This past weekend, I attended the 2014 Midwestern Roots conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. It was a great experience and I learned so much about practical tools and methods that will surely help me in my family history research.
When I have attended other seminars and small conferences in the past, I usually just kept a copy of the handouts/syllabus in front of me while jotting down extra notes here and there. During one conference, I had an PDF of the syllabus on my iPad and typed out and saved notes electronically.
But THIS time, I didn't take any notes other than the small blurbs that I posted on Twitter as the presentations were happening. I didn't have any extra or pens papers in front of me. Like every other larger conference, the organizers encouraged us to tweet using a unique hashtag, which I did include in every one of my tweets.
Let me tell you the benefits of this method of note-taking. First of all, I had no extra folders, papers, or pens in front of me; my space felt uncluttered, which was a nice feeling. Because I wasn't worried about copying down every single little thing, I LISTENED better to each presenter, and I'm pretty sure I retained MORE of their information. Twitter limits you to 140 total characters, and since part of every tweet was the hashtag and presenter's name, sometimes I only had around 120 characters to work with. I had to craft each "note" in the most succinct way possible, and that forced me to pull out only the most important elements of each point the presenter was trying to make. If I wanted to remember a particular source, website, or book that the presenter was talking about, I tweeted that, too.
I tweeted a LOT. I'm not sure how most of my followers felt about that, but I had quite a few retweets, and at least one of my followers (who was not at the conference) said she was enjoying reading through the tweets. I liked the fact that I was sharing what I was learning with others, AND I was enjoying reading through other attendees' tweets who were in other sessions. (Don't you wish you could attend ALL the sessions?? I do.)
After the conference ended, I went to my twitter account, searched the conference hashtag (#MWR2014), and ALL the tweets with that hashtag showed up (even from people who I did not follow or who did not follow me).
When I have attended other seminars and small conferences in the past, I usually just kept a copy of the handouts/syllabus in front of me while jotting down extra notes here and there. During one conference, I had an PDF of the syllabus on my iPad and typed out and saved notes electronically.
But THIS time, I didn't take any notes other than the small blurbs that I posted on Twitter as the presentations were happening. I didn't have any extra or pens papers in front of me. Like every other larger conference, the organizers encouraged us to tweet using a unique hashtag, which I did include in every one of my tweets.
Let me tell you the benefits of this method of note-taking. First of all, I had no extra folders, papers, or pens in front of me; my space felt uncluttered, which was a nice feeling. Because I wasn't worried about copying down every single little thing, I LISTENED better to each presenter, and I'm pretty sure I retained MORE of their information. Twitter limits you to 140 total characters, and since part of every tweet was the hashtag and presenter's name, sometimes I only had around 120 characters to work with. I had to craft each "note" in the most succinct way possible, and that forced me to pull out only the most important elements of each point the presenter was trying to make. If I wanted to remember a particular source, website, or book that the presenter was talking about, I tweeted that, too.
I tweeted a LOT. I'm not sure how most of my followers felt about that, but I had quite a few retweets, and at least one of my followers (who was not at the conference) said she was enjoying reading through the tweets. I liked the fact that I was sharing what I was learning with others, AND I was enjoying reading through other attendees' tweets who were in other sessions. (Don't you wish you could attend ALL the sessions?? I do.)
After the conference ended, I went to my twitter account, searched the conference hashtag (#MWR2014), and ALL the tweets with that hashtag showed up (even from people who I did not follow or who did not follow me).
Screenshot of Twitter account after searching #MWR2014
Even better? You can SAVE the Twitter search in your Evernote, and have a complete record of everyone's tweets and photos from the conference in one easily-accessible location! Even if you don't think that this method of note-taking at conferences is right for you, you should still get a Twitter account (it's free), search the conference hashtag, and take advantage of the information that fellow colleagues are posting.
#MWR2014 Twitter feed imported into Evernote account.
©2014, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder
