ARTICULATED

I’m not at the 140 Character Conference (#140conf), an annual gathering of Twitterati now underway in New York.  It explores the impact of Twitter “on the state of now.”  But I sent a secret proxy, a mole to observe and learn and tell me if it’s worth my time next year. (Really, it’s just my buddy Scott Warner, who was just dying to check it out.)

Many folks who I follow on Twitter are at the event,  tweeting their observations, quoting speakers, dispensing tips, and the like. Those tweets create a veritable tidal wave of incoming chatter. Of course, the mantra of the Twitterati is “It’s about relationships!”  So the specter of #140conf participants, glued to their handhelds, failing to make eye contact, much less actually get to know the people around them, certainly in the way I define it, is irresistibly ironic to me.

I’m getting some entertaining updates from by buddy.  This one, from just a bit ago, is my favorite from an #140conf ever:

“The girl who sat down next to me whipped out her Blackberry and typed for about 10 minutes. She then pulled out an iPad and started typing on that. Then, she pulled out her laptop and starting to work on that. She then put that away after awhile and went back to her iPad.”

I follow a number of social media experts on Twitter. Still relatively new to that space, I quickly discovered that as a communications practitioner, there’s much I can learn.

A couple of weeks ago, many of those experts were gathered at the “140 Character Conference” in New York to talk about the changing media landscape, its impact on business and life, etc. At the event, they tweeted nonstop from handheld devices. So sitting at my desk in Denver, I received running, real-time commentary on the interesting things speakers were saying. I also received insta-views into sidebar conversations between individuals. (“Talking right now to @WellKnownTweeter, who just said Twitter is a conversation, not a tool! Wow!”) I never read a single news article about the conference, nor talked with anyone who participated, yet I have a pretty strong sense of what transpired. That’s pretty cool.

But throughout the experience, I was vaguely uncomfortable. I imagined a room of people in which everyone was tapping on their phones with abandon at the expense of quality personal interaction with folks of very common interest. I had no idea if that was actually true, so I looked for tweets that would provide some insight. Did the constant smartphone focus make anyone feel awkward? Were people diffusing the awkwardness with humor? No answers came.

I love when people report their lives on the fly via social media, business or personal. And I like doing it myself. But doing so creates, or requires, a more intense focus on my Blackberry than work email ever did. (The New York Times explores this very topic today.) What balance have others found between participating in social media via handheld device and focusing on the important people right in front of them?  Feel free to offer your thoughts in comments section below.