ALA Learning – Presentation Tips

Five Tips for Getting the Word Out

August 17, 2010 By Lauren Pressley

It seems like just yesterday that school and academic librarians were wrapping up and reflecting on the academic year. Today, schools and colleges are gearing up for the fall semester. With the start of a new year comes a need to get out there and meet the new teachers and faculty members to share the services you can offer, as well as teach a whole new batch of students.

And as tempting as it is to try and get your entire message out there, it’s sometimes easy to give so much information that the audience has a hard time remembering what exactly it was that you were saying. So here are a few tips for maximizing your message:

1. Know your audience

2. Give them something to do

The academic year kicks off with lots of listening for many people. There are orientation sessions, committee meetings, classes, and countless hours of the day are spent listening to others talk. When you know your audience has been on the receiving end of a lot of informational sessions, it’s nice to give them something to do. If you have access to clickers, even that small level of activity engages the audience and can even be used as a platform for discussion. If you don’t have clickers, you can replicate the interaction with colored sheets of paper or having people stand up or sit down based on their answers. I’ve had great luck using worksheets to guide student note taking. Even the act of reading the worksheet to know what we’ll cover, waiting for the pieces of information to fill in the blanks, and participating in small group activities to complete the worksheet has meant library instruction sessions having a higher level of engagement.

3. Give them something

Even if you pay attention to the characteristics and information needs of your audience, and even if you use good active learning techniques in your presentation, your information can still be lost. When flooded with a lot of new concepts, information, and facts it’s hard to keep everything straight. Giving out your business card or a handout means your audience will have a way to get back in touch with you. Later, when they’re going through all the things they’ve accumulated in these early days of the academic year, seeing the handout or card will trigger their memory to remind them that someone from the library came to tell them something. And sometimes that trigger is enough to get them back through the door (or into the email inbox).

4. Be virtual

Something good to put on that handout (or on your business card… think a sticker with extra information on the back of it) is a URL pointing to more information. If you have a lot for people to learn but you doubt they’ll remember it after they leave the room, giving them a place to find it later can be a good way to make sure they’ll have the information at a point of need. Creating subject guides about library services, in addition to subjects, can be a quick and easy way to put information out there where people can access it later. Make a quick web-based video introducing yourself, and you’ll help them put a face to a name. (And show them how friendly you are in the process!)

5. What’s your number one goal for them to remember?

Any my personal number-one-technique is to have one major point that I want the audience to remember. Most of the time it’s that they can always contact me for further information on the topic, whether that’s how to do women’s studies research, implement a new technology in their teaching, or think about the future of publishing. One of the first things I say in a session is that I’ll be going over a lot, so it’s okay if they forget. The one thing to focus on remembering is how to get in touch with me. When I introduce topics and can see that some people are struggling to keep it all straight in their heads, I say it again. Typically by the end of the session I’ve said it at least a dozen times. Sometimes I hear from people sometimes I don’t, but by the end of a session when I get them chanting “get in touch with you” when I ask “what should you do if you forget what I’m showing you?” I know they are remembering the one piece of information I’ve identified as most useful, and it’ll probably stick around in their heads for a while.

Do you have any tips for getting the word out?

Image Credits:

Beautyproof by larskflem

Free School Child’s Hands Choosing Colored Pencils by Pink Sherbet Photography

A Wedding Present by lechampiondumonde.com

Geocaching by William Hook

Ghetomundial Youngfolk by d_runk

Lauren Pressley is the Instructional Design Librarian at Wake Forest University. She also blogs at Lauren’s Library Blogs and spends a fair amount of time on Twitter, too.

Lauren Pressley

Lauren Pressley is the Instructional Design Librarian at Wake Forest University. In this role she works with librarians and faculty to improve the design of their teaching and to share information about integrating appropriate educational technology. She also works with emerging technologies. Lauren’s passion is helping people learn about the changing information landscape and think about what that means for them as consumers and producers of information. Recently Lauren published So You Want To Be a Librarian and Wikis for Libraries. She was an ALA Emerging Leader in 2008 and was a recognized as a Library Journal Mover & Shaker in 2009. She frequently writes and presents on education, instruction, technology, and the future of libraries. Lauren also blogs at ALA Learning, tweets as @laurenpressley, and can be reached at lauren@laurenpressley.com.

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Filed Under: Presentation Tips Tagged With: fall semester, new school year, teaching, tips, virtual, worksheets

5 Things That Make You Look Like a Noob

June 1, 2010 By Jay Turner

This month marks my third anniversary as Training Manager for Gwinnett County Public Library and my fifth year working in training and development. As I prepare for my annual performance evaluation, I always like to clean up my cubicle as a symbol of receiving a new beginning. While I was tidying up the old hole in the wall, I found a notebook of handouts from a train the trainer session I attended five years ago. Alarm bells rang in my head. If I’d unearthed the notebook from the black hole that is my desk, then the dreaded video of my first recorded presentation was somewhere nearby. Surely enough the mini-DVD labeled “PB&J” (I was recorded demonstrating how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to my fellow trainees) was underneath a small hill of forgotten conference swag. I couldn’t resist playing the DVD for a good laugh, and boy did I get a belly full of laughter from watching it. My awkwardly stiff performance on that video forced me to reflect on my first year or so as a trainer. Inspired by some of my worst moments, I present to you: 5 Things That Make You Look Like a Noob – in no particular order.

