(empo-tymshft) #oow09 #hashtag emergence and standardization FTL

It's deja vu all over again.

I was using Blogger to blog about Oracle OpenWorld one year, and I decided to use Blogger's label facility to tag my relevant blog posts. Having survived y2k, I still had the four-digit year standard instilled in me, and therefore created my mrontemp blog posts with the label openworld2007. See my September 16, 2007 post State a Range and Hope You Hit the Middle for an example of this.

However, after I had already labeled a number of posts with that label, I found out that the community was using a different label. So, despite my inner revulsion at two-digit years, I switched over and began labeling my mrontemp stuff with openworld07, subsequently adding the label to the previously-tagged "openworld2007" stuff and retiring the openworld07 label.

So then we got to 2008. My mrontemp blog was still going strong at the time, so I used the openworld08 label in that blog. And I used the openworld08 label in my then-new Empoprise-MU music blog (and, for the record, I still hate Psychedelic Furs). And I used openworld08 in my Empoprise-NTN NTN Buzztime trivia blog (I had to have my fix at the Beale St. Bar and Grill). And I even managed to sneak the openworld08 label into my Empoprise-IE Inland Empire blog a couple of times.

Well, now it's 2009, and I'm ready. This Empoprise-BI business blog didn't exist until this year, but I've already tagged several posts in this blog with the openworld09 label. And earlier this morning, I even tagged this tweet with the #openworld09 hashtag.

@_Enigma_Inc heard about your Twitter account via email. Not an aircraft expert, but I will be at #openworld09

So, just out of curiosity, I performed a Twitter search for #openworld09 and discovered (at the time) that my tweet to @_Enigma_Inc was the only tweet using the hashtag.

That's odd, I thought. I knew that Twitter search was pretty poor, but it couldn't be THAT poor.

This led me to check Justin Kestelyn's @oracletechnet Twitter account to see what hashtag he was using, and he was using #oow09. I asked him about this, and he confirmed that #oow09 is the hashtag in use this year. I subsequently noticed that the #oow09 hashtag is prominently featured on "The OTN Guide to Oracle OpenWorld 2009." In case you're reading this in 2010 and the page has disappeared, here's what it says as of now:

Official hashtag: #oow09

Pretty clear, except that I never got around to the RTFM stage, and have been blindly #openworld09-ing away since September.

This is easy enough to fix on the blog; I'll just do what I did in 2007 and retroactively apply the "oow09" label to all posts that have the "openworld09" label, and (after posting this) cease use of openworld09.

But in some cases, the label/hashtag will stick. For example, my use of the #openworld09 hashtag in May crept into an account of a Product Management View online seminar.

So was I the only one caught off guard by the #oow09 hashtag? Apparently not. Gwen Shapira used it in a September blog post. Fuad Arshad apparently tweeted it in August. Oh...and it appears on an Oracle wiki page.

In essence, this is probably the biggest problem with the decentralized creation of hashtags - it's decentralized. Certainly it's a good thing to let the community decide on the most appropriate hashtag to use, but what happens to the content that uses an expired hashtag - content that cannot be edited? For what I can edit my blog posts to apply the #oow09 label, I can't edit my tweets.

Amy Gahran proposed a solution to this issue:

It’s essential to coordinate, promote, and use hashtags at least a few hours before an event starts. That way, your Twitter followers will know that the event is happening, and how to follow it. They’ll also know how to spread the word of the upcoming coverage.

Ideally, use the hashtag in promotional tweets a couple of times before the event — and include in those tweets a link to the event’s info page, if any, so people know what you’re talking about.

In my view, that is not enough, especially for large events attended by tens of thousands of people. In fact, I began using the openworld09 label on Friday, October 3, 2008. In my blog post which covered the brainstorming session that occurred at Oracle OpenWorld 2008, here's part of what I said:

OK, I have now officially posted my first Oracle OpenWorld 2009 post - and the conference won't start until...well, until late 2009. (October 11-15, according to the OpenWorld 2008 site.)

Not that I was the first one to start asking about Oracle OpenWorld 2009. Somewhere around Tuesday or Wednesday during Oracle OpenWorld 2008, Marius Ciortea and others began talking about holding a brainstorming session during the Unconference. This was scheduled for Thursday morning - as I noted, I attended the session....

And I also said this:

So I've launched an "idea" thread on Oracle Mix to capture additional suggestions for Oracle OpenWorld 2009....Presumably other people have started, or will be starting, similar efforts. (In fact, if you want to start similar things in Mix, just be sure to use the "openworld09" tag.)

Oops. You know what they say about people that ASSUME...

