Show business

So last week as part of my job I spent three days at a trade show - something of a novelty for me because I am usually office-based.

Another novelty was using Twitpic to share a few photos of the show on Twitter. Here's one of Bibendum - Michelin Man as he's more often known.

I also tried out TwitPict, an iPhone Twitpic client, which works well but adds '#TwitPict' to any tweets you send with it.

We had agreed on a hashtag to use before the show, but in the end it was only used by a few people on our team and maybe three non-journalists too. Not a total success. Incidentally, Hashtags.org is a useful website for tracking the popularity of individual hashtags.

What else? We produced a video news round-up of each day of the show, although my role there was limited to uploading it to the website (and appearing in the background of one of the videos for a minute or so). We also put the videos one our YouTube channel for good measure - oh, and embedded them in one of our blogs.

I even wrote a bit of copy - well, a few paragraphs - and subbed a couple of stories for good measure. I felt like a proper journalist for almost the first time since leaving the production desk.

Don't get me wrong: I enjoy my current role, but it has a bit too much of the technical (and increasingly, the commercial) to feel much like journalism.

Still, the show must go on.