Our very own Liesel Olson attended the first ever Twitter Town Hall at the White House on July 6th, 2011. As you can imagine, it was quite an experience. Here, in her own words, is some of what she experienced*.
It all started with a tweet. Having followed the White House on Twitter for a while, I jumped when I saw their tweet inviting people to sign up for the first ever White House Tweetup. In less than 24 hours I was accepted and made arrangements to go to Washington.
July 6th was a muggy day in Washington. I showed up at the White House for a tour at 10:30 in the morning, going through three rounds of security before entering.
Walking through the lower levels of the East Wing, I couldn’t help but think of who had walked those halls before me, who used the official china on display and how lucky I was to be there, because not everyone gets that chance.
The Secret Service guards were friendly and extremely knowledgeable about the White House history. One told me about how friendly and real the President is – how he not only says good morning every day, but how they often chat about sports and scores from the night before.
After walking through the Blue Room (which has the most amazing view), the East Room and the State Dining Room, I left to go to lunch. Upon my return, this time for the Tweetup, I went through the same security procedure and was led to the hall to wait until the East Room was ready. There were 140 people as part of the event (140 because of the event’s link to Twitter), but only 30 were official Tweeters – me included. When they led my group in, I ended up in the front row (score!).
As the room filled up, so did the anticipation. It became silent. Then Jack Dorsey (@jack), the founder of Twitter and our moderator for the event, came in and broke the silence by telling us a little about how the event was going to go. At the end of his announcement, he said, “The President of the United States.”
At once, everyone stood and turned. I readied my camera, only to realize he was coming down my side of the aisle and was in reach. Forget the camera! I need to get my hand out there!
I swooped to the right of the guy sitting next to me and stuck out my hand. I made eye contact with the President as we shook hands. I remember him saying, “Hi, how are you?” with a welcoming, genuine smile, but I honestly don’t know what I said back. I hope I said actual words…
It was unreal. As he moved on to the next person, I started shaking. Did I really just shake the President’s hand? Really?!
As the Town Hall started, I stopped shaking, but was still amazed by the historic day I was experiencing. I sat about 10 feet away from the President the entire time, watching him send his first tweet and answering questions from the American people (one of whom was sitting two chairs down from me). All this excitement made it hard for me to do my job: tweeting.
It’s the kind of situation where you want to pay attention at every moment, capturing everything and take it all in. But I was supposed to be tweeting, so I tried for a mix of both. I took breaks from tweeting to just enjoy the moment. It was also nice to take those breaks because live tweeting isn’t as easy as it looks or sounds. It’s like translating from a foreign language. You have to listen, compute and restate instantly, and as your brain is doing the latter two functions, you need to start the process all over again with the new information that is constantly being presented.
It was an unbelievable experience and I relished every moment. Also unbelievable was at one point I tweeted something and was actually retweeted by the White House:
I got about 100 new followers after that. Amazing. Most of the people who replied to or commented on my tweet were nice and appreciated the significance of the event. Some, however, were unnecessarily mean (maybe they were just jealous?). Nevertheless, it was exciting to see people so engaged.
After 20 answered questions and 70 minutes, the Town Hall ended and the President went about his other duties. The Twitter group and I went over to the Eisenhower Executive Office building to talk to Jack Dorsey and some of the team members responsible for Twitter and the surrounding digital strategy for the White House. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay long because I had a flight to catch, but it was still a very cool experience. Hearing from the people who manage such a high profile Twitter account (which they do an excellent job with) was an extraordinary professional experience, too.
It’s definitely an experience I will never forget. Even now, when I see the White House on TV or watch what they are saying on Twitter, it has a much greater impact. I can see their strategy and talent for handling social media and I can learn from it. And it all started with a tweet.
*Note: This post has been shortened from the original series of three posts on Liesel’s blog. If you would like to see the original, please click here.