injenuity

Posted by Jennifer on August 24th, 2007 in Uncategorized , Ning, Presentation, SocialMedia

I was invited to give a lunch presentation on Social Media at the NWCET Working Connections Faculty Institute. I did not want to give another boring PowerPoint presentation. I wanted to eliminate the stress of remembering to bring a laptop, CD-ROM, jump drive and paper handouts. I wanted attendees to simply enjoy the presentation without having to take notes, after all, this was lunch time! I chose to build a Ning network to use for my presentation.

Why Ning?

• It’s free!
• It’s easy and web-based
• I can put all my media in one place
• Participants can join in
• Presentation doesn’t have to be linear. It can go off on a tangent, but the basic content is still right in front of you. You don’t have to click through 10 slides to find one link.
• The conversation can continue after the presentation

How I prepared:

1. Built the Ning site and filled it with my content (I’ll make a tutorial of this when I get a chance)
2. Used Twitter to invite others to join and give feedback before the presentation
3. Invited people to click on the site to fill the clustrmap for my demonstration (do this many days in advance so the map populates)
4. Used Twitter to request people watch for my “shout out” during presentation and respond to audience
5. Submitted a tech request to the presentation site requesting they check the site on the podium computer to make sure all the media worked

Presentation Day:

1. Stored draft messages to Twitter in my phone asking for support during the presentation.
2. Arrived early and used camera phone to take photos of venue and attendees and sent them to the ning site as attendees were arriving.
3. Tested technology.
4. Played “Did You Know 2.0?” video as they were finding seats and eating lunch.
5. Just prior to presentation, I sent Twitter drafts from phone requesting visit to my ning site and also posted the email address for Twitter friends to send photos.

Presentation:

1. Briefly described Ning and why it was used as a presentation tool.
2. Showed diagram of how I discovered Social Media tools while working on a Virtual Worlds Trends Analysis
3. Used links on Ning to show off different types of tools
   1. You tube - showed comments to the video I had run earlier
   2. Showed photos of audience I had just taken and explained they were sent by phone. (Described how future presenters will ask people to turn on their phones, rather than off.)
   3. Described RSS and how I aggregated ed tech blogs
   4. Showcased Twitter and shouted out for shout backs. (we jumped in and out of Twitter the rest of the presentation to check for messages. We also clicked a few of the links people posted in Twitter)
   5. Visited Twitter Collaboration Wiki and shared story of how it was created in one day
   6. Shared del.icio.us tags and talked about Social Bookmarking
   7. Visited the page of a Twitter friend who signed up during the presentation
4. Encouraged attendees to join the ning site and gave examples of how they could use it
   1. Rather than collect business cards, sticky notes, etc. of contacts at the conference, they could add them as friends in the ning site
   2. Use it within workshops to post questions on instructor page, type notes, upload presenter handouts, add photos of sessions
   3. Use it to give their own presentations when they return to their school
5. Wrap up - Asked if anyone had any questions I couldn’t answer online.

After the Presentation:

1. Added a forum post to the site including links to everything I promised I would follow up on during the presentation.
2. Checked in with new members and posted comments on their pages
3. Added videos that supported some of the questions that came up during the session.
4. Removed text boxes on main page that referred specifically to that session and replaced with a note inviting anyone to use the site for presenting.
5. Blogged about it!

Due to a slow lunch line and some announcements before my presentation, I only had 30 minutes to present. We were able to cover a lot of material in that time. The audience was very responsive, in fact, probably the best group of educators I’ve ever had as an audience. I think they were relaxed because I explained everything would be available to them after the presentation. The technology worked. If it hadn’t, I most likely would have written the link down for them, chatted about it a little and encouraged them to visit the site later. I don’t think I could have given a presentation about social media without access to social media.

I plan to maintain the Ning site and encourage others to add to it and use it for presentations. If I get enough members, I will pay the $20 a month to get rid of the Google ads. It was a bit distracting to have “lesbian network” ads on the screen during the presentation!