At a green brand conference this summer, I witnessed something incredible. It wasn’t the speakers, although they were inspiring in their own right.  It was the audience that caught my eye. About 90% of them never looked at the stage - instead, they were rapid-typing the content of the speeches into their tweets or blog entries. I was impressed, thinking I was witnessing a glorious mass communication revolution.

That is, until I peeked over some shoulders and saw what they were typing. There were posts like “Speaker says green is here to stay.” And “Green is good for business.” A pretty anemic version of what was actually being said.

Then it dawned on me. These audience members were so intent on flexing their social media muscles, they were missing out on 95% of the message. Technology had turned them into stenographers - and not particularly good stenographers at that.  There was no synthesis, no analysis, no thinking. I’m certain each of the writers felt they were making a difference. But they were, in fact, adding little more than chatter. And that, I believe, is a problem. The movement to fight climate change does not benefit from a fire hose of superfluous communication. It needs focus.

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