I'm here. Just paying partial attention, and it's OK

This is a response to Chris Brogan's post, I'm not really here.

I was talking with a friend about an event she’d attended. She said that it was okay, but she noted that a lot of people there were really into their Twitter accounts and not really giving as much attention to the people in front of their faces. Whether it’s text, Facebook, FourSquare, or Twitter, I’ve noticed a lot of this behavior, myself.
It’s not okay.

Wrong.

Ask First
I had lunch this week with someone in the PR business. At the same time, 30 min into lunch, my recorded session for a virtual seminar was was being played. I scheduled some tweets with Hootsuite to enhance the presentation, but also wanted to check the twitter stream to see if I could add value there, during the event. Before I turned on the phone, I asked, "Is it ok if I check twitter?" ... and explained the situation. Not a problem. She did the same.


Photo: Grace has a cellphone.

Everyone's Doing It
Chris, I also remember that I was recently with 3 other people, and we were all talking in a circle, while checking out streams. We were laughing about it. It's OK.


Photo: Crowd at 140 Conference

Tweeting is Sharing and Caring
As for being in a conference and being online at the same time, there's value in that too. Tweeting out quotes, informing others that the session is good (come join me), or bad (I'm heading out), and looking up things on Google that the speaker is talking about, that you want to learn more about.

You know this.

On the other hand, I've also put down my phone to pay full attention to speakers that deserve it.

Using your phone is OK.

Just don't take a phone call. ;-)