So, what is the best way to let over 40,000 people know what the official hashtag for an event is? And how soon should this information be disseminated?

(Note to self: if I have a pbworks login, I should add this post to this wiki.)

Even if you don't own a yacht, you can host a ProductCamp (or a P-CAMP)

Before I formally established my Empoprise-BI business blog, I'd put business-related items in my main "Ontario Emperor" blog, mrontemp. So therefore you may have missed my January 12 post regarding the Silicon Valley P-CAMP 2009. The camp was scheduled for March, and I was actually considering using some frequent flyer miles to go up north and attend it. Because of various issues (including the fact that I didn't know what company I would be working for on March 12), I passed on P-CAMP in 2009 and haven't really thought about it since.

Until this morning.

Ryma held another of its webinars (see notes on previous webinar), and this one was hosted by Paul Young of ProductCamp Austin.

Excuse me for a moment or three while I make a quick, or not-so-quick, digression.

While the webinar was going on, I was going through a mental comparison of the unconference with which I WAS familiar (namely, the unconference at Oracle OpenWorld 2008) with the unconference that was being discussed. Obviously the Oracle unconference has some organizational advantages, as you can see by reviewing Paul Young's suggested list of things that need to be coordinated at a ProductCamp (or any unconference, for that matter):

• 1 strong leader - If someone truly owned the Oracle OpenWorld 2008 unconference, I can't recall who that person was. Obviously, however, the unconference preparation piggybacked on Oracle Technology Network and other efforts for OpenWorld itself.


• Venue - Space was allocated in Moscone West to host the unconference sessions, and someone presumably had to make sure that the spaces had projectors and other materials, but the effort was obviously much less than would be required for a stand-alone unconference.


• Sponsors/budget - I can't speak to this, because I am obviously unfamiliar with Oracle's internal accounting practices. I don't know whether there was a separate budget category for unconference, or whether the unconference costs were absorbed into other OpenWorld costs. Presumably sponsorship of the unconference itself would not be allowed, since it would create confusion with the general Oracle OpenWorld sponsorships that were offered.


• Marketing - Again, this piggybacked on the marketing for Oracle OpenWorld itself. The unconference was mentioned in the printed Oracle OpenWorld programs, space on the wiki was allocated for an unconference page, and Oracle's existing social media capabilities could be harnessed to promote the unconference.


• Sessions - Based upon the discussion of ProductCamp Austin, it appears that the Oracle OpenWorld 2008 unconference was smaller than the forthcoming ProductCamp Austin 2009. Based upon this size, session pre-registration on the wiki could essentially be managed by the participants themselves - for example, I moved my session from Thursday at 2:00 to Thursday at 1:00, which allowed Ignacio Ruiz to schedule his session fro 2:00.


• Volunteers - Again, the unconference piggybacked on OpenWorld itself, so many of the things that volunteers would do at a stand-alone unconference, such as serve the food, simply didn't need to be done here.

Now obviously this doesn't mean that an unconference that piggybacks on a larger event doesn't need ANY preparation - clearly work had to be done to get the unconference mechanics going, buy the index cards, and whatnot. I can attest from personal experience that an unconference will not happen if there is no interest in it.

But perhaps I should get back to the point.

Paul Young shared some general information about ProductCamps, based upon his experience at ProductCamp Austin. And this discussion reminded me of the ProductCamp that I DIDN'T attend a few months back.

The entire P-CAMP was documented online. For example, Matthias Zeller provided links that were relevant to his talk "Managing a 1.0 product."

But I haven't been able to find information on any plans for a P-CAMP in 2010. Apparently the best thing to do is to monitor the 2009 sites for a relevant announcement:

http://www.socialtext.net/p-camp2009/index.cgi

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=34311562722

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1073697

I figure that if I attend, I probably won't be presenting, just attending.

Of course, I said the same thing about Oracle OpenWorld 2008, and have been saying it about Oracle OpenWorld 2009...

Speaking of which, if you're interested in the Oracle OpenWorld 2010 unconference, its wiki page is here. As I write this, unconference information is minimal:

Event details

When: Oct. 11-14, 2009 (Mon - Thurs.), Hours TBD
Where: TBD

About The Oracle OpenWorld 2009 Unconference

For the third year in a row at Oracle OpenWorld, attendees will have the opportunity to directly participate by presenting their own session or workshop on a topic they're passionate about, in an informal, interactive setting.

The Oracle OpenWorld Unconference is more than a great opportunity for would-be presenters to share their knowledge and experience with other attendees in an informal setting. It also offers attendees the ability to learn what's on the minds of the community, directly from the grass roots.