Most of you already know that I moonlight as a full-time student.  My instructor from my marketing communications class has gotten to know me pretty well.  She and I have had many conversations about my passion for social media and new marketing.   Last week she was sure to tell me that Evan Williams the founder and CEO of Twitter was going to be speaking on campus.   Evan hails from the fine state of Nebraska so it was natural for him to speak to University of Nebraska students.  I was thrilled to have the opportunity to hear him and learn about his ideas and experiences. 

I blocked off the time frame to go listen to him.  I excitedly packed my bag with computer and headed down town.  When I got to the Raikes school for computer science I was greeted by a reception table with a registration desk….Uh Oh…. registration??? Normally when speakers come to the University they broadcast it all over hoping for students to come listen to the speaker.  The University had made it a point to tell EVERYONE that Evan was coming to speak, but had failed to mention that it was a closed event.   My marketing professor hadn’t said anything about it being an event I needed to register for.  So upon noticing the registration table, my heart sank.  The following conversation ensued  

Liz : “Did I need to register for this speaker?”

Lady:  “Well, are you a Raikes computer science student?”

Liz: “No my marketing professor told me about this.”

Lady: “Who’s your marketing professor?”

Liz: “Shannon Cummins”

Lady: “ Well, this is invite only and she wasn’t even invited.”

Liz: “Oh! Ok, well maybe I’ll just wait over here and if there is an open seat maybe I can take it.”  –at this point I was thinking …they’re not seriously going to turn me away??? Are they?

I arrived at the event at 1pm and by 1:25 another lady informed me that this was not a “public” event.  I informed her that I wasn’t the public, but a student at the university.  She then told me of the streaming site, and the room down the hall that they were opening for people to watch from.  Ok, I’m a huge dork.  I went and watched from this separate lecture hall all by myself!!!! Yup I was the only person in this huge room.  It was somewhat ridiculous.  Because of me they were forced to actually make the link to the streaming video actually work, since prior to my attendance the link wasn’t active. 

After getting over my frustrations with the University I was still able to hear Evan talk for a few minutes before the video feed went out.  HA!  I could still hear the audio.   He was very good and answered all the questions to the best of his ability.  He told the students about his experiences as an entrepreneur, and struggles with Twitter coming of age.  There was much discussion about the fail whale, and twitters growing pains.  It seemed that the students were so excited to have someone like Evan sitting in front of them that maybe in depth questions were not coming to mind. 

The hash tag address was very quickly said only once at the beginning of the presentation, and I missed it.  It definitely wasn’t my day.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to answer any of my burning questions.  

“Where did the idea of twitter come from?

“How did you find funding and what was the business model presented to gain this funding?”

“What do you think of businesses using your site for marketing?”

I have a million of them.  Maybe someday Evan will stumble on this blog.  Until then those questions will linger and I’ll do some of my own searching out on Google.   After getting over my resentment I was still glad that I attended and could share with you all.  Keep in mind that my resentment had NOTHING to do with Evan but with the University.  Evan simply got caught up in the middle.  It doesn’t help that I’m a nerd and really wanted to learn from the guy.   

To digress for a moment …… Something that bothers me.  I have found several websites lately that lock you in?  What is with this?  I get to the website and cannot click the back button to return to my original website.  Maybe this is user error?  Whether its user error or not I really hate it!  Human suggestion— make your website backable.  I’m human and sometimes I click and don’t mean to.  I’m also lazy so I don’t want to have to type in an address all over again when I can just hit the back button.