1. Reading from your notes: Part of the training exercise for planning for my presentation was to write down the necessary steps on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich so that an alien could do it alone. When it was time for me to present, I was so nervous to speak in front of the group that I actually carried my notes with me and even read from them a couple of times. Nothing says uncomfortable and unprepared like reading from your presenter’s notes. This is true for webinars as well.

Nothing screams noob louder than appearing unprepared or uncomfortable.

2. Apologizing: I was stoked the very first time I taught a training class at my library. I was leading a four hour session that teaches new employees how to use the library’s ILS. I’d spent the previous week preparing, so that class would be perfect at show time. Things didn’t work the way I’d planned. Due to unplanned maintenance, I was forced to use a test version of a records database instead of the real one. I learned during my session that the database would often give cryptic error messages when certain steps were performed. I was not expecting this, so when one of these messages appeared, I would apologize to the class (and that was a lot of mea culpas!) I’ve since learned that you undermine your credibility as a presenter when you apologize repeatedly. If you say you’re sorry for an inconvenience, do it once and move on. Constant apologies draw more attention to problem and give the impression that you are not in control.

3. Dressing like the rest: The dress code at my library is business casual, and it is not uncommon to see me in the office wearing pressed slacks, a polo shirt, and sensible shoes. Early in my training career, I would teach class wearing my typical work attire. I’m no Tim Gunn, but I did find it problematic that new employees at the library thought I was a trainee and not the trainer based on my appearance. That only had to happen twice before I realized that as a presenter, I should always dress one step above the audience.

4. A long introduction: Most people don’t care about the history of your topic or how Merriam Webster defines it. Classroom time is invaluable, and blowing ten minutes on an inane intro is not a good use of it. Lead into your presentation with a solid opener – something that gets people moving, talking, and most importantly, thinking about the upcoming presentation.

5. Doing all the talking: It feels good to be the center of attention, and it’s one of the reasons why I enjoy my job. As a trainer, I can be an entertainer, motivator, and teacher – someone that people want to hear (or have to hear, depending on the circumstances). Early in my training career, I reveled in the spotlight and loved nothing more than receiving class evaluations with additional comments like, “Jay is so funny!”, or “This class was entertaining. Thanks for the good times.” The problem, I later realized, is that I was unintentionally making myself part of the subject matter, instead of the focusing solely on the learners. It took me a while to recognize the value in talking less and allowing my learners to have more meaningful interaction. If you’re doing more than 60% of the talking in your classroom, then it’s probably time to zip it.

This is only five of dozens of faux pas I’m guilty of committing. What are some noob mistakes that you’ve been guilty of? What advice would you give fledging trainers to save them some embarrassment along the way?

Jay Turner

Jay Turner, Training Manager at Gwinnett County Public Library in Georgia, is responsible for all aspects of learning and development for a staff of 300+ employees. He considers himself a lifelong student, and delights in sharing his passion for learning with anyone willing to listen (much to their chagrin!) He is a library lifer, who began working in libraries as a teen and has worn almost every conceivable public services hat since. Jay’s diversity of experience helps him develop and deliver solutions that are creative, practical, and effective. He is a self-proclaimed information and tech junkie, who gets his fix by playing in his “digital sandbox” with new tools and neat ideas to make learning more accessible, more flexible, and more fun across any medium. He can be reached at jayturner[at]comcast.net.

Filed Under: LearnRT News, Presentation Tips Tagged With: DVD, ILS, learners, library, Merriam Webster, PB, Tim Gunn, trainer, training, video

The TED Commandments

May 13, 2010 By Marianne Lenox

The TED Talks promoters send this tablet as a guide for speakers prior to each event. In her TED Talk Amy Tan described the arrival of the TED Commandments as “something that creates a near-death experience; but near-death is good for creativity…”

Used in a broader sense I’m convinced that many of these rules can be applied to almost any talk or presentation, but (of course) would welcome your comments!

Image by Rives, transcribed by Tim Longhurst. Via Garr Reynolds.

Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick

Pressure yourself to keep learning about a topic. I have an Information Overload talk I gave a few years ago, and wouldn’t dream of presenting it again without catching up on the latest theories and contributions to the debate.

Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before

Don’t be afraid to experiment with what you’ve already learned. Share not only what you know, but what you’d like it to be. Look at your processes, at what you do every day. If it works for you, it’s quite possible the process is a good one and could be shared, inviting discussion to make it even better.

Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion

It’s your topic, your audience. Own them. Your talk may be at a monthly department meeting or national conference, but most likely you’ve got a keen interest in the subject. Show it!

Perhaps you actually are passionate about the topic, even better. Share your excitement as well as your progress.

Thou Shalt Tell a Story

Involve your audience by giving them someone to empathize with and to make them care. The story might be about yourself or someone else, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s a good tell.

Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy

As you catch up, read and get involved on blogs by those you admire within the topic. Commenting on posts is a great way to become engaged with those who care about the same things you do. Also explore dissenting opinions, adding your own if you have them.

Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.

No one wants to hear about how wonderful you are because you figured this out, but the different methods you used to get the conclusion. If you’ve learned from your mistakes, someone else will, too.

Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desparate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.

While I agree that I don’t usually want to hear a sales pitch, I’d take exception to this when appealing for library funding or for my job.

Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.

I’ve heard different opinions on humor during talks, but I gave this advice to a staff member just the other day: If you’re going to use humor point it towards yourself. I use self-deprecating humor quite a bit, it seems to somehow relax the audience, especially when teaching technology. Also be careful of humor that may offend someone: I thought about writing this post as if I were Moses and God Himself had delivered the tablets and burning bushes were involved. I reconsidered…probably very wisely.

Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.

