Usually, I can’t stand when people hunch over their computers and phones in the middle of real-live social situations. Not a hell of a lot makes me angrier if you pull out your cell phone and start typing away while I’m trying to actually talk to you.
Except if said social interaction is the Digital Book World conference.
Author Chris Kubica posted on the #dbw Twitter stream yesterday: “So at #dbw, what percent of the time are you spending making eye contact with people and what percent with your laptop/smartphone?” Which after reading I immediately looked up from my laptop to see mirror images of myself typing away. Apparently we at DBW are very good at multi-tasking. I know I heard every word. I think. In another tweet Kubica wrote, “Just remember: no tweets & pics of snacks & drinks. That’s the time to pocket the iPhone & use people skills.”
Part of me finds this depressing. I mean, a conference is for meeting people and socializing and awkwardly shaking hands. I recently posted about figuring out that I’m a wimp in groups of large people I don’t know, so maybe that’s my problem. I just didn’t have the cojones to meet enough people. On the other (and significantly larger) hand, this is kind of what DBW is all about. So many people not at this week’s event were following along with the constantly updated Twitter stream, asking questions and commenting how awesome it sounded. (It was.)
In what I assume – and seriously hope – was a joke, Alice Pope posted a photo of the boxed lunches we all received. Okay,so there are many things both hilarious and wrong with this, but I eventually come back to the same conclusion: what is the point of social media if you can’t social with people who aren’t in your exact geographic location?
Editors, publicists, marketers and authors alike felt connected to conference, almost like they were there. This is despite their apparent cubicle containment. This is also thanks to the many publishing tweeps who furiously typed out the most important points of each panel, commentator and weird joke. None of this would have been possible without the multitasking hunchers sharing up-to-the-minute info on conference happenings. Meaning this post, by definition, is late.
I for one got a hell of a lot out of the conference and that’s a direct result of both the panels themselves and the running commentary of those in attendance.
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