Twitter, Summize and Your Next Event

Does this post title sound like gibberish to you? You might not be alone, but as an event planner, a presenter or an attendee, you should read on.

Twitter has been called both a micro-blogging platform and a communication utility. It allows users to send short messages (140 characters or less) instantly to all of their followers. Some use Twitter to promote their site, blog or service. Others use Twitter just to keep friends up on what they are doing. In April, Twitter received significant mainstream attention when a user used the service to let his followers know he had been arrested in Egypt.

What does this have to do with events?

Last night, I attended the Boulder New Tech Meetup (a considerable crowd, by the way) and noticed they had three screens running. One prominently placed in the middle and one on each side of the middle screen. The middle screen was used for presentations from startups. The side screens were both running a site called Summize, a Twitter-focused application that allows people to search Twitter for topics with realtime results. If your topic included the term "boulder meetup," it would appear in the search results for everyone in the audience to read.

What if your next event allowed people to communicate using Twitter? They could plan impromptu dinners, let a  presenter know what to add to improve the presentation for the particular audience he is addressing, and let the event planner know what is going well and what is not during the conference and not after when it is too late to do anything about it.

Think you don't have enough attendees on Twitter to make it work? I think you simply need a core group that Twitters--other non-Twittering attendees will benefit from those who do. And they may even start Twittering if they like what they see.

Using Twitter at events isn't new. The service was catapulted into popularity by SXSW, which allowed users to interact using Twitter throughout the event. Twitter, which has struggled to keep its service reliable under the increased strain brought on by overuse, has not been the same since.

Have you used Twitter at an event? As a planner, presenter or attendee? How did it go?