Academics don’t tweet. At least not the ones a member of ISPP, IACM and IACCP. Which is strange, if you consider that these organisations are al ‘International’ (the first I) and a society and associations (S and A) for Political Psychology, Conflict Management and Cross Cultural Psychology. Thus, not the neuro end of the social/life sciences exactly.
At the conferences in Istanbul, which all overlapped – it was indeed a festival of psychologists in that city (side note, I wonder if the restaurants/hotels noticed?) – some of the conferences had 9 parallel sessions. In fact, gossip was that EAP had more than that. So how does one choose? Surely a tweet from a colleague telling you a certain symposium is not to be missed would be helpful. Or, an announcement that scheduled speaker number 2 couldn’t make it at session 3 in room A203, therefore all talks moved up in time, allows you to make better informed choices?
Then there is the social stuff. Where are people in town? Which social drinks meeting are they attending and when are they off go see Topikapi?
But more than anything, hash tagged tweets allow you to discuss what’s been said and what you thought, beyond the polite chit chat at the socials and beyond your usual in-group of colleagues you’ve known for years.
I encourage any conference organiser to announce the hash tag for the conference and that tweeting is a convenient way to move intellectual traffic and share evaluations.
