Spotted on the always fascinating Retronaut site this piece - 1965: "Step up from routine office work into a glamour job" that highlighted a vintage advertisement from that fine, fine institute of higher learning, LaSalle Extension University on the amazing potential career opportunities that awaited those willing and able to learn how to use a wondrous new technology - the Stenotype Machine.
With the Stenotype Machine, and the skills required to translate every spoken word in the English language into a series of 22 weird characters, the ad promises that career minded folks, (and let's be honest here, LaSalle University is aiming this add only towards women), would soon be able to "Sit beside top corporation exectutives at board meetings and big conferences" and "Even cover conventions and courtroom trials!"
The irony about this old ad, pushing the benefits of a new machine that would help someone learn the skill of being able to listen to a conversation or a presentation in real time, and translate the essence or the most important elements of what was being said into a new, concise, constrained, and kind of hard to figure out initially type of language, and do all of that instantly, is that it sounds almost exactly like what I, and lots of other people are doing, when they try and 'live tweet' conferences or events.
But unlike the Stenotype operator that had to capture all of what was being said, the live tweeters only try to grab the most compelling bits of information - those highly tweetable phrases and comments that are meant to reflect the overall content and point of view of the presentation or event, but ultimately fail at doing both, primarily because we simply can't type as fast as the 1965 Stenotype machine operator, and second, because our constraints (140 characters, mainly), only allow for the simplest sound bites to be shared.
But even with all that, there are some remarkable similarities to the pitch back in 1965 for Stenotype operators, "Sit next to big, important people and write down what they say!" and today's live tweeter, a kind of social media created spectator. Just like LaSalle Extension University (Did they have a football team? Go Extenders!), tried to convince women back then that sitting near powerful people was something worthy to aspire towards, I think for lots of folks that are sitting in audiences and trying to capture and crystallize what presenters are saying is the modern equivalent of a kind of reflected importance.
Look, I am not knocking the idea of tweeting from conferences or during some kind of popular media, news, or cultural events. I do it myself. It is kind of fun. Sometimes you actually have something insightful to add to the conversation. Sometimes.
But mostly or at least often it is just 'sitting next to important people and writing down what they say.'
The 1965 version of that doesn't look like all that much fun as we look back. I bet one day we will look back at the 2014 version and say much the same thing.