Once this initial activity has died down, that is the end of the engagement.
The level of research and the amount of time required to get a clear picture of the long-term level of engagement with the event outputs is often outside of the scope of most conferences. This results in an approach that favors generating maximum activity around the event itself to get as much stuff out there as possible, then trusting to the quality of that content - or just hoping for the best - in terms of long-term engagement. However, this assumption is rarely reflected in the post-event reports, giving the impression that once this initial activity has died down, that is the end of the engagement, and there is, therefore, a problem to solve to increase long-term engagement.
It also depends how we define engagement on a fundamental level: is it about attention, or is it about responding? People can engage with an event just by listening. In a lecture, an audience can be engaged without speaking, or creating any mea- surable activity at all (except perhaps a lot of noise over the follow- ing coffee break). We have very little information about engaged listeners at events. We know how many are watching a live video stream, but we can’t tell how many have left it running whilst mak- ing a cup of tea or how many are only half listening. We know how many people could possibly see tweets relating to the event, but we have no idea if or when they might read that content, or how deeply they will engage with those tweets. With more people learning how to temporarily screen prolific conference Twitterers, we cannot even guarantee that they have seen them. We may get better at this, but we can really only know “how many,” not “how deeply.”
Another word for engagement might also be “impact.” This is a popular word at the moment, particularly in HE circles, where event amplification services are often used to increase the impact of
an event by disseminating information as far as possible beyond the confines of the conference hall. Impact, in this case, is quantified by measuring the number of people a message reaches. Brian Kelly has made this argument before in relation to Slide- share as a way of extending the life of a presentation - increasing its impact by increasing its visibility over time. But again, whilst we know how many people have looked at the slides, we do not know how deeply those people engaged with those slides, except where their engagement led to what we could call an extreme response, such as embedding the slides into a blog post to reflect on them in more detail. This is highly engaged activity. But what about all the people who merely linked to the slides? This more casual response is not currently reported by Slideshare, so it can be difficult to trace. What about the people who showed them to a colleague or used them in a class? There is no way to get a complete picture, any more than there’s a way to judge the way a paper handout is used post-conference. The only difference is that no one questions the value of the paper handout!
Thus, how we define engagement and impact will affect the types of metrics we attempt to collect to demonstrate the success of an amplified event over time. However, accepting that engagement with the event will not necessarily lead to clearly definable, trace- able digital objects may be the first step in rethinking not just how we measure success, but what we are trying to achieve through the event in the first place.
Kirsty Pitkin is a professional event amplifier who works closely with conference producers to help deliver an online dimension to traditional events. She provides strategic advice and practical services, including live commentary of events, live video streaming, event reports, remote audience support and conference curation, using a range of innovative techniques.
For more information, visit
eventamplifier.wordpress.com.
WWW.MIDWESTMEETINGS.COM - ALL NEW LOOK, ALL NEW PURPOSE, ALL FOR YOU 23
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140