Tag Archives: tweetup

Official #AAA2015 #tweetup planning thread

Ok trying to plan the tweetup for the AAAs on twitter is getting ridiculous because by the time you mention everyone who is involved in planning it there is no room for an actual message. So here is a thread where we can plan the time and date of the tweet up.

I am happy to coordinate this and provide enough structure that the discussion doesn’t flop around like a fish out of water and never reach a conclusion.

The only thing I’d like to emphasize is that the best day to have the tweetup is friday and usually we have had good results having it in the late afternoon/early evening so people can grab a bit and then head out to other events.

Usually what happens is we set a time and then when I arrive at AAAs I scout a location and then let people know where to meet on twitter. I’ll be arriving on Wednesday so I’ll have plenty of time to have a look around.

Things You Might Be Inclined To Say That People Say Every Year We Try To Organize This:

  1. “Why have it on Friday? Why not Saturday? (Or Thursday or Sunday)?”

Answer: Because Friday is the middle of the conference. It is actually less busy that Saturday, which is when most of the main parties are. Thursday not enough people have arrived. Sunday no one is around. And Wednesday? It’s like Thursday, but with even less people.

  1. “We can’t have it at that time because it overlaps with [something]!”

Answer: The tweetup will overlap with something. That is because the AAA schedule is ridounculous. Inevitably it is going to overlap with something. The goal is to have it overlap with the least number of things, not nothing. When planning the tweetup, if you don’t like a time, please demonstrate that it’s a bad time slot because it overlaps with many things, not one thing.

  1. “Why don’t we just have the tweetup at [some other event someone else is already organizing]?”

Answer: 1) Because no one will be able to hear a damn thing at that event anyway (Wenner-Gren I’m looking at you) 2) The purpose is to meet other anthropology tweeters and get to know them, not wander around a room full of people asking “do you tweet or are you just here to watch Marisol de la Cadena hand out drink tickets?” 3) It will be more intimate and allow real conversation with people  and 4) I sort of believe anthrotwitter flourishes when it isn’t coopted by some other organization.

So

I am thinking Friday evening/late afternoon. Theoretically it could be at lunch. What do you think?

My plan is to let this thread run for about a week and then see if we can reach agreement. If not, I’ll try to figure out what the closest thing is to agreement and then I’ll start broadcasting that as the date of the tweetup.