Webinars: More Like a Talkshow Than a Workshop

I did one of my first webinar trainings yesterday and, while it wasn't terrible, it was much more difficult than the in-person trainings I am used to doing.

This article expressed my feelings exactly:

What I hadn't bargained for was the deadly quiet, the utter lack of audience interaction. No eye contact. No heads nodding. No "sense of the room"-that vital sixth sense experienced speakers hone to alert them to the audience drifting away. Worse than the sound of one hand clapping, this was the sound of one voice yapping.

A colleague from Community Media Workshop, who was listening in, advised me to think of a webinars as more like hosting a talk radio show than conducting a traditional workshop.

Three quick points that I will definately use the next time after the jump

Click here for more!

Three tips for better webinars:

1) Get all the words off the PowerPoint slide. As my colleague said: Just put up a funny picture and start talking.

2) People used to tell their audience what they were going to tell them and then summarized at the end what they just told them. That doesn't work well in the webinar world. You need to engage and re-engage your audience by telling stories related to the topic.

3) Continually remind and cue people on how they can come into the conversation much like a talk show host does, for example, "people who want to share a similar experience, click the chat button in the lower left or press star six to unmute your phone."

Google News Puts "Spotlight" on In-Depth News

Google News has added a new section that highlights “in-depth pieces of lasting value.” Called Spotlight, and like the rest of Google News, the stories are selected by an undisclosed algorithm. The Spotlight seems to shine on longer features that have bounced around blogs for a few days. Lifestyle and opinion pieces seems to appear often, and The New York Times is a frequent source.

In this era of "fast news" - I'm curious to see if readers will flock to the Spotlight.

Engrossing posts, YouTube new media views, and tweeted releases

Some good reads for social media communications:

• Can you squeeze that press release into 140 characters? Learn the value of making some important announcements on Twitter : Digital Connections
• You spent a couple hours on that blog post - how can you make sure it lives more than a few minutes?: Traffikd
• Want a deeper understanding of the internet and social media and what it all means? Get bummed out by reading too much? Check out this list of 80+ videos that enlighten and inform: open thinking

Yes, the title is not very SEOed - I couldn't help myself. Do as I say, not as I do.

(perplexing image from Jenkins Computer Service & Repair Webpage Design & Hosting web page, which is under construction)

Blog lists, Twitter widgets, and print versions

Here are a few interesting ideas, tools, and resources I came across from around the web this week:

• Get a start on navigating blogs, etc. with ten New Media blogs: Blogs.com
  
• Bring all that Twitter content you, your followers and/or your event attendees are creating to your website: Duct Tape Marketing
• PrintFriendly makes blogs printable, so when you print out blog posts and clips to show linkphobic colleagues, there won't be SECRET TO A FLAT BELLY OBEY ads that make it 25 pages long: Mashable!

Hve you found any useful apps or lists lately?

How to consume a lot of internet in a little time

A question I get asked a lot about blogs and social media is "how the heck do you find time to read all that crazy bloggedy blog stuff?"

Well, A) I'm a big nerd and look at the internet many, many hours a week when I could be exercising or learning Spanish or something. and B) I use Google Reader.

If you are overwhelmed with content - your browser is clogged with bookmarks and you forgot to type in the the URL of that hilarious kitten blog your daughter told you about - you should try Google Reader. It organizes posts from all the things you want to read into one easy-to-use website, making reading many blogs, social media sites, and even newspapers an hour or so commitment per day.

How to get started and ideas on what to read after the jump.


Click here for more!



Google Reader uses RSS feeds to bring you content so you don't have to go get it. An RSS feed is like a subscription to the content of a website - there are RSS feeds to almost any web content - news organizations, trade publications, Craigslist postings, social media tools and blogs (like this one). This terrific Common Craft video explains it very well:



So you went to Google Reader and signed up. Now what to subscribe to? Here are some ideas:

• Newspapers you already read every day have RSS feeds - not only for news articles, but you can also choose to just subscribe to your favorite subject or columnist (or sports team). Here are pages of RSS feeds for Chicago papers: Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Crain's Chicago Business.
• Chicago's got a healthy blog and social news scene. Chicagoist, Gapers Block, and Windy Citizen are good daily reads for absorbing the local Internet zeitgeist. Chi-Town Daily News and EveryBlock can help you stay up to speed on Chicago's neighborhood news.
• You can even get an RSS feed to a Google search, like "Great Lakes restoration," "TIF District," or "Hugh McMullen." Just do a Google News Search for your subject and click "RSS" in the lefthand column.

Remember, if you find a blog or website you like in your Internet travels, just find the little orange RSS button and click on it to add it to your Reader and you won't have to remember to go back. When you get really savvy, you'll be sharing and organizing your feeds and items like a real Internet nerd.

I know what your first subscription will be. Any other feeds to suggest?

How to turn a PDF into a Word document

Well, you just go to the aptly named website PDF to Word. I just found this user friendly and free tool on the very cool productivity blog Lifehacker, which reports on ways to make your life easier and improve your on- and offline productivity.

All you do is upload the PDF you want to change and give them your email - the site will email you the new Word doc. Saves some headaches when you want to copy or edit downloaded reports or archived documents.