In an area where people are gathered, either physically or vitually, the conversations and comments being made in the background, are often more prescient, and almost certainly more entertaining than than the subject matter being officially presented. Encouraging and capturing these backchannel discussions is a way to make your presentations more relevant to that specific audience and allow the speaker to morph and refine the message based on those sessions of invaluable feedback.

What is the backchannel? Murmur, background noise…you know, those annoying side conversations during a meeting that usually only serve to disrupt and distract from whatever the main person in the room happens to be talking about. That’s the backchannel. Sometimes they’re secret discussions about you (at least in your mind they’re about you) that take place in closed-door offices. Or sometimes they’re all the chatiness happening over instant messenger while you’re sitting on a boring conference call. Or it can be even something as simple as the comments on this blog posting. Some people refer to it as a meta-conversation (conversation about the conversation) or even sidebar discussions, but regardless of you choice of phrase, the backchannel represents all conversations that are not part of the main thread of discussion – however are somehow contextually related to you either by subject-matter (topical), geography (locational ), and/or intimate frame-of-reference (personal).

Topical
The topical backchannel context involves groups of people that are congregating for a specific purpose. These could be meetings, rallys , conferences, concerts, sporting events, etc. – but essentially everyone is there for a common purpose. The participants may or may not be all physically in the same location (for web conferences, people are scattered all over the world) but it’s the subject matter that draws them together. It’s a shared purpose.

Locational
Where topical backchannel conversations have people sharing their experience around a subject matter, the locational backchannel has experiences being shared around a common geography. The geography can be hyper-local such as a stadium or arena, or more widespread like a neighborhood or town. The topics being shared can be varied, but the context maintains relevance by tying everything together via the proximity to the other participants. A perfect example of this is using your Twitter client to see all the tweets being broadcast in your immediate area. The subjects of those tweets can range from announcing dinner plans to lamenting about work but interest is piqued by the fact that these are neighbors of your in some way.

Personal
Personal conversations may or may not have topical or locational contexts that relate to your own situation at that particular moment, but you care about what some people say because you have some vested interest in the actual person. They could be friends, family members, co-workers, or someone of a varying degree of celebrity. While, it may not always be interesting conversations they’re having, but it is always pertinent to you. This is why you follow certain people in the first place isn’t it?

Purpose
The primary purpose of the backchannel is to give someone an opportunity to be heard. Whether it’s about expressing an alternate opinion, obtaining/providing clarification on a comment, or airing some form of agreement/disagreement – it’s an empowering form of expression. There may be 1000s of people involved with whatever is going on, but each backchannel voice is equal in weight. Assuming you’re even listening that is.

The secondary purpose is for sharing experiences. “I am here”. “We are here”. People at the front of the group, relaying messages to the people in the back. “I just saw so-and-so, I think the band’s coming out”! “Accident on I-71, take the lateral to I-75 instead”. These relationships can be formed and broken in a matter of minutes or hours, but the value of the interaction can last for much longer if you listen correctly.

To the actual participants of these out-of-band conversations, they get value from the interaction itself. But if you, the provider, are savvy enough, you can give them extra value by reacting timely to their discussions.

Value
The forechannel discussion, without the backchannel is a flat subject. Two dimensional in that it has height and width, but no real depth. A backchannel discussion without it’s forechannel has no context, It’s essentially just random noise. Together though, these two channels can form a symbiotic mesh of discussion where the forechannel gives relevance and shape to the background noise, and the backchannel gives the main idea more depth and understanding. OK, that’s maybe a little obtuse. How about a couple of examples:

1. Giving a presentation for a local user group, the speaker has been through this material dozens of times. In order to keep it fresh for himself, the speaker gives the audience a Twitter #hashtag to use while he’s wading through the material.  He tells them that while he welcomes any questions during the talk, if they ask them via Twitter, he can address them during the appropriate portion of the presentation. A positive of this approach is that all of the gathered questions can be compiled and used to refine the message, establish FAQs, get direct contact information of the participants, and possibly sift through the conversations to find new avenues of business.
2. A downtown venue is hosting a sold out concert event and a few hours before it begins, starts to monitor the backchannel of patrons registered for the event talking about excitement for the event, traffic issues, and what they hope the band will be playing that night. Based on the number of messages about leaving for the event, the venue can estimate when the bulk of the crowd will be arriving. Complaints about traffic can prompt response back out to the incoming fans about alternate routes and which venue gates have the shortest lines. And the performing band can use the desires of the audience to maybe add a song to that night’s set that originally wasn’t scheduled to be played.
3. Getting ready to go out on the town, every couple, family, and group of friends has the same discussion - “Where do you want to go/eat? What do you want to do/see?“. Each person surfing their personal backchannels can quickly come up with new restaraunts or movies that quickly get narrowed down into a decision. Sure, there are web sites and iPhone apps that will let you see reviews of local places, but the power of the backchannel is that it makes recommendations more personal. In the end, all decisions are made with a mixture of logic and emotion and the personal backchannel provides that emotional element when logic cannot choose between two or more equal unknown options.

Obviously, a lot of things need to happen in order to make this work, but the building blocks are all there to do it today. Web Squared, the follow-on to Web 2.0 according to Tim O’Reilly, will help make these mainstream capabilities. Acquiring the data will not be the barrier in making use of the backchannel, rather it will be the sifting and application to their specific needs that will require the imagination and effort. This is why high-end data skills will be one of the hottest markets and job opportunities during the next wave.

It’s Not About Control
You can’t control the backchannel. Don’t even try. The more you try to shape the message, the more you’re not going to like how it comes out. Your job is to enable the conversations, capture them, and adapt yourself based on them. You can take the inputs and transform them into something useful for yourself and others, but in the end, it’s not your message because you didn’t create it, you just allowed it to happen.

Summary
If not officially provided by the venue, sponsor, or host, these backchannel discussions will occur organically. People will make up hashtags or keywords that make the most sense, or follow the lead of their neighbor . Some of these conversation snippets you may be able to find later by randomly looking for tell tale keywords that your audience may have used, but a good portion will be lost into the ether – at least to you. These could have been the most damning comments or those harboring the most praise. In either case, you won’t be able to use them to your advantage if you can’t find them.