My Twitter golden rule: Tweet about others as you would like them to tweet about you

Mixed reactions to the use of Twitter at industry conferences

It seems like every industry conference has a Twitter hash tag so even if you are not at the event, you can get a sense of what is going on by following the Twitter stream. I think this is pretty cool, but last week I was at an industry conference where some of the Twitter chatter started to feel like talking behind someone's back. Rather than challenging a speaker by asking a question and engaging in a dialogue, I noticed that people were tweeting "nasty-grams" when they disagreed with a speaker's comments. Seriously people, is that nice? Maybe we need a new golden rule: "Tweet about others only as you would like them to tweet about you."

A while back, a colleague told me a story about a conference where while speakers were presenting, a screen behind them showed a live Twitter feed from the conference (gotta love those #hashtags). Apparently, one of the speakers didn't know that this was going on because as she was speaking, there were some not so nice tweets about her providing continuous nasty commentary in bursts of 140 characters - and she just kept on talking. I would have been mortified if that had happened to me, but as I gave this some thought when I saw similar behavior last week - fortunately not on a big screen behind the speaker - I was more annoyed than embarrassed - especially because I saw a nasty tweet from the conference that reflected a complete out-of-context misrepresentation of something that I didn't say in quite the way the tweeter said it. Fortunately, the nasty tweeter didn't reference me by name so it wasn't as embarrassing as I imagine it was for the speaker at that other event, but it made me even more aware of how Twitter has created a whole new dimension to industry conferences.

I have no problem when someone challenges something I say in a presentation - in fact, I really like it. It creates an opportunity for me to clarify my point, especially if I say something that sounds stupid. It also creates an opportunity for me to learn something new or get corrected if I'm wrong (which, hopefully doesn't happen too much). In the pre-Twitter world, someone who had something to say at a conference had to say it - and put up with the same public exposure as the speaker - but only to the audience in the room. With Twitter, if someone wants to disagree or say something nasty, they can do it without looking the speaker in the eye and allowing the person to clarify or explain. That just feels like talking behind someone's back - to MILLIONS of people!

When someone says something nice or quotes me in an accurate way, I love reading the post-speech Twitter stuff after I speak at a conference. But now that I've been misquoted directly or in the sense that in 140 characters, there is no way to provide the same type of context that an entire conversation can have, I'm starting to have second thoughts about Twitter at conferences. In addition to my golden rule of Twitter at conferences that I started this post with, I'd like to add another recommendation: if you have something you want to say to a conference speaker, own it, don't tweet it. Raise your hand and engage in a dialogue - but do it with respect and professionalism. The "regular" golden rule still applies.

• Microsoft
• Collaboration/Web 2.0
• Twitter
• Twitter Golden Rule