Live blogging: Genius or Madness?

I have owned these domains for years and yet I have never got around to setting it up. Chiefly because there is always something else I should be doing.

So why have I finally got round to enabling this website? Well tomorrow I will be attending UCISA Spotlight on Digital Capabilities 2 conference and thought what better time to finally set up my website.

I am thinking of taking my first foray in to live blogging. Genius idea? Or total madness that I will abandon shortly after starting.

Why not tweet?

Tweeting is something I love doing at events and I plan to do so at the conference. It’s particularly powerful for sharing pertinent points and interesting revelations. Tweeting an event is sometimes called microblogging. So why don’t I just use Twitter?

Well I can only tweet 140 characters, at the moment, which has it’s pros and cons.

Pro – Succinctness, powerful, brevity

Con – Not a lot of flexibility

If you add a link or tag others you’ve lost a lot of characters. Once they drop links, @’s and media from the limit as the propose to, details here,  it will be far more fit for the blogging purpose.

Plus, you can have too much of a good thing. Tweets lose some of their power when they are lost amongst hundreds of other tweets made at the same time. Less is more.

Laptop, tablet or phone?

WordPress have a fabulous app which means I can blog from my phone or a tablet as well as my laptop. I don’t know whether this venue will be lecture style or tables, or whether sockets will be frelly available.

If there aren’t tables then the laptop and tablet are uncomfortable to try and balance on the lap.

My phone at least allows me to blog from anywhere but again can be very uncomfortable and the accuracy of my ‘typing’ can go rather awry.

Annoying my neighbours

There is something very annoying about the quiet clacking of a keyboard when you are trying to concentrate. I don’t want to annoy the people sat around me. Or worse distract them with the ungraceful balancing of my laptop.

Phone it is.

Seeming ignorant

I have been brought up to look at people when they are talking to me. I am one of those weird people nodding away emphatically at the presenters at conferences. There’s nothing worse than getting no feedback from an audience whatsoever. I’ve been there. It’s very uncomfortable and leads to embarrassing moments of overcompensation.

If I am glued to my device blogging will the presenters think I am not listening or worse that what they are saying is boring?

Concentration

I think my biggest challenge will be concentrating on what’s being said whilst trying to write something quickly which needs to make sense. Grammar is not one of my strongest skills. Yes I can come back later and tidy it up but I don’t like to chuck out any old rubbish online.

I’m going to write one anyway at some point

The main reason I am going to try it is because I am going to write one anyway at some point. So I may as well do it when the memories are freshest.

Preparation is the key

I’m going to get all of my posts set up so all I have to do is complete the body text.

Wish me luck.