Worse yet, never turn your back to your audience to read slides. Then again, don’t put so much text on a slide that you’d have to read it at all! Text is for handouts.

Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee

Make your talk worthwhile with your passion and your knowledge. Give them one big thing to remember a week later, your chance of retention is better the less you try to put in their heads. Even though some training is repetitive in nature, get them excited, fired up and ready to go use what you’ve taught them!

Marianne Lenox

As the Staff Training & Volunteer Coordinator for the Huntsville - Madison County Public Library in Alabama, Marianne is responsible for planning, directing, maintaining and implementing a comprehensive staff training and volunteer program for her library. She consistently strives to provide learning opportunities, professional information and technical training to ensure both better library service and the professional development of the Library’s staff and volunteers.

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Filed Under: Presentation Tips, The Training Life Tagged With: Information Overload, Talk Amy Tan, teaching, TED, Thou Shalt Reveal, Thou Vulnerable, Tim Longhurst, training, Usual Shtick Pressure, Via Garr Reynolds

9 Reflections on Co-presenting

April 27, 2010 By Peter Bromberg

I recently had the pleasure of co-presenting a full day preconference with my wife Suzanne. (The workshop, entitled, “What’s Your Style? 9 Paths to Personal and Professional Development” was based on the Enneagram personality System) I’ve co-presented with others many times over the past 15 years and strongly believe that, for a number of reasons, co-presenting can be very beneficial and raise the overall quality of the workshop and the experience of the participants.

For starters, if you are co-developing a workshop as well as co-presenting it (which is common), the quality and organization of the material greatly benefits from a joint perspective. With two brains reviewing the content, errors are reduced and points are clarified. Likewise, the logical sequencing of the content will also be improved. We all know (probably from some amount of bitter experience) that what is crystal clear and logical to us as presenters, is not always so clear to those we present to. The benefits of co-developing a workshop are magnified when presenters have different styles, and if you have a choice I encourage you to find someone most unlike yourself to present with. Be warned that presenting with someone very different can create friction. But you can choose to reframe that friction by reminding yourself often that the differences which cause friction are the same differences which will improve the quality of your presentation.

Based on my very recent experience in co-preparing and co-presenting with someone who had a VERY different style than me, here are nine reflections on co-preparing and co-presenting a full day workshop.

On Preparing

Play to your strengths: Inevitably, you and your co-presenter will have different strengths. If you don’t know each other well and/or haven’t presented together before, spend some time discussing what each of you does best, and then make an initial plan to divide the duties and tasks based on your strengths.
Set benchmarks. Assess progress. Reset benchmarks. Working with someone else will generally take more time than working alone. Also, it’s not uncommon for two people to have very different senses about when certain things need to be done. For example, I can be cool as a cucumber even when I haven’t finished writing a talk a day before it’s going to be given. My wife is stressed when she doesn’t have a talk written and practiced two weeks prior. Setting benchmarks for progress and frequently checking in on progress is a useful way to keep everyone’s stress level down, while moving forward on deliverables at an even pace.
Work separately and together. Schedule Business Meetings. I found great value in coming together with my co-presenter to set goals and deliverables, moving apart to work separately, and then coming back together to review, refine, and integrate each other’s work. Setting regular business meetings, on a calendar, with an agenda of what you would like to accomplish, goes a long way towards creating a high quality, well-sequenced presentation in a way that is manageable, and not overwhelming.
Have a Full Dress Rehearsal. No matter how good your lesson plan is, you WILL find problems and areas for improvement during a full dress rehearsal. Better to find them during rehearsal then during the actual presentation. ‘Nuff said.
Mind your version control and coordinate backups. My wife and I used a shared dropbox folder to share all materials. She could see and revise what I was working on and vice-versa. On the off-chance that dropbox disappeared overnight, I also had our home computer backing up to an external hard-drive. When all documents and powerpoints were finalized, I put one complete set of everything on three laptops (two were mine, one was my wife’s) and also put a complete set on two flash drives, one for me and one for her. When we made the inevitable last minute changes, I made sure to update in dropbox and refresh all backup copies accordingly. Being the least detail-oriented person in the world, I’m also the one to overcompensate the most when necessary!

On Presenting

Set Ground rules with each other. It is possible that you and your co-presenter have different ideas about what is appropriate behavior when one is presenting and the other isn’t. One of the biggest areas of possible conflict involves whether or not it is ok to interject, correct, or otherwise interrupt your partner while they are presenting. One of the great values of co-presenting is that your partner is well-positioned to read the facial expressions and body language of participants and is likely to be more cued in to times when participants are confused, and in need of clarification. For that reason, I encourage everyone that co-presents to open themselves to the interjections of their presenting partners, and allow for a free back-and-forth regardless of who has the floor. Additionally it is good for each presenter to….
Have complete copies and understanding of each other’s script and materials. Having complete copies of each other’s scripts (and/or outlines, and/or key points) can greatly increase the quality of the presentation for two reasons: 1) It ensures that no highly relevant points are forgotten or glossed over (if they are, your co-presenter can either alert you or interject.) and 2) It frees each presenter up from having to memorize or read excessively directly from notes. It frees us up to make more eye contact, speak more naturally and conversationally, and connect more deeply with the audience, because we know we have a safety net of sorts; our co-presenter won’t let anything important get missed.
Leave specific timing off of the participant agenda and modify timing/content on the fly. I suppose this could go under “Preparing” too… I highly recommend having a few versions of how the actual presentation can play out–a few different agendas that you share with your co-presenter but not with participants. Additionally, it is good to have additional modules (activities) and content that you don’t necessarily plan to use, but could slot in depending on timing (if you’re running short) or the interest of the participants. When my wife and I recently co-presented, we noted on our private agenda where certain portions could be expanded or moved, and where other modules that we had “in the can” could be inserted. Throughout the day we adjusted our presentation. The participant agenda was worded broadly, and only noted beginning, ending, and lunch times, which allowed us to keep to their agenda while making significant adjustments to ours along the way.
Restrain yourselves from talking too much. My growth as a presenter over the past few years has been to present less, and facilitate more. When I present, especially when I present on a topic that I’m passionate and knowledgeable about, I want to cram 20 hours of material into 8 hours of workshop. A few years ago Dr. Marie Radford shared some invaluable feedback with me after I guest lectured for her. In a nutshell, she said, “Less is more.” She advised me to cut, cut, cut the material, and spend more time talking with the students and less time talking at them. She suggested I give them the concepts and then invite them to reflect and discuss, and in that way the learning would be grounded in their own experience. So I pass along Marie’s helpful advice, as it becomes doubly tempting with two presenters to, well, present! Be extra mindful to structure your presentation in such a way as to present the key concepts, and then allow the participants to speak, question, reflect, challenge, and discuss — even if that means you don’t cover everything. (That’s what handouts are for! And websites.)

