EAT-IT 09 (Emerging Academic Technologies and Instructional Techniques) starts tomorrow at Inver Hills Community College. During the keynote presentations (there are now five of them over two days) I’m going to try out a new game that I hope will be 
fun for the attendees. I always think it’s pretty funny to play Buzzword Bingo at conference sessions, but that is just a little too low tech for a tech conference. Enter BuzzTweet Bingo (copyright, trademark, patent, DRM, and all licenses and royalties belong to me – Barry Dahl). (You can Google it (I did) and you’ll find no reference to the term except probably this one and all future derivatives from this one.)
Here’s how it works. Prior to the start of the keynote presentation or breakout session, you send a Twitter direct message to the game administrator. In the message, you identify who the speaker is and then you list five buzzwords that you predict the speaker will use during the session. Here’s the catch. One word must start with a B, one word with an I, one with an N, a G, and an O.
During the presentation, you send a tweet immediately after you hear each one of your words, for example:
- @EATIT09 John O’Brien just said “BillyBob” (which let’s assume was my B word)
- @EATIT09 John O’Brien just said “Interwebs”
- @EATIT09 John O’Brien just said “Nervous Nelly”
- @EATIT09 John O’Brien just said “Giddyup”
- @EATIT09 John O’Brien just said “”OMG” – BINGO!!! Hallelujah!! I’ve got a BINGO!
First person to post their five words and Tweet “BINGO!!!” is the grand prize winner (a prize to be named later). NOTE: most of those sample words above are not good tech buzzwords, but were chosen based solely on their first letter for purposes of this demonstration.
Why a direct message? That keeps your predictions private so your cheating neighbors won’t copy your great buzzword ideas. The admin (me) will be able to keep you honest by checking your predictions in the dm, and compare them to your regular tweets during the session.
Rules:
- Rule #1, Obey all rules!!!
- Admin makes the call on whether something is a good buzzword. No simple words, no conjunctions, don’t use the speakers name, etc. This is BuzzTweet Bingo for rice cakes – USE BUZZWORDS and stupid acronyms and stuff like that.
- Admin settles disputes about whether the speaker actually said your buzzword or not. If necessary, the archive of the video stream will be checked and re-checked. Don’t make me pull this car over.
- No crying, and check rule #1.
If you’re ready to play – here’s the steps to get started.
- Follow the game administrator on Twitter. He needs to follow you back so you can send direct messages to him.
- If I (barrydahl on Twitter) already follow you, then you’re good to go. Just send me your direct message.
- If I don’t follow you on Twitter, follow the special account I created for the game (EATIT09 on Twitter) which is set up to automatically follow you back. This should happen very quickly (We’ll see). Otherwise just tell me to follow you so that you can send me direct messages.
- Send the dm to the game admin (either barrydahl or EATIT09 on Twitter) prior to the start of the session, or within the first couple of minutes (can’t include buzzwords you’ve already heard). Make sure you identify the speaker’s name in addition to your five buzzwords.
- Example: d EATIT09 John O’Brien keynote: BuzzTweets – BillyBob, Interwebs, Nervous Nelly, Giddyup, OMG
- Send a regular tweet (@ reply to EATIT09) the first time the speaker uses each of your five buzzwords (see the examples above under the picture).
- Feel free to yell out BINGO! during the session when you send your fifth tweet – sort of like a tweet heard round the world.
Finally, if this idea falls flat on its face, then I clearly stole the idea from someone who is far less entertaining (see previous post) than I am.
CC Flickr photo by Annie Mole
Filed under: Computing, Conference | Tagged: BuzzTweet, BuzzTweetBingo, EATIT09 |
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