How was YOUR time in Seattle?

I actually have about 400 images that I took, though most of them are from the city and surrounding environments as I used every millisecond of my time not in the convention center doing something fun or interesting...

  

 
  

 

Seattle was a blast and a great time was had by one and all.  Our Dow Jones Tech Zones went off with minimal typical technical issues (little browser tweaks and adjustments for the most part), and were well received.  From Taxonomy and Sharepoint to eLearning and Social Media in the Enterprise, we delivered our lectures to sold out crowds on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  By the way, if you did not get a chance to attend the very popular "Taxonomy and Sharepoint" Tech Zone during SLA, sign up for our Sept. 11th webinar today!

 

I'll set up a slideshow of all my SLA images soon, but in the meantime feel free to send us YOUR images from the Seattle conference and we'll put together a big image collection.  If you haven't read Vin's account of his excursion to Mount Ranier, please take the time to...  It is a hoot!

I'll end this post with a few images from our customer event at the Space Needle.  I already can't wait for 2009 and Washington DC!

  

Thanks and Regards,

Thomas

A Short Guide to Successful Training Concepts

When it comes to training, teaching, educating or enlightening people, there are some very simple concepts that can make or break a session or lecture.  Actually, there are only two major things to contend with and a few minor issues you should be aware of.  First though, think about all of those mind-numbing experiences that made you hate attending some training initiative and identify exactly what it was that made them so ghastly and then I'll attempt to provide some sound advice...

Content Knowledge - There have been a few times that I recall looking forward to learning something new or interesting that would benefit me or my work flow in some way only to find out that the instructor was a little shaky when it came to understanding the content.  The delivery was chock-full of backtracking and apologies and in some cases was so distracting that you couldn't even feel bad for the person... instead you felt cheated of an hour taken from your life that you would never reclaim.  We are all busy boys and girls and having someone waste your time attempting to explain something they have a very tenuous grasp of can be infuriating.

My tip to those of you thrown to the wolves is to take the time to learn the most important aspects, even if it means staying up all night when you have short notice.  Confidence is great to have, but unwarranted confidence can sometimes backfire.  If you are not comfortable talking about a topic because of unfamiliarity, your best bet is to not talk about it.  Don't attempt to get up in front of the masses, or even a couple of people to explain something if you are not 100% prepared to act confident and then back it up with some good strong examples and enough understanding to make you feel comfortable.

Style - Content knowledge is absolutely important, but it isn't everything.  Just like people in film and the theater you need to know your lines, and how to deliver them.  Just because someone has one of those covered, does not mean they will be successful.  Quite the contrary.  How many times have you been in a lecture or session and had to remind yourself that you were not in some sort of purgatory-like limbo?  The person leading the session is undeniably knowledgeable, but the Ben Stein monotone, or constant long pauses for thoughtful consideration make the experience an exercise in sleep deprivation.  You want to close your eyes and succumb to the lethargy emanating from the speaker, but you know that you need to stay awake.  You almost feel robbed of slumber when the speaker finishes and you didn't even net a good 15 minute nap out of it. 

It takes a good deal of acting ability to be a superior trainer or teacher.  The showmanship of a session is just as important as understanding the topic and knowing your audience is part of that.  Organization of your content also falls under style as you need to have a fairly solid set of objectives, yet the flexibility to go off topic occasionally to keep it light, fresh and entertaining.  Even the most stultifying topics can be made entertaining to some degree if you have a few good analogies to tie the boring to something more understandable.  I used to have a running catalogue of thousands of analogies that expanded constantly, and I would use them to make a stronger connection with my students.  These analogies invariably were delivered with input from the audience, even if I deliberately baited them into talking by conveniently forgetting a simple term so that someone could provide it and I could say "Exactly!" and they then felt like they were playing a greater roll in the experience.  I don't mean to make it seem more calculated than it is, but it is these little tricks that help to engage your audience.

