I’d agree to a point that both make up your personality and your contacts know that.

The issue here, at the ADM, was the amount of tweets being sent out. We were told to cover the event, and this means frequently updated tweets throughout the event.

Then comes a decision

1. send a barrage of tweets to everyone who follows me, every motion update, standing order alteration etc, risking boring and annoying the majority of them (potentially several tweets a minute)

2. set up a separate account and risk the wrath of people who then accuse us of being new to this media and not qualified to use it.

I started the weekend doing the first option, and promptly lost 10 followers in the first day (plus a few messages from friends saying “is this going to stop soon”?)

Then I set up a separate account, so that I could go the whole hog and cover the event, blow by blow in minute details.

My Twitter followers appreciated it. I think for full blown event coverage, it is the only option.

@Martin: Our experience differs, most of the journalists I follow are Irish, and I seem to be about the oldest of them. UK mileage obviously varies.
I’m saying if you’re going to report an event using a particular technology, you should know a little about what you’re doing. #NUJADM felt like a last minute job. Sorry if that’s not the case and months of preparation went into it, but that’s how it felt.
On the 18 month comment, I don’t think Twitter will go away, but it will no longer be the fad it is today. Remember two years ago, when everyone said podcasting was the Next Big Thing?

@squeelaa: I have repeated no libel. Criticism is not defamation.
Having been there at the time, I would argue that the original characterisation was accurate. In my view, it wasn’t merely a jibe. That said, I’ll repeat what I said earlier. Put the speech on youtube.
On 200 words, my word count comes from OpenOffice.org. Buried somewhere in this blog is an article on that very topic. Word count varies depending on whether I use MS Word, OpenOffice, or the WordPress native counter. Programs vary in how they deal with hyphenated words, numbers and acronyms. For consistency’s sake, I stick with OpenOffice.

Choosing words – fair point, but there is a whole debate about forms of communication and what is appropriate where which would be interesting to go into in more detail.

I had to laugh when you said you suspected in 18 months’ time Twitter would be last year’s thing. I hope that after being critical of people for being too slow on the uptake you don’t feel moved to criticise them for being behind the times. [That is intended as a bit of a humourous comment btw, as well as making a bit of a point.]

@Ashley: I think that might have been me, not Eamonn. And if there was a character in Fr Ted I had to compare Eamonn to, it would be Fr Kevin.

@Chris Wheal: No, I’m not saying the NUJ was wrong, I’m saying it could have been done better. By all means keep it up, though I suspect in 18 months time when conference rolls round again, twitter will be last year’s thing.

@squeel: The head in the sand comment isn’t mine, but one of the retweet’s of @whealie’s original comment. The word he used is “attacks”, not “jibes”.
And yes, I know Donnacha DeLong has a twitter account (as well as Facebook, LinkedIn, and for all I know, Second Life and Bebo). I plan to blog on the new media research presented at a side meeting as soon as I’ve digested the report.

@Michael: I was there when Doherty made the crack, it came across as technophobia. But why not let everyone decide for themselves? I’m sure the speech – or the relevant section – could be uploaded to youtube. I know other extracts have been. Regarding McCann, I refer the honourable member to my previous answer. Mostly what struck me about it was how odd it was to encounter someone at ADM who didn’t know who Eamonn was.

@RosieNiven: That the comments made it so far outside ADM was my point. The other point was that it wasn’t a positive message.
There’s no obligation to take offence at the comment. But given the amount of talk we had about recruiting new media workers, did James even consider what they’d make of his words? Did @whealie?
Regarding the Murdoch comment, fair comment is a good defence.

Lots of responses to this post, so probably lots in turn I’ve left unanswered, but I hope I’ve addressed your main points. Thanks for reading.

While it was a school-boy error (possibly) to jump into insensitive stereotype humour, it was in jest. Also I really loved Eamonn’s speech. All was just a joke.

And, as I outlined before, I was approached by Eamonn (I’m sure of it, on the Sunday morning – though fatigue may have suggested otherwise) and he said my tweets were great.

Maybe next time I shall take a little more care, though. With that said the comment really did get people interested.

As for the ‘Twatter’ thing, it was clearly a joke. In fact far mroe offensive things were reported over the conference which could’ve had massive effects (Jeremy’s “James Murdoch is a bastard”, for example).

I think people overestimate how much students use Twitter – they are probably more familiar with Facebook, but the social life at union is so hectic surely you wouldn’t have time for tweeting all the time?

In a recent Guardian forum for people wanting to become journalists, the panelists persuaded several students to sign up to Twitter. So I’m not surprised that the student tweeters at ADM needed to set up accounts.

And as for James Doherty’s comments, surely the fact that they found its way out of the conference hall says something about the NUJ’s approach to new media at ADM?

Whealie was at ADM, so were at least two or three other people I follow on Twitter. And there are probably many more delegates on Twitter who I don’t follow. I wasn’t there so had to follow it on Twitter and relied on my tweeting colleagues.

Also, I don’t know whether James’s comments where said in jest or not. If he was being serious they were aimed at not just potential members, but me, Chris, Martin Cloake and many other tweeting NUJ members. I’m not offended by his comments. Should I be?

James Doherty’s mention of Twatter was clearly meant in jest – a sly joke if you will, to lighten the atmosphere of what became a serious conference.

As for the “feck and gin” tweet, I’m not too sure what the problem is in having a bit of sense of humour. There was clearly no disrespect involved – his immediate tweet afterwards was:

“The Irish journalist is excellent. I didn’t catch name as he went straight in. Brilliant. Massive applause to reject motion.”

Instead of criticising the students who injected a unique angle to what can be an arduous and drawn out process of stuffy debates, perhaps you should be looking at how impersonal ‘new media’ such as Twitter are constantly in danger of being misunderstood.