As I was honing my tweeting skills at the 2013 AFP International Conference this week, it did occur to me that some conference sessions lent themselves better to tweeting than others. In the same way that the general public has been trained to speak in news-byte sentences in the hopes of being featured on television, clearly some presenters are leading the way in presenting tweetable insights – whether they are doing it consciously or not!

Looking back on the AFP conference session I presented with Helen Brown and Debbie Sokolov, we could have created more tweetable insights in our “theory” overviews, but I don’t regret that we included Debbie’s storytelling. Presenting the structure for thought and learning and then weaving it into a real life story helps with retention and deepens understanding. Stories provide the context to which our brains can connect the theories. Maybe the answer is to provide the tweetable 140-character summary on the PowerPoint slide while the story is being told!

And there is another issue with the tweeting craze and really, with the information overload. As we all board cars, trains and airplanes to head home and return to work, once tweeted, is it forgotten? What do we do with all of the information we learned? How do we act on it? Will we be able to translate a trend or someone else’s story into our reality?

One of the things we lost forever at the end of our presentation on prospect research was the pile business cards people left for us. We turned around and poof! They were gone.

If you were one of those generous card givers, I hope you will comment here or email us so we can continue the conversation. Please also email me, Jen Filla, or Helen Brown or Debbie Sokolov if you learned something new, but are struggling with *exactly* how to implement it, if you need the *detailed* steps to make it happen.

Our presentation was designed to be an overview and yet our attendees were craving the details, the formulas, the exact solutions:

• Some of that detail is readily available and we can point you to it.
• Some of your questions can be answered in a short conversation.
• And sometimes those exact solutions require an assessment and a plan.

For me, the biggest joys at the conference were being a part of the more than 4,000 people dedicated to philanthropy and fundraising and being a part of the giving by contributing a new book, some prospect research tactics and techniques, and new friendships.

About the Author

Jen Filla is president of Aspire Research Group LLC where she works with organizations worried about finding their next big donor, concerned about what size gift to ask for, or frustrated that they aren’t meeting their major gift goals. She is also co-author of Prospect Research for Fundraisers: The Essential Handbook.

You can follow Jen on Twitter: @jenfilla