I learned quite a few things at New Media Atlanta yesterday, but nothing that was on the agenda.  I had debated about going for a couple of weeks.  I hadn’t heard of the conference before, but their description was appealing (“It’s time to take a hard look at the business case for Social Media.  New Media Atlanta is for the business professional who is tired of the hype and wants to see where the rubber really meets the road.”).  The agenda was packed with enticing topics and even the design of the site was cutting edge enough to lend a great deal of credibility (as was the sponsor list).  So despite having several big projects I needed to work on, I spent Friday at the conference instead, planning to make up the work time over the weekend.

I go to a lot of conferences, and the organizers of this one did just about everything right.  The venue (Georgia Tech Research Institute) was great – yes, the ban on food and beverages in the auditorium was annoying, but everyone had a desk in front of them and their own power outlet (a rare treat), as well as free wifi.  There was free parking and you could make your own nametag (including Twitter name) with multicolored Sharpies.  An afterparty at Ten Pin Alley at Atlantic Station was planned, as was an optional “RockStar lunch” where folks who paid extra could have a private catered lunch with speakers.

New Media Atlanta included a big name speaker (Chris Brogan) who signed books.  They gave away three scholarships to attendees (one student, one person out of a job, and one startup) so they could come at no charge.  They asked attendees to download or print their own agenda ahead of time so as to save trees.  They even launched a last-minute fundraiser to raise money for Atlanta flood victims, which has raised over $1500 to date.  (It’s not too late – click here to donate.)  Everything was really top-notch.

The morning started out great – I met one of the sponsors in the mobile advertising space while walking in from the parking lot, and one of the big brand speakers while in line for Chris’ book signing.  I helped myself to a bagel, found a seat, hooked up my laptop, and listened to the rock music playing while the staff (in fun bowling shirts) got everything set up.  I was pumped!

The first speaker was quite good, but he kept referring to the “backnoise.”  I didn’t know what this meant, but a quick check of Twitter and Facebook led me to the BackNoise website.  From what I can determine, BackNoise is the equivalent of passing notes or whispering in the back of the classroom, except anyone who wants to participate or listen in can do so.  Someone had set up a conversation area on BackNoise for New Media Atlanta, and people in the audience were typing in comments during the day that others could read in real time.  BackNoise’s tagline “Version 2.0, now with more snark…” should have tipped me off.

One thing I learned yesterday was how the existence of BackNoise can change the direction of an event in real time.  This sounds like a good thing, and it partly is.  As one speaker noted, we were there to discuss social media and how important it is for companies to listen to their customers and prospects.  This was an ideal chance for the conference organizers and speakers to listen to their audience members and, in essence, practice what they were preaching.

For example, after lunch, the lights in the auditorium were low and several people posted on BackNoise that they were falling asleep, so the organizers turned the lights back up.  When a panel discussion and the keynote speaker got good reviews, they let those sessions run long (which meant the last session of the day didn’t happen, which would have upset me if I were that presenter, but it appears the audience got what they wanted).  And there were enough gripes about the “no beverages in the room” policy that the organizers had a shipment of bottled water brought in and added a break in the afternoon.  All good stuff!

That’s the silver lining in what became, for me at least, a big, ugly, gray cloud of negativity.  As the second speaker started, people on BackNoise started bashing his PowerPoint slide design, and then his content.  His content was pretty basic – I wasn’t learning anything new – so I distracted myself by continuing to watch the conversation on BackNoise.  It degenerated from bad to worse.  As the day went on, there were some posts of substance, such as people saying that they wanted more “how to” information than they were getting.

But most of the conversation deteriorated to personal attacks on the presenters.  Nothing was off limits.  There were comments about presenters’ ages and weights, and one pair was referred to (more than once) as “porn star mimes.”  One speaker made the unfortunate mistake of mispronouncing Kanye West’s name as “cayenne,” so there were endless snipes about that.  A majority of the comments were just plain mean in an irrelevant way – not constructive criticism, but rude, boorish, even vicious remarks.

A few people commented about this rudeness on BackNoise and were immediately scolded with responses like “If you don’t want to read snarkiness, you don’t have to stay on this site!”  They were right.  I became more and more dismayed as I stayed on the site, and I kept telling myself I should leave (and maybe actually pay attention to the presentations – what a concept!).  But it was like catching the first few minutes of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” or trying to eat just one Frito…you know it’s going to be a junky trainwreck but you just can’t help yourself and you can’t stop.

The default setting for comments on BackNoise is for the person to remain anonymous.  Only one person put his real name up, and pretty soon the masses bored of picking on the speakers and turned on him for awhile.  He was able to defend himself in a snarky (and presumably respected-by-this-crowd) way, so that mood passed.  But you could see the “crowdthink” forming right before your eyes – if one or two people designated a presenter “good” or “bad” early on, the vast majority of other posts would follow along in that vein.  And they’d almost try to one-up each other with the meanest and wittiest observations they could think of.

I particularly felt like I was back in middle school during a few periods where someone tried to get everyone to cough twice, stand up and stretch, or scratch the backs of their heads.  There were side conversations debating politics.  And some genuine entertainment during another presentation that was quite beginner-level, where the jokes about the speaker’s content (“link juice” and “sticky site”) went in a predictable – and funny – direction.