I firmly believe that a co-presented workshop — especially a full-day workshop — has the potential to be better organized, more complete and nuanced, and more engaging than a workshop presented solo. Yes, it’s likely going to be more work for you (if you’re counting the hours and minutes of prep time), but it is also an opportunity for you to learn from someone with a different style, a different knowledge base, and a different viewpoint. Ultimately, preparing and presenting a workshop with another person can be an engaging and rewarding experience for all involved, and I encourage everyone to give it a try!

Peter Bromberg

Filed Under: Presentation Tips Tagged With: free, Full Dress Rehearsal, Marie Radford, preconference, Preparing Play, presenting, Presenting Set Ground, Professional Development, Schedule Business Meetings, students

Project Runway: 5 lessons for training and design

March 23, 2010 By Betha Gutsche

I recently got hooked on Project Runway, the reality show in which aspiring fashion designers compete to create new designs within significant restrictions on time, materials, and theme. I’m not a fan of reality shows nor am I a fashionista, but I find it fascinating to watch the participants’ responses to working creatively under intense pressure. I see some application to training and instructional design.

1. Mind the scope
The Project Runway participants perform under grueling time constraints. They hear about the theme of the week, make some quick sketches, go shopping with specified budget and time limits, start fabricating, fit their models, and polish the garments into readiness for the runway—all within a 15-hour day, followed by a 4-hour stint. It is critically important for them to gauge their designs to what can effectively be accomplished in that relentless schedule. Awareness of the realistic scope of a project is essential. In episode 6 of this season, Amy launched into an ambitious effort to create a pair of pants out of multi-layered, overlapping petals of fabric. She miscalculated the scope of the effort needed to pull it off successfully and she ended up being smacked down by the judges. Instructional designers and trainers also need to be mindful of scope. Although they may have more time to create training modules, the time constraint is in the delivery of the learning. It is tempting to cram too much into a lesson, to overload the learner and defeat the learning. Know your parameters and design accordingly.

2. Failure is okay …to a point
On Project Runway, designers are encouraged to take risks. Those who play it safe or stick to reliable formulas are not likely to arouse the judges’ admiration and votes. In many organizations, there is increasing attention to the productive aspects of risk-taking and failure. All this is good. However, there should be self-check points along the path of risk. When Jonathan’s colleagues were referring to one of his dresses as an explosion in a toilet paper factory, it was time for him to stop and seriously appraise his direction instead of plunging blindly ahead (episode 6). When Amy worried about the unruliness of her hair-filled, cowl-necked dress, it would have been a good move to just cut it off and rethink her expression of the concept (episode 8). Risk-taking stretches designers and trainers in new directions, but if those directions are not productive, know when it’s time to pull out and start over.

3. Limitation is liberating
In my favorite episode of this season (#7), the crew headed to the hardware store to buy all of their materials. As usual, they had a limited budget and time in which to make purchases. This combination of constraints produced some of the most impressive fashion creations I’ve seen on the show. Jay fabricated a stunning haute couture outfit out of black plastic garbage bags and blue painters tape. Mila sliced up black and white plastic paint tray liners into an amazing dress that totally belied the humble materials. By contrast, a later design challenge that was conceptually wide open, asking for fashions evoking earth, air, fire, or earth, yielded the least interesting garments. It’s tempting to seek out ever more sophisticated design tools to deliver effective training, but it’s a good exercise to see what you can accomplish with humble materials and simple techniques.

4. No prima donnas
Episode 9 paired the remaining eight designers in teams, forcing these highly individualist design sensibilities to work collaboratively. Jay, who has displayed superstar qualities in design and craftsmanahip, bombed seriously when he had to work with Mila. The animosity between the two of them was right on the surface. Mila was able to keep cool and focused but Jay stumbled badly. He was not able to manage his emotions and concentrate on the outcomes. Not only was his design poorly conceived, it was poorly crafted—a setback for the man who had produced that brilliant garbage bag outfit. There’s more room for prima donna behavior in the fashion world than there is in the training world. In training, collaboration is common. Even for those trainers who work solo, there is always team-building with your learners. Excellent training design and delivery is underwritten by those soft skills that enable good communication and teamwork.

