, though you can also see it all by searching Twitter on hash tag #SocEntChat.

• Foremost for me, the result of the two-hour live chat with about 30 people was two or three new insights to challenge and refine my previous thinking -- which is great. Putting a substantive comment out to a bunch of interested people and getting their immediate feedback is provocative and useful. The fact that every Twitter comment is limited to 140 characters makes everyone cut to the main point quickly, which is nice. And because the conversation is fast moving, you don't really have to respond to comments that are less engaging!
• The discussion quickly became multi-channeled in substance, but single-channeled on Twitter -- so you had to follow pretty closely to who was responding to which previous comment. I find the transcript less interesting than the real-time discussion was, when I was intently watching the comments and responding to those that caught my interest. With more people participating this might have gotten really confusing, though the moderator helped by marching us through a sequential set of discussion questions.
• It was difficult to respond quickly enough -- periodically, by the time I formulated my 140 character response, the conversation had moved on. But unlike in-person and many other events, you don't have to worry about interrupting anyone else since it is multiple conversations in parallel, you do get to keep on expressing your line of thinking even while others go off on different tracks!
• Some interesting questions and comments have continued to come in to Twitter after the formal discussion, so the Twitter format offers a way for people to continue the conversation.
• The Twitter discussion was substantive, and generated interest in our work amongst participants. I also gained about 10 more personal Twitter followers, so far, and others seem to be finding the discussion stream. I have not found any blog or other coverage of the this discussion.
• Technology: tricky despite my preparation. Twitter's search service, which many people use to stream the discussion, hiccupped at the exact time of the event. It all came back online a few minutes later. Nobody seemed to mind, but we don't know if we lost participants in the process. This highlights the ongoing tension between using 3rd-party web services which are often innovative and full featured and free (or nearly so), but out of your control, versus proprietary or your own tools which you might control more but innovate less and pay a bunch more money for.

Feel free to add comments or contact me about the merits of Twitter-based discussions, or about our substantive discussion about environmental entrepreneurs.

Original Blog Entry (posted June 1st)

This Wednesday I'll be a guest presenter in a two-hour Twitter-based discussion of environmental issues and social entrepreneurship (Twitter @strelneck). This follows on three recent press events with newspapers, radio and bloggers on similar topics, so it will be interesting to compare the Twitter results and my experience from these different media channels. You can watch or participate in the Twitter discussion, Wednesday June 3, 4pm-6pm EST.

This might be a decent case study for anyone without much experience in these venues who is thinking of using Twitter to focus attention around a policy issue. Although I use Twitter personally, I have never participated in an organized Twitter-based discussion before, so find myself thinking through how to prepare. Top of my mind are these issues:

• I am preparing three main talking points to anchor my comments, as I do with all press events.
• I wonder if this Twitter discussion will get picked up or elaborated by bloggers or others.
• I am spending more time than I anticipated tinkering to make sure I understand how the technology works, so I do not make a mistake in the middle of the discussions. Am learning a lot in the process.
• I am concerned (from ignorance!) about how my steam of Tweets on Wednesday will impact my other Twitter followers who aren't part of the discussion, since they'll see my comments coming through but out of context.
• I wonder who else will start following me on Twitter as a result – each time I Tweet about a new topic, additional people start following my stream.

After Wednesday, I'll post results and my impressions here too. Wish me luck!