The Minor Issues - There are plenty of little obstacles and hazards waiting to sabotage a lesson, lecture or session and we'll look at those the next time I blog.  Right now I have to get back to preparing for my SLA Tech Zone for Seattle.  Feel free to ask questions or give a scenario where my advice might be beneficial and I'll be happy to do what I can to lend a hand.  :)

Regards,

Thomas

Going Green for SLA

Late last year, SLA (the Special Libraries Association), began a going green initiative by asking all their exhibitors at their annual conference in June to think about ways to reduce or even eliminate their carbon footprint. This is a big challenge for large exhibitors like Dow Jones, who occupy 40' x 40' exhibit spaces with attendant superstructures, traditional construction techniques and massive amounts of paper handouts and interesting but eco-unfriendly give-aways.

As we began meeting with our exhibit design consultants, Atlantic Skyline, we also learned that going green does not come without considerable cost. Eco-friendly fabrics and dyes are more costly than conventional ones. Recycled carpets made from plastic bottles are more expensive than conventional carpets and reducing the amount of hard structures in a booth design requires skill and knowledge.

As we look forward to the June 15-18, 2008 SLA Annual Conference in Seattle (where better to practice going green than in the Emerald City) we have made some very good first steps. Here's what you can look forward to seeing - or not seeing - as the case may be:

• Use of Eco-Systems Dyesub Pillowcase fabric banners which use fabric and dyes much friendlier to the environment than traditional dye processes. Not only are they better for initial fabrication, but also better when they are ultimately recycled.
• Use of recycled rental carpet made from plastic bottles and re-used by others when we are finished
• We are recycling 95% of the 2008 booth construction for reuse in our 2009 exhibit in Washington, DC
• We are using local contractors when possible to reduce shipping impact, this includes local rental of all LCD panels and in-booth computers
• Eliminating about 90% of all printed booth collateral in favor of use of electronic print-on-demand documents
• Instead of physical giveaways such as pens, mugs, stress balls or other items we are featuring handwriting analysis as the booth ‘give-away’ and we are using recycled paper for the handwriting analyists to use
  

None of this is rocket science, and this is only the beginning effort, but we all need to start somewhere in thinking about how to reduce the impact of our global carbon footprint. We look forward to seeing you at Booth 401 in Seattle and to showing off our green efforts.

So long for now,

Anne

Louisville was on Fire!

The SLA Leadership Summit, held last week in Louisville, Kentucky, created great energy and excitement about the future of SLA and the information profession. Andy Hines, with Social Technologies, a futurist consultancy in Washington, DC, led off with a fascinating look into future trends affecting our work and personal lives. Here are some sticky bits to share:

• The US is a first world country with some second world characteristics about what it takes to make us happy. We are still caught up in the belonging and status phase and have not moved on to thinking about self-actualization. Northern Europe is there and the US is not.


• Ethical consumption issues will dominate the next few years. Things like carbon footprints, free trade coffee and going green are now at the forefront of corporate and societal thinking. This will be a messy process for a while.


• We now place a premium on convenience because we are under tremendous time pressure and live over-scheduled lives. Outsourcing of chores is a growing trend and using precious time for family and friends is at the forefront.


• Baby boomers are looking forward to working retirements and a continuation of professional and intellectual growth and work well into the future. We are never going to retire completely.


• Reciprocal or reverse mentoring is a big trend, with the younger workforce showing the older workforce how new technologies can be used and the older workforce sharing life strategies experience with younger workers.


• We live in a time of lifelong learning. Online learning is a booming market for all and the barriers to virtual learning are falling. The University of Phoenix is the largest institution of higher education in the world and is entirely virtual. Many ‘name brand’ universities now have significant distance education programs. My own graduate school at San Jose State University is the largest library and information school in the world.
  

What does all this mean for us? I look forward to your comments and a continuation of the conversation. Andy offered lots more interesting commentary, which I will also share in future posts.

Regards,

Anne

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