Last weekend, Minneapolis hosted dueling conferences for online political activists. Netroots Nation, the progressive conference, was held at the Minneapolis Convention Center, while RightOnline, its conservative counterpart was just a couple blocks away at the Hilton. While the short distance was enough to keep the orange lanyards separated from the green, a quick twitter search of the conferences’ hashtags (#nn11 & #ro11) shows that some partygoers were as interested in each other’s conference as their own.
Unfortunately, much of the Tweetage is negative – from both sides. There are tweets about crashing and disrupting each other’s conferences, about whose speakers were better, who had smarter attendees, which conference was better attended….
But if you sift through the combative and the contentious, you’ll find some peacemakers in the stream, tweeting across the aisles, seeking common ground in Minneapolis, including one from an unlikely source.
From airport on way home, very much enjoying reading #NN11 and #RO11 threads. Meanwhile watching POTUS & Boehner golf together on TV. Anyone else concerned the lame "glitter toss" at Bachmann at #ro11 will ignite revenge at #nn11? Lets keep things professional ppl #nn11lgbt Seems there's more bipartisanship at #MSP than in DC or St. Paul. Maybe pols could learn from new media peeps. #RO11 #nn11 #tcot
#MPLS folks who attended both #nn11 & #ro11: let's meet up to find common values & dismantle harmful misconceptions. Who's in? Had a perfectly pleasant interaction with a #ro11 attendee today about the futility of Lions football, growing up in Detroit, etc. #nn11 @ - Great to meet you last night! There are so many issues we can agree on when we take out the two parties. #ro11 #nn11 @ and yes, the parties inevitably blind many to the fact that we can often agree. :) #nn11 #ro11 There's a lot more anger than I'd like to see from both sides here in Minneapolis. Political diffs don't need to cause that. #ro11 #nn11 Picked up a lot of great new Twitter friends from #RO11 and, gasp, even some from #nn11. #harmony Back in WI from Minneapolis. #ro11 was an awesome time. #nn11 can keep it classy!! Had a great time tonight. Really great to see #nn11 and #ro11 folks having fun together. #GOProud Heading home early from #ro11 for my son's 7th birthday. Nice meeting so many enthusiastic troublemakers & even some nice #nn11 types! Have you seen any other bi-partisan tweets from the weekend? Let us know and we’ll ad them to the post.
Tags: netroots nation, rightonline, Twitter