5. Be unruffled
I am always impressed at the calm and confidence of the designers as they watch the models walk the runway in their creations. They speak with assurance about the concept and the technical effort they had put into the fashions, even if they are about to be cast out of the competition. In training, it’s the learners who are the ultimate judges. Go before them with confidence, take critiques in stride, and take your lessons learned back to the drawing board for the next round.

Betha Gutsche

Betha Gutsche has been a virtual librarian ever since receiving her MLIS from the University of Washington Information School. Immersed in the online community of WebJunction, she has cultivated community connections through forums, live online events, and writing stories about the library community. She has delved into e-learning design, curriculum development, needs assessment, and all things connected to social learning in the online world. Betha is the editor-in-chief of the Competency Index for the Library Field. She is now the manager of Project Compass, a program working with public libraries to augment their service to communities impacted by tough times. Underneath it all, Betha is an artist and loves to raise awareness of visual literacy and introduce people to the power of image.

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Filed Under: E-Learning, Presentation Tips, Resources for Trainers Tagged With: board, collaboration, design, instructional design, learners, Project Runway, trainers, training

Five Tips For Successful Webinars

March 15, 2010 By Peter Bromberg

Good webinars don’t just happen. Beyond having a relevant topic and a great presenter, there are a number factors that affect the end result. Whether you are scheduling and producing webinars, or creating and presenting them, these tips will help you deliver a great webinar experience for everyone.

Write for the medium: Regardless of the webinar platform you use, tailor the lesson plan to the webinar environment. Most webinars consist of an audio feed, a chat space, and a space that allows the presenter to share a slideshow, and possibly share their desktop or a whiteboard. The webinar environment doesn’t allow for the useful visual cues that body language and eye contact provide in a f2f environment, and may not even provide audio feedback for the presenter. For these reasons, well-designed lessons that work like a charm in a f2f environment might fail to engage the audience and hold their attention in a webinar environment.

You can mitigate these issues and engage the audience by building in more questions, and taking advantage of whatever interactive features are offered in your platform. Does your platform offer polling? Use it! Shared whiteboard? Use it! Hand-raising or yes/no capability for participants? Use them!!

MORE INTERACTION
I like to start webinars by posting a map of the state (or country) and asking participants to use the arrow tool in Wimba to point to where they are on the map. This communicates to the participants early on that the webinar will not be a passive experience for them–they are going to be involved. I also work with trainers/presenters to build in slides/questions that can be drawn on (literally) during the webinar, and encourage presenters to include these types of interactive activities throughout the presentation. At minimum, plan on using more questions, and using them early, to mentally engage participants and create the expectation that they will not be passive observers.
Know your platform: There are many good webinar platforms out there including Acrobat Connect Pro, iLInc, Elluminate, Wimba, WebEx, DimDim, and GoToWebinar. Each platform has its own benefits and its own limitations. You wouldn’t go into a f2f training without knowing the room layout and the availability of training tools such as chartpads, markers, laptop, AV, projectors, screen, etc., so don’t go into your webinar environment without knowing the layout, the tools available, and how to use them. Most webinar platforms offer some great screen-shot heavy help files and/or recorded screencasts you can use to learn the layout and the tools. Find them. Use them. Once you know your platform…

Test, Test Test: The most common reason a webinar tanks is technology failure. Wait, let me rephrase that. The failure is not the technology, but the failure of the webinar producer, presenter, and participants to account for the platform’s limitations, and prepare and test their computers. Each platform has it’s own requirements regarding browsers, operating systems, necessary bandwidth, and downloads/plugins recommended or required. Each platform generally offers a simple link that can be clicked to setup/test the user’s computer. Every person involved in the webinar must click the setup link prior to the webinar and make certain their computer is set up, tested, and ready to go. Send this information out early and often to the participants. And make sure the presenter has tested/setup the computer they will be presenting from, and make sure it is a wired, not wireless, connection.
Let everyone know the preferred method of audio participation. Nothing beats a good noise-canceling headset. (I love my Logitech Premium Notebook Headset.) If you’re offering dial-in access, send/post the number/PIN. If participants are going to use laptop or desktop speakers, make sure they know to mute their microphones! Nothing ruins a webinar faster than feedback (which is why you also need to know how to mute participants individually or en masse–it’s a lifesaver.)

Practice, Practice, Practice Whether you are the webinar producer, presenter, or both (not recommended), it is imperative that you log some practice time in the webinar environment. I highly recommend that there is at least one “producer” in the webinar (i.e. someone other than the presenter who knows the webinar platform cold.) The more experienced the producer, the less time the presenter has to practice–but the presenter ALWAYS has to practice. At minimum, the presenter should know how to advance slides (if using them), and how to log out and log back in again, in case of a network interruption. Desktop/application sharing, a vital part of some webinars, adds a higher level of complication, and usually requires the presenter to master the application sharing mechanism–something that is not always simple or intuitive. The producer needs to know everything else: How to advance slides, how to mute participants, how to expand/limit control of various room features (whiteboards, control of microphone, etc.), how to toggle between various features (polls, whiteboards, slides.)

