Yesterday I attended the 7th Annual YouToo Social Media Conference at Kent State — right down the hall from my office. The organizers, as always, did A+ work in attracting great presenters who focused on important and timely topics. I won’t offer individual shout-outs here, as I would surely leave someone out. I will offer a special thanks to our two keynoters, Andrea Weckerle and Danny Brown.

Messages tagged #YouToo2014 were all over Twitter. The organizers used one of three large screens to display those tweets in real time. You also will find YouToo2014 messages on Facebook, Instagram, et. al. The popular selfies were those taken with Brimfield (Ohio) Police Chief David Oliver, the most famous cop on the Internet.

I decided several year ago that I wouldn’t contribute to the online conversation about YouToo — or any other conference — in real time. And since I’m an early adopter of social media, I feel a need to explain why I don’t tweet at conferences.

You see, I suck at multitasking, which means I can’t tweet and learn at the same time. I’m not wired for it. When I live-tweet an event (and I have in the past), I spend most of my time capturing nifty little sound bites of 140 or less. And when I craft those Twitter tidbits, I stop listening to the speakers and often miss key message points.

Though I don’t contribute to the chatter, I do enjoy the back channel conversations that live tweeting brings to a conference. Sure, most tweets are predictable and don’t tell you a whole lot. But they do add excitement and participation while also contributing to the reputation of the conference itself.

I’m looking forward to YouToo2105 where, once again, I’ll be playing the role of “Silent Bill.”