I felt sorry for the conference organizers, who were obviously reading the BackNoise chatter.  They started out the day with enthusiasm, energy and confidence.  They visibly sagged as the day wore on, making almost apologetic comments to the audience in between speakers.

At one point, I had Twitter open on one browser (using the designated #nmatl hashtag) and BackNoise open on another browser.  The difference between the two was significant – the majority of tweets were either positive or simply restated facts from the presentations.  (There were also a lot of spam tweets from outsiders who had apparently seen the use of our hashtag suddenly soar that day – they added our hashtag to their spam tweets in order to increase their own visibility.  But that’s the subject of another post on another day.)  If you were reading Twitter, you’d get a very different (and more positive) view of the conference than if you were reading BackNoise.

The last speaker was the keynoter, Chris Brogan, who everyone (even the BackNoisers) was looking forward to.  He had been watching the backbiting all day and, instead of using a PowerPoint presentation, he put the live BackNoise conversation feed up on the screen behind him as he spoke.  The tone improved, partly because Chris was really good and there wasn’t much for people to criticize.  I’m sure having the comments be so very public made people behave a bit better as well.  But not everybody did – I cringed for one of the previous speakers when two separate people posted how much her presentation had sucked, and this was right up on the screen for the entire audience (including her) to see.

Sidenote:  I consider that particular speaker to be a personal friend, which probably helps explain why this experience has angered me so much.  I know her to be extraordinarily kind and exceedingly generous in terms of giving her time and expertise to the community.  She was selected by the American Marketing Association’s headquarters to work with them and speak nationally about social media subjects.  It incenses me that someone who was giving of herself – yet again – was treated so shabbily and disrespectfully.  It was wrong, plain and simple.

Here are my takeaways from New Media Atlanta:

1. I do a lot of speaking, and until yesterday, I was blissfully ignorant about BackNoise.  Now I’m truly nervous about presenting, at least to a group with laptops or smartphones in front of them.  I have a new dilemma to mull over – should I read the BackNoise chatter about my presentation afterwards or not?  If people have constructive criticisms that can help me improve my talk and give the audience more of what they want next time, that’s great!  But I don’t think I could handle people joking about or making fun of the way I look, the way I pronounce words, or other personal details that are completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.  That kind of feedback would probably make me a worse speaker – more tentative, less sure of myself, and less likely to want to present at all.  Come to think of it, could BackNoise have a dampening effect on professionals being willing to share their knowledge in general?
2. The negativity on BackNoise had a very large and detrimental impact on how I viewed the event.  I was so excited in the morning, and by the end of the day, I slunk out early, with a generally bad feeling in my stomach and in my soul.  I know that sounds overly dramatic, but that’s the only way I can describe it – I just felt icky and sick watching people attack other people.  Shame on me for reading the BackNoise conversation, and shame on me for letting it affect how I viewed the event.  Because the conference and the speakers were not bad at all – in fact, they were quite good.  The problem was that there were too many advanced people in the audience, like me, whose expectations didn’t match what was being presented.  In rereading the conference description today, I should have realized that a social media conference aimed at “the business professional” probably wouldn’t have a lot new to offer someone who’s already knee-deep in social media.  Perhaps New Media Atlanta’s uber-hip approach to everything sort of backfired into fooling us all into thinking it would be more advanced than it was.
3. I don’t often bring a laptop to conferences, and now I see why.  Browsing sites while listening to a speaker is just too tempting and too distracting.  It’s not just BackNoise, it’s Twitter, other social media sites (ironically), checking email, etc.  Maybe some people can be fully engaged in what’s happening onstage while multitasking, but I don’t think I’m one of them.  I felt like I was moving from the person with the long attention span that I used to have to someone with ADHD.
4. The fact that anonymity tends to bring out the worst in people was reinforced yesterday.  News flash, people -- personal attacks HURT and are not necessary.  I can’t believe I have to state that, but apparently I do.  How can you justify paying good money to attend an event and then not only fail to pay attention to the content, but instead spend the day trying to entertain people you don’t even know at others’ expense?  I’m sure the conference organizers spent a lot of time working hard on this event.  I’m sure the speakers – presumably volunteers – spent a lot of time putting together information that they freely shared with all of us.  I doubt anyone was getting rich yesterday.  Was the conference what I expected?  No.  Did I learn much?  No.  But I blame myself, not the New Media Atlanta folks nor the presenters.

The whole rise of incivility (Joe Wilson, Serena Williams, Kanye West) has been talked to death lately.  I was sad to experience yet another example of it yesterday.  Still, I have the naïve optimism to ask anyone and everyone who’s attending a conference or event to do two things:

1. If you use BackNoise or similar sites, keep your comments constructive and focus on the venue or content rather than making personal attacks or jokes about fellow human beings.
2. Have the guts to use your name when you have suggestions as to how things can be improved rather than remaining anonymous.  That would be the mature, professional thing to do.

I’m sure there’s plenty in this post for other attendees and BackNoise users to criticize, and that’s the beauty of social media.  Feel free to post a comment below – I do want to hear it – but please stay on topic and use your name.  Thank you.

(This content may be republished elsewhere – I would like for this issue to be discussed more widely.)