If you have ever attended a trade show, chances are good that you have found yourself stuck listening to a boring sales pitch from an unqualified sponsored trade show speaker. At conferences across the country, more and more attendees have been using Twitter to quickly and quietly communicate with other attendees during speeches and panels. When a discussion panel gets off track and ventures onto topics that are not interesting for the majority of listeners, attendees working together can redirect the course of the discussion by collaborative “tweeting” to get things back on track.

According to a Fortune article, attendees have taken drastic steps to redirect boring discussion panels and speakers. In one specific case, conversation in a chat room (during the conference) caused a revolution against the discussion panel. “One person finally stood and requested permission to ask a question. They said ‘No’, and he said, ‘The whole room is behind me. I’m going to ask it anyway’.” When attendees are able to take control of the topics of discussion at conferences, both sides win. The goal (at least in part) of discussion panels and speakers is to relay valuable information to attendees, and when attendees can choose what they want to hear, this only gets easier.