THE ACTUAL EVENT: So, the presenter has written a great lesson, you’ve learned your platform inside and out, everything has been setup and tested. Now there’s just the little matter of actually having the webinar! Here are a few tips that I’ve found will greatly reduce problems and add to the overall quality on the day of the event:

Arrive early: Both the presenter and producer should arrive at least 15 minutes early to get logged in and do a final test to make sure the technology is working, and do one final review of the tools/features to be used.
Webinar Environment Review: Before the presenter begins the lesson/presentation, spend five minutes doing a brief review of the webinar environment with participants. Walk them through playing with the features that they will be using during the webinar (writing tools, pointing tools, etc.)
Have a wingman (or woman): In webinar parlance, the wingman is the the producer’s assistant. The wingman ideally knows the webinar platform inside and out, and is available to help participants with any tech/audio issues, and keep an eye on chat for questions or problems.
Recording: Yeah, it’s a newbie mistake, but it happens to everyone. Don’t forget to hit “record”! (I put this right into my script in 24 point bold type. But then again, I need notes to myself to remember to leave the house with my pants on in the morning. Whatever works for you.)
Take notes during the webinar: During the course of the webinar many useful resources and/or URL’s may be mentioned by the presenter or by the participants in chat. It’s a great value-added service if you can capture these resources and post them with the recording and other handouts (i.e. the presenter’s slideshow, supporting documents) after the webinar.
Save the chat: Before logging out, copy and paste everything in the chat into a word document and save that document… Besides being a good backup for the recording, having a text copy of the chat to share with the webinar participants after the webinar can help them quickly find useful pieces of information that may have been shared in chat. I treat the chat transcript as semi-confidential and I don’t post it–but depending on the webinar I will send copies directly to those who participated.
Extend the Learning. Post the recording, notes, handouts: Finally, spend some time in post-production (the specifics vary with each webinar platform) and get the recording posted to a website along with related documents and the presenter’s presentation, if available.

I hope you find these five tips useful in creating or presenting your webinars. Let us know what works for you!

Peter Bromberg

Filed Under: E-Learning, Presentation Tips, Technology Tagged With: Webinars

10 Steps to Promote Learning in Your Conference Presentation

February 2, 2010 By Peter Bromberg

A small meme developed on Twitter yesterday prompted by the following tweet by David Wedamen, “Just had a GREAT idea from @brandeislibn. Conferences should be built around TEACHING not PRESENTING. Wouldn’t that be something?” (Thanks to Michael Stephens for retweeting and bringing to my attention.)

Alice Yucht built on the idea with her tweet, “how about Conferences should be about LEARNING, not Show-n-Tell ?”, which got me thinking about how we approach conferences, and conference presentations, in the library profession. If the goal of the conference is that attendees will learn, what do conference presentations have to look like to achieve that goal?

I believe the goal of presenting should be to a create a change in the listener; a change of behavior, thinking and/or feeling. Any good teacher or trainer will tell you that to be effective in creating that change, you must begin with the learning objective(s) in mind, and work backwards from there to design the lesson or the talk.

CONFERENCE PRESENTING: THE CART BEFORE HORSE?

Wedamen’s tweet points out an interesting feature of many library conferences—they seem to be designed around topics that presenters wish to present on, more than they are designed around, or focused on, the learning that participants need. In too many conference presentations speakers design their talks as core dumps of data, or long, dry recountings of “how we did it good”, without giving enough attention to the key question, “As a result of hearing me speak, people will do/think/feel_________ “(fill in the blank).

The answer to that question is the main organizing principle, the guiding star, of any well-constructed talk. Leaving out all of the other variables that go into an effective presentation (emotion, humor, pacing, eye contact, vocal variety, body language, visuals, questions, room environment, acoustics, etc.) it is very difficult to have a successful presentation if what constitutes success is a mere afterthought (or worse, if success is constituted by the fact that the speaker got a chance to speak at a conference…)

PUT THAT HORSE BACK! TEN THINGS YOU CAN DO TO EFFECTIVELY PROMOTE LEARNING WITH YOUR TALK

Ask, “What do I want them to do, think, and/or feel as a result of hearing this program?” Ask and answer this question before you write one word or create one slide. The answer to this question is your OBJECTIVE. Let the objective guide you continually as you construct your presentation, throwing aside anything that does not help achieve the goal of the talk.
Share your objectives with the audience at some point during your presentation–preferably during the first few minutes. If the audience knows what you intend to achieve with the talk it will give them context that will help them make meaning and ground the learning. It will also help them evaluate whether you have effectively achieved your goal. Or not.
Have a strong opening. The first two minutes of your talk gives you a great opportunity to grab and hold the audience’s attention, but it’s likely that you already have their attention during the first two minutes. It’s the next 58 that present the challenge! So what do I mean by a strong opening? I mean an opening that engages the audience, creates some positive expectation for the rest of the talk, and/or provides a framework for the learning that is about to take place. Olivia Mitchell, who blogs over at Speaking and Presenting, suggests three possible openings – Organized Opening, Story Opening, Dramatic Opening — and discusses when/why to use each.
Use examples to illustrate your points. For example… Don’t just say, “Merchandising your collection is good.” Say, “When we created a ‘recently returned’ display at the front door and displayed them all covers out, 98% of them recirculated within the same day and our circulation stats increased 20%.” Examples support the learning by attesting to the truth of your message, and also help ground the learning by clarifying and fleshing out your meaning.
Use simple, clear, engaging visuals to reinforce your points (or don’t use them at all.) Good visuals can help you focus the audience’s attention, help them make meaning, and promote future recall, by connecting intellectual ideas with visual representations. As for bullet points… I’m not one of those people that believes bullet points should never be used, but if you use them, do it sparingly, with a large readable font, and a supporting image (if room permits.)
Tell stories. Our brains are actually wired to enjoy stories. And because stories have the power to simultaneously engage the listener both cognitively AND emotionally, they are highly effective in getting your point across (assuming you know your point–see #1). And speaking of engaging the listener…
Appeal to emotions as well as reason. Unless you are presenting on the planet Vulcan, your audience probably consists of human beings, and research shows that it is our emotions that lead us to act. If your goal is get listeners to DO SOMETHING, you need to rouse some feeling within them by appealing to their empathy, their self-interest, or some combination of both. As the Heath Brothers suggest in Made to Stick, you want to appeal, “not only to the people they are right now but also to the people they would like to be.”
Practice, Practice, Practice: There is no substitute for practicing your talk, preferably in front of others, to work out the kinks, identify and clarify muddied points, and become comfortable with the material. When you know your talk cold you will relax, let you personality show, and more easily connect with the audience. You may have noticed that it’s difficult to connect with a presenter who reads his talk in a monotone and seldom glances up from his notes. Conversely, it is very easy to tune out and start twittering during such a talk.
Have a strong closing, and telegraph when it’s coming. You don’t have to bring tears to the audience’s eyes, or bring them to their feet. But you do need to let them know that you’re wrapping it up, and use the closing as an opportunity to reinforce your goal. You can do this by simply restating your main points and asserting why/how the listener will benefit by doing what you want them to do. Or you can end with a provocative question (engaging them cognitively), or with a story (engaging them emotionally). However you choose to close your presentation, use vocal variety and word choice to telegraph that your are concluding so the audience realizes that it is now appropriate to clap wildly.
WHAT ARE YOUR IDEAS? I’m leaving #10 blank for suggestions. What do you do to effectively promote learning in your talks? What have speakers done that have helped you as a learner/listener?

