2006-11-10

Demo at KPL

2006-11-04

SILRC Retreat -- Session 1

Session 1 at the SILRC (pronounced Silrock and standing for Southern Illinois Learning Resources Cooperative) Retreat was mine: Social Networking Software in Libraries. I doubt that anyone blogged it....But I talked from a wiki that is publicly viewable. There's also a handout with definitions that I should probably throw up on the web sometime.

This is the third time I've given this talk as a 90-minute overview of web-based social technologies--wikis, blogs, instant messaging, sharing sites, and community sites (although the last two seem to be blending). People seem to get a lot out of seeing lots of library examples in conjunction with short definitions--it helps them understand the similarities and differences.

I'm giving it again on Friday for the Kirkwood Public Library's In Service Day. I'll probably change quite a few of the links to focus on public library examples. Suggestions welcome: joy at moll projects dot com. Also, I think I only get to talk an hour, so if anyone has ideas on what to cut, I'd love to hear it.

The difference between a retreat and a conference seems to be that there are fewer people (about 30) and only one track of sessions. With no choices to make, no room changes, and a reasonable number of people to meet, I found a retreat to be a much more relaxed atmosphere than a conference. I stayed for a couple of more sessions (and lunch) so I'll blog those in the next two blog posts.

Labels: conferences, presentations, social software

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2006-11-03

Demo post

Blogging from beautiful Rend Lake--SILRC Retreat.

Labels: presentations

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2006-10-24

Upcoming Engagements

I don’t know that anyone cares but I thought I’d post a list of my upcoming events that I am either attending, presenting at, or both—for no other reason than that I actually have such a list to make at the moment.

October 27 – 29 attending LITA (watch for me on the LITA blog)

November 2 – 3 presenting “Social Networking Software in Libraries” at the Southern Illinois Learning Resources Cooperative Retreat (also attending the sessions)

November 10 presenting “Social Software in Libraries” for an In-Service Day at Kirkwood Public Library

January 5 presenting a half-day workshop on “Top Technology Trends” at Glen Carbon Centennial Library

Labels: presentations

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2006-10-05

Stand and Deliver: How to Master Speaking in Public

This second session on public speaking was too basic for me after yesterday's acting techniques. I'm a little surprised that we're still getting the "no more than 3 to 5 bullet points per slide" kind of advice when a lot of presentation professionals are telling us not to use Power Point at all. Edward Tufte makes a case that PP leads to sloppy thinking and contributes to big disasters at NASA.

I'm never going to be as dynamic as Stephen Abram, but I'm ready to have slides like his that are simply visuals to punctuate his talk. Lately, my talks have been wiki-based because I wanted to demonstrate live websites while giving my audience one web site to go to later to play some more with the tools. I have a hard time imagine giving a talk with no visuals at all, as Dr. Martin did yesterday, but maybe that's a goal to shoot for.

Labels: conferences, presentations

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2006-10-04

Using Your Body to Reach Their Minds: Non-Verbal Communication at the Reference Desk or for Professional Presentations

Presenter: Jennifer K. Martin, Ph.D., Hall Family Foundation Professor of Theater, University of Missouri-Kansas City

I went to this because I got some tips from a teaching workshop that our library did about moving around a classroom that I've found really helpful. This session was that idea on steroids. Think about explaining a "on the one hand and on the other hand" concept--it's so much clearer if you use your hands, right? Now, think about making points in a lecture by starting off at home plate for the introduction, standing on first base for the first point, moving over to third base for a different point, and moving into the audience (second base) to tell them something a bit more intimate.

According to Dr. Martin, or rather some research, people take in information through hearing, through facial expression, and through body movement--and it's actually that last that is the favorite method for most Americans.

Some things I'm going to try at the Reference Desk:

turn the screen toward the patron when I want the patron to look at it--now I just do it at any convenient moment, but that's wasting a marvelous opportunity to direct attention at the precise moment when it will convey the most information.

Direct attention to the screen, but face back to the patron in case that person depends on facial expressions.

Shift my weight to emphasize step 1, step 2, step 3 (works just like taking the different bases while talking to a group).

Smile. That gives confidence to people who are sensitive to facial expressions.

Try to eliminate communicative static. Verbally, that's the "uh"s and "mmm"s. But it can also be any fiddling behavior and gestures that don't mean anything. If people are reading my body language and facial expressions, what are they to make of me fiddling with my earring?

Labels: conferences, instruction, presentations

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