Post-talk reflections: "Overview on the "W & H" of Blogging and New Media" - 21 Sept 2007 (part 1)

Finished delivering my talk at CSC an hour ago. Now killing time at Spinelli's at City Hall and accessing the free WIFI (well, prepaid by IDA). Meeting the Songcrafters later.

I felt today's talk was a good session. Better than the last session at CSC. This time, I learned better and didn't attempt a "live" demo. That kept the flow of delivery smooth and I think the audience followed better by not having to switch from a demo to talk.

Stayed up to almost 4am to do update my slides. So many interesting and relevant events last week, that I had to include. For some reason, I had an immense satisfaction preparing and refining my slides. I discovered interesting blog posts, and rediscovered previous oldies-but-goodies too.

Ah, but here's the kicker! While delivering the talk, I discovered to my horror that I've overridden my finalised slides with an early draft!

Realised it only when I flashed the slides on screen. Luckily, the early draft wasn't that incomplete. It was more of the sequencing of the slides (minus a few nice screenshots that would have communicated the point better).

I managed to recover and talk my way through it. My regret isn't the wasted effort but that the audience might have gained even more. Like the part on suggestions for blogging guidelines.

One participant asked "You kept mentioning how blogging was about Conversations. So how do we have conversations?"

Unfortunately, I think I rambled too much. Don't think I managed to explain it that well. Tried to explain that many times, it's not so much what you write but how you write it. Good question though. Next time, I'll prepare examples of how different ways of writing can make the difference between coming across as "inviting conversations" as opposed to just "writing".

Quick scan of the feedback forms showed that most found the session useful. Some wrote that the session could've been longer. Some forms rated "Did the Trainer show relevant examples" as average. Hmm... got to think about that.

Glad I played the Creative Commons video. Explained why it would be relevant if they intended to share their student's works on the Internet.

About 60 - 70 attendees, I was told. About 80% teachers. And seems only 10 or less were blogging. This group seem to be made up of those who wish to start blogs, or they wanted to learn more to make a case to their management (at least one participant shared that with me). I wonder how many came for this free talk after the Otto episode.

As always, I was much encouraged when participants come up to me to say they enjoyed it. One told me, "I'm real proud of you!". Heh. I didn't ask for elaboration. The talk wasn't about me (I hope it didn't turn out that way).

Speaking of giving a talk about me, I've been invited by Prof Wu from NTU to speak to about 220 post-grad students from their Information Studies, Information Systems, and Knowledge Management programmes.

It'll definitely be less formal. I've titled it " of a Singapore Liblogarian"! I'll be sharing a bit on how I think blogging and new media is changing the way librarianship and library services are developing.