So, still wrangling the notes from the various sessions I attended, and some of the ideas and projects I saw demonstrated, I thought I'd start with the technology.
OR2012 introduced Crowdvine and live blogging into the mix for this OR Conference, both of which are new to me, with no time beforehand to investigate the technology and familiarise myself with the interface I didn't really come to these until late in the conference - Thursday I think. Luckily, Crowdvine turned out to be really easy to use, really easy to navigate, perhaps too easy... since I immediately posted a new discussion thread - Highlights and things you're going to take home
Throughout the event, social media has played a significant role in allowing delegates, both physical and virtual, to keep track of the interesting things going on in parallel sessions, point to innovations of interest or things to highlight (oh and poke fun at each other but that's another post altogether). A little competition is really healthy, and no more so than when some bright spark (@WilliamJNixon I believe) starts a Tweetpository and starts tracking the output of conference tweeters! Finding out who had the most tweets for the event was no great surprise (@MrNick) but it was fun to find out how many serial tweeters are out there, and interesting to discover just how ubiquitous social media has become, oh and that I am not so serial a tweeter as I first thought having not made it onto the OR2012 Wordle.
The liveblogging was perhaps one innovation too far for me on this occasion, but it is something I'm open to and it was very entertaining to read the live blogs by colleagues in parallel sessions and find out what you've been missing. Managing my tweeting and note-taking whilst still remembering to listen to the sessions was hard enough without the added stress of trying to live blog my random ramblings. This is something to consider for next time though as it was a dynamic, if somewhat stream of consciousness style of note-taking. Well done to those that did it, great effort.
This all reminds me that I am seriously behind in learning about new web-based technologies. With so many developments and so much to learn it's hard to stay an 'early adopter', something I have always been proud to consider myself. Unfortunately, with so many technologies and the plethora of apps and services out there now, we're not so much at risk of a data deluge as an app deluge...
But, the things I did successfully take up? Taking my notes using Evernote. This was actually a really good experience, with my notes syncing between laptop and iPad to make keeping everything together really easy; the ability to group notes together into a notebook, already organised by date, is making the process of pulling together notes, links and other 'stuff' from my week in Edinburgh really simple - though nothing has made it easy to digest all the things I heard about and thought about into things to talk about with my colleagues! Formatting, bulletpoint-making and numbering your notes on the fly might not get many people excited, but I was one very happy lady on Monday morning when everything was ready and waiting to be exported.
I think I only scribbled down 1 page of handwritten notes the whole week - on the first day when coordinating my technology with my suitcase and other baggage was one step too far!!! I'd had a 4am start - that's my excuse.
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