During one of the breaks during MIT’s Startup Bootcamp, I was talking with a friend about the presentations we had seen thus far and which we thought were the best. As we talked more about the ones we liked, we realized that there was a common thread: tweet-ability. The presentations we liked best had very few words on each slide…often much less than 140 characters and usually it was simply a picture. Looking back now a week later, the only slides I can vividly remember are ones that had either less than 10 words on the screen or were just a picture. Thinking back even further to other presentations I’ve seen in the last year, I’ve realized that the only slides I can remember also fit that description.
So what does this mean? I think it really speaks to the power of communication and Twitter’s affect on it. It started with text messages, where suddenly you could pass information to your friends in 160 characters or less, and now with Twitter, you have 140 characters or can “Twitpic” a picture to quickly share an idea or comment. This practice is being embraced everywhere…from HubSpot taking questions for their weekly shows and “Series C Webcast” today via Twitter, to Mass High Tech All Stars (according to tweets) being limited in their speeches to 140 characters or less.
So the question begging to be asked: Is this a bad thing?
I don’t think so. The shorter content is actually easier to remember, and it’s making everyone be more efficient and effective in their communications. In this information-saturated world we live in, this is a logical evolution to again allow us to communicate and understand more ideas in less time. As long as we understand when we need to add context (like blogs, books and other 140+ character communications), I think this is an important evolution in the way we communicate.
How are you embracing the Twitter-ized Society?