Preparing for #IBC2017 and tweeting from China

That should be very short preparation. You can’t tweet from China.

Instead we’ll try to use WeChat. WeChat is a messaging platform that does work in China that allows people to instant message. Our hope is I can pick up WeChat messages and then format them for Twitter. To get questions back into China, I’ll read replies on Twitter and message them back to Pat, or whoever sent the message, through WeChat to see if there’s a response.

Time zones being what they are, this isn’t likely to happen quickly, but we’re not entirely certain this is going to work well anyway.

The offer isn’t just open to Annals of Botany and AoB PLANTS editors. My WeChat ID is alunsalt. If you connect to me and tell me your Twitter handle then I can tweet your IBC comments manually so they’ll appear
RT @handle «message» #IBC2017

If there’s a strong take up of this, then there’s a possibility I’ll be working Chinese hours through the conference and recovering from RSI the week after. Otherwise there might be a delay anyway in relaying messages as I work European hours.

As a note, there is an International Broadcasting Conference using both #IBC17 and #IBC2017. We’ll just have to muddle along. It’s not a clash, it’s an outreach opportunity.