Reviewing Tweetnotes from The Extraordinaries

Tweetnotes is one of the newest tools from The Extraordinaries. Between SXSWi and 10NTC, I’ve now used it a handful of times and do really like it. I also think it can be better! You can see the embeded versions of the tool on my blog here and here, or you can see examples on the original site for the SXSWi session, Net2 Open Space session, Community Building session, or the Online Campaigning session.

Here’s my list of things I like and things I hope can be improved.

I like it!

  • Embeds: I really like that the entire dashboard is embedable – helping keep the resources and value emerging from the community accessible and transportable.
  • Integration: I think that the ability to pull in a google document, slides, notes, and so on really adds to the value of the tool – it also separates it from many of the other tweet-pooling tools out there.
  • Voting: The functionality to vote on tweets, pulling out the ones that people find interesting, valuable or pertinent has the potential to add a special dynamic to the tweet pool.

I want to improve it!

  • Lag: As with many tools, especially during conferences, the lag can really impact a tool’s reception. I found that in most of my sessions, the lag meant tweets took far too long to show up in the dashboard and I was using Tweetdeck to follow what people were saying in real time – pointing them to the dashboard for all the resources and as a place to find the tweets after the session.
  • Tabs management: I wish that the administrators of a dashboard could create tabs (within reason) for separate resources so that you could have a separate tab for the slides or notes, and another for pulling in a google doc-survey, and another for a google doc for real-time notes or something.  I think the ability to separate resources by tab could really help.
  • Voting: I listed this as something I like because I see potential there. But, at least in the times I’ve used it, people weren’t voting because they needed to create an account and sign in to do so (not many people were going to take the time during a session or discussion to do so).  Maybe there is also another way to show tweets that the community likes, too – like most RTs or something.
  • Hashtag: I would love to be able to include multiple hashtags or search terms – especially if the dashboard is going to be used in non-conference settings where people may be using variations on a name or event, etc.

What I really like most about Tweetnotes is the potential use in a wide variety of situations. I’ve used it in conferences where you want to be able to pool resources, slides, and conversations into one place. But what about the use in emergency response or breaking news? We’ve already seen people come to hashtags or streams fairly quickly in reaction to global events – this could be an easy way to capture the streams, pull out resources, images, and news sources, and so on – in real time!  Or, for use in campaigns, either for those wanting to track a campaign or as part of the public-facing campaign map.

Have you used Tweetnotes? What do you think? Did you view or participate in the Tweetnotes dashboards from one of the above sessions? What would you improve and what did you like best?

6 thoughts on “Reviewing Tweetnotes from The Extraordinaries

  1. I have to give The Extraordinaries a huge shout out for Tweet Notes. Ben Rigby created Tweet Notes to capture the session notes from our LEAD Summit during National Volunteer Week and it was very helpful – particularly in a way you wouldn’t expect… It helped me show (rather than tell) people within my organization a way that Twitter can be useful. Having Tweet Notes enabled did wonders for staff who weren’t very familiar with social media. The rich transcripts created for each session were of value to them and helped me gain support for social media efforts.

    I’m excited because Ben is also setting up Tweet Notes for our upcoming conference in New York. The National Conference on Volunteering and Service has something like 177 sessions – so I’m really indebted to The Extraordinaries (who are, in fact, extraordinary!) and I’m looking forward to being able to provide this service/set of notes for all the conference participants.

    1. Thanks for adding your experience here, Jessica!

      Obviously, for a big conference like NCVS it can be really helpful for Ben or others to set up all the dashboards ahead of time. But, anyone can set one up (I don’t want people to think they can’t!). And, at least in my experience at 10NTC, it was easier when we set them up ourselves for a couple key reasons:

      1. we had the admin on the account so could add things to the resources and speaker notes sections
      2. we often wanted to use a different hashtag than the one already assigned by the conference

      Really looking forward to hearing how speakers and participants at NCVS find the tool!

  2. Hi Amy-
    I was one of your collaborators at the NTC session on Online Campaigning. That was the first time I’d heard of The Extraordinairies, and I loved it, in concept. It worked really well to capture all the related content for the session in one place (the slideshare presentation, links to sites, tweets, etc) but I echo your frustration with the slow refreshing of tweets. If this is supposed to be a client that utilizes twitter to aid conversation during a session, it was too slow to do that (I remember waiting at least 20 minutes for some tweets to show up) and the registering to vote for tweets was a huge barrier to full participation by session attendees.
    I also remember thinking that it didn’t actually capture all the hashtags, and ability to capture multiple hashtags (misspellings of hashtags included!) would be a real added value.

    But mostly, thank you for exposing me to a really interesting reseource. It’s not yet at the point of being extremely valuable as a real-time conversation aide, but instead is an extremely valuable pre- and post-session aide.

    1. Hi Debra-

      So great to hear your voice on this as someone new to using Tweetnotes and a collaborator at NTC. It’s good to hear some of my experiences echoed by you, whether that means I’m not crazy or not… 🙂

      As another note about signing in to vote, in response to Jessica’s note about creating all of the dashboards ahead of time – I found that for sessions that were set up by Ben at The Extraordinaries, I was never able to log in and vote. But that could have been an issue with juggling multiple account log ins (mine and the admin one he gave me access to).

      I really appreciate your point about using the dashboards post-session to find everything in one easy place. I also encouraged people in the sessions to continue using the hashtag and visiting the dashboard to find resources and so on.

      Thanks again for sharing here!

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