Category: Communication

Do Business Presentation Rules Translate to Education?

Business Week had an interesting article on their website today, Twitter Changes the Game for Pitching, where they discussed four rules for delivering  effective business presentations:

  1. Think visually
  2. Cater to “clip culture
  3. Create Twitter-length headlines
  4. Practice regularly and incorporate feedback

While I teach business communication to MBA students, it struck me how useful they may be for education, especially for the adult and continuing education I regularly engage in. I am trying to be more visual in my slides, though I rarely (ok, never) embed videos in my work (mental note to self–try Zamzar.com). I do try to use message titles (focused and active titles that seek to engage and capture the main message of the slide) and I use an adapted version of Brookfield’s Critical Incident Questionnaire at the end of my classes for feedback.

I wonder, though, if I ever share and then discuss these concepts with my students to get their thoughts (as well as feedback)? No better time than to try in class tonight!

Trying on a New Tagline

This past week I raised the issue of rebranding my blog by updating my tagline. Thanks to all those wonderful colleagues who offered their comments on this, I am making an update and will “try it on” for a week or so. If I like it, I will keep it; if it still feels somehow incomplete or inaccurate, I will adjust it again.

So, I went from:

Reflective practice in organizational learning, educational technology, and postmodern society.

to

Fostering the practice of postmodern learning and research.

I believe this includes my passions:

  • reflective practice
  • learning paradigms
  • teaching and learning
  • postmodernism and post-structuralism
  • constructivism and critical theory
  • qualitative research
  • technology enhanced learning and educational technology
  • communities of practice

I wonder if those who know me (or those who may have only recently met me for the first time) think this “fits?”

Personal Branding, or Rebranding

I was recently reading a college oriented document about having a “personal brand,” and while it was aimed at undergraduates who may have little real-world experience to point to and may benefit from a personal message upon which to focus and highlight their lives in a concise and engaging way, I was intrigued.

I did not read this as an elevator speech, but rather as the little phrase (or tagline, subtitle, or caption) that appears at the top of most blogs. It includes interests, perhaps a value proposition, an idea of what I am passionate about, interests, and such.

I did some brainstorming, and found these common words (and threads):

  • reflective practice
  • critical thinking
  • assumptions
  • paradigms
  • teaching
  • learning
  • postmodernism
  • constructivism
  • qualitative
  • online
  • community of practice

I wonder if it is time for me to revise mine?

Currently, I am using:

Reflective practice in organizational learning, educational technology, and postmodern society.

and I have been thinking about changing it to something more along the lines of:

Challenging assumptions to promote learning and teaching

or:

Challenging assumptions to construct postmodern learning

Now, it is time for some feedback and help with this. I am oftentimes surprised by who reads my blog, and invite some feedback and thoughts here. I have been tinkering with this idea for about four weeks, and now want to decide and have something new to live with and try out. Thoughts?

The AIM of Social Media & Web 2.0

Yesterday I gave a presentation entitled The AIM of Social Media & Web 2.0: Who? What? How? to a wonderful academic organization, The City University of New York (CUNY) Creative Arts Team (CAT).

Social Media & Web 2.0

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: social media)

As an alumnus of Hunter College (part of the CUNY system), I have always had a fondness for public higher education institutions that seek to bring creative and positive change to people here in NYC.

I adjusted the focus that I have seen others do in presenting and promoting social media and Web 2.0, in part because I am an instructional designer obsessed with needs analysis and a management communications adjunct instructor who completely focuses on everybody’s WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?).

Thus, I spent time discussing how important it is to understand your audiences’ WIIFMs, clearly articulating your objectives in reaching them, and then (and only then) considering the social media options that will best help you deliver your message.

I think it is useless for organizations to dive into social media / social networking without doing their pre-work. I wonder if anybody else takes this approach?

ASTD Learning Lab Wikis

While some (including yours truly) have been speaking about the ASTD convention and the lack of Web 2.0 technologies used there and by the organization (membership) itself, I am reminded that ASTD did establish a number of wikis to be used during their Learning Labs that were conducted on Monday and Tuesday at the conference.

I attended one of these, the one for University Instructors and Professors (hey, I adjunct at NYU, don’t I?). Of the three people who showed up for the face-to-face session, nobody changed anything on the wiki. Ironically, in bright red text, the instructions on each page of the wiki stated

Please leave existing text on pages intact.

Doesn’t that contradict what wikis are all about, namely to foster interactive content creation and sharing? Take a look at the wikis, most of which do not have any changes or edits or anything done to them.  I wonder if this is because people did not know what to do with these? Did not know they were there? Followed the directions quite literally? Did not care?

I am not sure, but am wondering if these should not be revisited and used TO PREPARE for next year’s convention? I think if ASTD did more to foster community among convention attendees going into the event, then that may help people strengthen them during and continue well after the event.

I am definitely considering some ideas to submit for next year. Hmmmmm.