Peter Bromberg sometimes talks, sometimes listens, sometimes learns, sometimes tweets, and sometimes blogs over at Library Garden.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gruenenrw | CC BY-SA 2.0

Peter Bromberg

Filed Under: Presentation Tips Tagged With: effectiveness, presenting, Speaking, training

Finding Your Voice(s)

September 10, 2009 By Peter Bromberg

Image by Hamed. CC 2.0

Finding Your Voice(s)

If you’ve ever taken a class (or read a book or article) on how to speak effectively in public you’ve probably heard the refrain, “find your voice.” Usually this is meant as an exhortation to let your unique, authentic, personal style shine through no matter what the talk or situation. While there is great value in knowing your style, I suggest that speakers who aspire to move beyond the novice level should seek to find not only their voice, but their voices.

Expanding your Palette

We all have a natural speaking style or “voice”. Our voice is more than just our timbre, accent, or pacing, although these characteristics are certainly part of our overall style. Our voice may also be colored by our tendency to be either casual or formal; highly structured or stream-of-consciousness; sedate or inspirational. Whatever your natural speaking style I assure you, there are situations to which it is well-suited and appropriate, and situation to which it is NOT well suited. There will be situations where you own natural voice, or style, will detract from your goal, and the adoption of other styles, will enhance your ability to get your message across.

Since the ultimate goal of any speaking engagement is to effectively communicate with the audience, and (hopefully) create some change in their thinking or behavior, it is therefore important to be able to tailor your style to a specific audience, in a specific time, at a specific place. That is why it is helpful to have a palette of voices to choose to from depending on what we are trying to accomplish in any given talk or training.

Step One: Know Thyself

The first step to effectively using many voices is to be aware of your natural style. You must know what it is you do, if you want to consciously choose to do something else. While painful for many, there is no better way to learn your own natural voice than to video yourself speaking. (yes, I’m afraid you then need to watch the video. Repeatedly.) Once you know and are comfortable with your natural voice, the next step is to begin expanding your palette of styles. Ideally, you should be able to choose from a variety of different styles, changing or modifying your natural voice as the needed. Some situations will call for a casual folksiness, while others will call for a confident professionalism. There are situations that require upbeat enthusiasm or inspiration, while in other situations your effectiveness will be increased by a sober, dispassionate style. Being able to slip into appropriate styles at the appropriate times will greatly enhance your effectiveness as a presenter.

Step Two: Know Others

There is really only one way to consciously incorporate other styles into your speaking toolkit: Watch other speakers with an eye for differing styles, and then practice speaking like they do. A great resource for seeing top tier speakers with markedly different styles is the archive of “TED Talks” available at: http://www.ted.com/ . TED Talks are eighteen minute talks billed as “riveting talks by remarkable people”, and boy do the speeches live up to the hype! After watching a few TED Talks, you’ll quickly see that there are a myriad of effective styles. Watch Sir Ken Robinson (http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html)

and then watch Tony Robbins (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/tony_robbins_asks_why_we_do_what_we_do.html).

They have vastly different styles. Watch their body language and use of gesture, their pace, their level of formality and choice of words. Each talk is brilliant and engaging, but in very different ways. Try watching one TED Talk every week and keep a notebook with notes on the elements of each speaker’s style, and how those elements make them more or less effective. Also think about when and how those elements might increase your effectiveness if you were able to use them at will.

Step Three: How do you get to Carnegie Hall? (Practice)

Once you know your own style, and have identified elements of other speakers’ styles that you might like to use, the next step is to get out there and start speaking. In addition (or instead of) speaking to community groups, colleagues, or library customers, consider joining (or starting) a local Toastmasters chapter. Why Toastmasters? Because the very structure of Toastmasters requires you to give many speeches in a variety of styles. Some speeches require you to focus on body language, others focus on being inspirational, persuasive, funny, well-researched, or simply to-the-point. Another great benefit of Toastmasters is that you will receive detailed constructive feedback on all of your speeches—which is at least as valuable, if not more so, than watching yourself on video. Finally, Toastmasters gives you an opportunity to see others giving speeches, so you can continually observe a variety of styles noting what works, what doesn’t, and why. Toastmasters offers speakers that rarest of gifts; a place to try new things and practice in a safe environment.

