Twitter at SEWF09

The Social Enterprise World Forum in Melbourne took on a second dimension when Pro Bono Australia hosted a SEWF09 Twitter stream. It was live and lively, as those in the Forum shared their thoughts and experiences and those away from the conference were kept in touch. As part of Pro Bono Australia’s reporting of Australian Not for Profit conferences the Twitter feed provided an engaging ‘virtual’ forum. Pro Bono Australia founder Karen Mahlab says the the Twitter feeds at SEWF09 provided a successful platform for comment and an opportunity for many people to keep track of events from afar. The Twitter SEWF09 plan was to have our Pro Bono Australia reporters inside the venue adding tweets on the highlights of each session as they occurred. Mahlab says to the team’s delight there were many many social enterprise practitioners inside the sessions also adding their tweets. The Parliamentary Secretary for Social inclusions, Senator Ursula Stephens said she was following the links on Twitter and was able to guage the success of the first day before she took part in a session on the second day. Conference convenor, Jan Owen invited delegates to add their tweets and to allow an international audience to keep in touch. Pro Bono Australia set up a large computer screen outside the main Forum meeting room showing the streaming Twitter feed so delegates could see who was saying what throughout both days. Over three days (including the registration day) there were more than 260 tweets on the SEWF09 Twitter. Many twitter followers re-tweeted some messages to their own group of followers, allowing news from the forum to reach a huge audience. You can still read the tweets (even if you are not a member of Twitter) by going to www.twitter.com .