HOW I ATTENDED A LECTURE THROUGH TWITTER
It was meant to be two hours allotment for our lecture, but its impact was as though one was in a highly charged room full of action and the whole world was watching from a glass. We had a visit from Justice Williams, Ruth Ward and Dan Bowers who were walking the talk and coming down to our level and explaining what their experiences and their passions were. I did not have the pleasure of being there physically however twitter made it possible for me to enjoy some important words of advice. For a little over two hours, essential nuggets of wisdom and advice in the industry that we were seeking to begin movers and shakers in the future were all being brought to us. Without missing a heartbeat, it felt like paying for a consultancy session from professionals. I could barely walk away from the computer, and when my laptop battery started beeping I searched impatiently for my charger not wanting to miss any part of this interesting event. Even though I use to think of myself as one abreast with changes, the experience of seeing the developments on twitter was both exciting and very much informative. What was interesting from my perspective was that there were student colleagues as well as lecturers in the room that were all interested in making sure that the outside world that was watching were not missing out on all the brilliant lines that stroke a chord with them. Those who had access to twitter in the session were doing their best to keep the rest of the world knowing.
WHAT THEY SAID MATTERS.
In many years that I worked as a journalist, the tradition has always been to go the event, record all that was going on, make some notes, come back, go through everything and write your piece and then the audience can read it in the newspaper. It is true that the world has changed and moved on and speed was extremely essential in parading information. A few years ago, one will only imagine major corporation with the financial backing to be able to do this however it was not so with my fellow students. They understood that part of our training was for making quick judgments and walk the walk of technology by being active agents who provide real-time information without being paid any money because it was all possible from one lecture hall at Birmingham City University. From important messages like “your network is your net worth” to “web is fantastically transparent” to a key message to using the city that you are in to your advantage. It was certainly a very useful experience and what’s more it cut to the chase.
THE TIGER, THE BEAR AND THE LION
Some of the time when one ever considers what his reaction will be in the face of some of the heavyweights of the jungle ready to pounce, it is easy to consider flight as the first option. However I believe if these three offered to take you on a tour of the jungle, to a degree of certainty, one will feel safe. For the students on the MA Enterprise, this was the case when we had Justice Williams, Ruth Ward and Dan Bowers come in to spend some time with us and offering to help us make sense of the big business jungle that awaits us in our process of becoming entrepreneurs. Of course they came as friends even though they all had portfolios of conquest that identify them as successful in their own right at what they do. They were there to give us the guided tour of how they made it, what they learn and what we should always remember.
They did not disappoint at all, I daresay and even I was over 90 miles physically away from them. These three had all come in with a great deal of experience that was behind them and the fact that they were ready to open us their tool box and explain to us what aided them in their journey of becoming we found many more things to hold unto which will allow us to impact the our generation and perhaps in some years to come, repeat these whole episode however this time it is us who will be opening our tool boxes.
In conclusion I certainly believe that an experience like that coming to us students at this crucial time is extremely useful. It gives us a sense of assurance that if we go out there and do our best, the sky indeed is the limit. As much as I enjoyed the action from afar through tweeter and live blogs, I kind of believe that in the future, I would love the opportunity to be there and rather be tweeting to the outside world.
Enterprise | Emmanuel Appenteng | Thursday, November 19, 2009
Interesting to get your perspective – from a distance! I’m glad you were able to capture some of the comments and that just the experience itself of trying to get to grips with the 2 hour guest speaker session via twitter and a live blog was useful.
Obviously not the same as being there but it seems to have given you some insights.
The Zune concentrates on being a Portable Media Player. Not a web browser. Not a game machine. Maybe in the future it’ll do even better in those areas, but for now it’s a coach purses fantastic way to organize and listen to your music and videos, and is without peer in that regard. The iPod’s strengths are its web browsing and apps. If those sound more compelling, perhaps it is your best choice.