I’ll be one of the panelists at the ACRL President’s Program at ALA this year (Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions). After watching a Google talk where the speaker took questions from the audience by going back and forth between people at the microphone and questions on a screen that were being texted/emailed and also after reading about different library events where people twittered throughout the program, I suggested and got the ok to attempt something similar at this program.
The program will begin with Dr. Ariely’s presentation, followed by a normal Q&A, then the panel discussion. The idea is if you have something to contribute in the flow of the discussion, you can text it in. I’ll be monitoring the texts and will try to fit what I can into the conversation when appropriate.
On the most bare bones level – I have a text plan on my cell phone and anyone who wanted to participate could just text me, but what are my other options? We’re looking into whether the room has wireless. If so, I could monitor a twitter account on my laptop rather than my cell which would help view more than one at a time. I’d rather give out twitter information than my cell phone number to a huge room of people, but since it’s already limited to only people who know how to text, do I want to limit it further to only people who twitter? Are there other options I’m not aware of?