Speaking in Voices: Putting it All Together

Whether you choose to join Toastmasters or not, I encourage you to try on new voices and find some safe forum for giving talks that are outside of your comfort zone. Learning to speak in a variety of voices is like learning to act outside of your natural personality style: All of us can do it – and to be effective there are times when all of us have to do it– but it takes conscious effort and energy.

One example of how this looks when it all comes together is a short talk (albeit with a long name: What do a leaky roof, a greasy spoon, a bear sighting, and a man with a tortoise in his pants all have in common? Watch this lightening talk and find out… ) I recently did on Effective Presentations at the Pres4lib Presentation Camp. The talk was highly stylized and was very much outside of my own natural presentation style. A number of people who saw this talk but had not seen me speak previously assumed that they were seeing my natural style. In fact, what they saw was the result of specific choices, made to support a specific goal.

Making Conscious Choices

I knew that the presentation was going to be after a lunch and part of a long, full day, so I made certain style choices with a goal of getting and holding the audience’s attention, and re-energizing them to get through the rest of the afternoon. The choices I made to achieve that goal were:

speaking with greater vocal variety (varying speed and pitch)

using many engaging visuals

using humor

increasing movement and gesture

using no notes (the first time I’ve done a truly noteless talk—but I wanted to be more free to move/gesture)

All of these conscious choices were outside of my natural style, which meant that this seven minute talk took more time, energy and preparation then many longer talks I’ve done. Many of the elements (the visuals, the humor, the gesturing, the vocal variety) I had practiced as separate skills in many Toastmasters meetings over the past few years, so when it came time to put them together I was able to choose from a fairly rich palette of voices.

My ultimate goal is to be able to easily choose from many styles (Inspiring, Passionate, Funny, Serious, Whimsical, Practical, Irreverent, Self-deprecating, Authoritative, Provocative, Authentic, Motivational, Challenging, Helpful, Informative, Scholarly, Folksy, etc.) and body/voice techniques (Pitch, Inflection, Speed, Volume, Diction, Pauses/silences, Gestures, Body Language, Eye Contact, etc.) and effectively create the right mix, at the right time, for the right audience.

What’s Your Story?

I’d love to hear from you about how you’ve developed your style. What are you tips, tricks and triumphs? Who inspires you to reach a little further, and stretch just a little bit more out of your comfort zone? If you have any good links to videos that you’ve found helpful let me know (or better yet, add them to this shared bookmark group: http://groups.diigo.com/groups/clenert)

Peter Bromberg

Filed Under: Presentation Tips Tagged With: Speaking

Tufte the Magnificent

April 30, 2009 By Betha Gutsche

I finally seized the opportunity to see Edward Tufte deliver his one-day workshop Presenting Data and Information. Due to his rockstar reputation, I had some overblown expectations—something more theatrical, with flashy graphics, head stands, perhaps a light show? I spent the first two hours feeling a bit let down until I realized how antipodal his message is to the marketing flash of someone like Seth Godin. Tufte’s presentation is all about delivering substantive content that is cognitively engaging—an approach that he modeled expertly, sans bells and whistles. While I had overestimated Tufte’s histrionics, he did not underestimate my (his audience’s) intelligence.

The workshop is directed more toward those in the business world who need to present data and information to address engineering problems, inform budget decisions, and the like. However, I found a couple of take-aways for trainer-facilitators.

1. The Super Graphic (or Return of the Handout)

There is a tendency (especially in online learning) to reduce data and information to a minimal amount per screen, or to stretch data sets out over a series of screens. This is driven necessarily by the compact pixel real estate of the computer monitor, but the outcome is to shrink information toward meaninglessness or to confound the viewer’s cognitive ability to make comparisons and draw conclusions by scattering the inputs and forcing super-human acts of memorizing.

Enter the SUPER GRAPHIC! This is a printed, efficiently annotated graphic, dense with data, legal size or larger, that allows the learner to scan the entirety of an information set, make comparisons from proximal visual, numerical and textual information, and derive informed, self-propelled conclusions. This kind of information presentation could/should accompany most online training. Many courses include downloadable handouts of resources as more of an addendum than an integral part of the learning. Why not design a course around a super graphic, using the online portion to direct the learner’s attention, inject probing questions, and allow interactions to demonstrate the successful intake of knowledge?

2. Give the learner time to think

Several times during the workshop, Tufte asked the audience to study a data set or super graphic in one of his books, which we all had stacked in front of us. And then he stopped talking. Attention was not focused on the stage but on the pages of our books. There were some low murmurs of people sharing observations but the room of 400+ was otherwise quiet. This went on for five minutes—an eternity of “dead air” in broadcast parlance.

This was an aha! moment for me. Not only is it okay to give learners some studying-thinking time during instruction, it empowers them to absorb, reflect, and contribute to the formation of knowledge. It allows real learning to take place. Isn’t that more important than filling up every second of audio space?

Do I recommend going to see Tufte’s presentation next time he’s in your neighborhood? Sure! Yes, you can buy all the books for approximately half the price of the workshop, but you would miss the directed tour through the material and you would miss Tufte’s modeling of effective delivery.

Betha Gutsche

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Filed Under: Learning Styles, Presentation Tips Tagged With: design, Edward Tufte, GRAPHIC, learners, Seth Godin, sharing, SUPER, Sure Yes, trainer, training

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