thoughts and rants

pecha kucha (pronounced “hootchie kootchie” by those of us who were tired of sounding like idiots) is a rockin’ great way to present at a conferences.

here’s the dirt: you get 20 seconds to talk about your slides, and 20 slides for your presentation. the slides advance automatically (well they’re supposed to - aaron was taking care of this for everyone but then started cheating during his own presentation so greg took over) so you really only have 20 seconds to get your message across.

it rocks.

you have to be creative with both the visual and the aural presentation, and the time constraints gives the whole thing a sense of urgency which the audience picks up on and it really increases engagement.

the presenters at this hootchie kootchie were all rock stars:

• amanda - IM
• greg - podcasting
• david - videocasting
• meredith - wikis
• aaron - facebook
• greg n. - skeptic

i really think this format would be great for students - it allows you to practice a presentation, using tech, where you have to be succinct and entertaining at the same time. you could hold monthly hootchie kootchies over a lunch hour. you could choose a theme, or even better, turn them into skill-shares/unconferences where people would present on a topic which they know particularly well.

so much fun!

UPDATE

check out the hootchie kootchie for yourself. 

but it wasn’t totally uneventful. the security folk in Montreal weren’t sure what my XO laptop was so i got the “special” treatment - went into that little glass room and told them all about Nick Negroponte, MIT, the issues surrounding the north/south digital divide…
actually i just turned it on for them and tried to surf the net (no free wifi at the Montreal aeroport - blech!) i guess they believed me because rubber gloves never made an appearance.

so i’m here and bunking with krista. our beds have remote controls and the wine glasses come with lids (sippy cups anyone?) so i feel like i’m the lap of luxury.

i’m not meeting up with the twitter gang (twang?) tonight because i still have homework to do and they are doing naughty things.
but tomorrow night - i’m meeting them for a beer or two and so that cindi and i can write the rules to the twitter drinking game (more on that soon).

so the new WP update is out and i’m dying to get it in place on this blog.
only i’m crazy busy trying to graduate.
so for the next two weeks, i’ll be running lame old WP 2.3.3. but soon…

so i’ve been working on a project for class which requires me to make a mini machinima (machine + cinema - think SL movie). since i tend to spend most of my life on a Mac (i have an Intel iMac though, and for work i occasionally need to run programs using the “evil side” of the computer - aka Windows XP) i was looking for some screen capture apps that were:

1. wicked easy to use
2. able to record audio from a mic
3. capable of simply taking snapshots if i ever forget the cmd-ctrl-4 key combo

Jing to the rescue! you can choose to export directly to file, ftp or screencast.com which will host the vid for you for free. it’s got a sunshine-y interface (i’m not kidding) and is very easy to use. oh, and you can use it on Windows too. (sorry all my Linux peeps - no go yet.)

BUT

you can only export the files to .swf which is why i’m up at 1:21am on a monday night. i need to turn this bad boy into something that iMovie can import so that i can make a little YouTube-y video for class. i’ve downloaded a gajillion demos to try and convert it, and if they work (if!) they throw a watermark on it. erg. i know, i know, i should just gave and by SnapzProX and all of my problems will be solved, but since i don’t see myself as a total machinimaniac (unlike my friend HVX - check out her blog if you want more machinima info) i’m trying to do this on the cheapola.

so if anyone knows of a free app that will convert my .swf into .avi, .mpeg, .wmv… please let me know!

Stephen Abram came to speak at McGill and the SLA Eastern Canada Chapter and rocked the house.
he wore an awesome tie.

key points from his chats:

• reciprocal mentoring: the concept that newer librarians have skills to share with established librarians. love this concept. share share share people!
• the concepts of victimization and risk aversion have become part of library culture. this is bad.
• it’s very important for librarians to play with new technologies. (hence the creation of SLA’s Innovation Lab - to be launched very shortly.) you don’t have to love it, or even use it, but you need to play with it to have an informed opinion.
• the internet is terrible at answering “how?” and “why?” questions, which is why librarians rock.

it was a great day and i always laugh a lot when i’m hanging out with Stephen.

*over the past few months i’ve discovered oh-so-many blogs and podcasts that i consider required reading/listening. i’m going to try and blog weekly about one of them and why i think LIS students - hell, even regular library-folk - ought to check them out.*

Uncontrolled Vocabulary is “A weekly live interactive roundtable discussion of all things library”. the podcast is recorded Wednesday nights at 10pmEST and here’s the kicker, ANYONE can join in (thanks to TalkShoe). if you can’t join in during the recording, you can always check out the podcast which is posted to the blog shortly after the recording. (and downloadable from TalkShoe.)

the issues to be discussed are posted before the show is recorded, and they are always timely. and the invited guests are, frankly, some. really. interesting. folk.

i can’t recommend it enough. i’m busy catching up on all 33 previous episodes.

oh, and i found out about it through the Twittersphere - which continues to amaze me as a LIS resource.

for those of you unaware of who Stephen Abram is, he’s the president of the Special Libraries Assocation and has an oh-so-fun blog (Stephen’s Lighthouse).

(as an aside, i attended the SLA conference in baltimore just prior to beginning my MLIS and it confirmed my decision to go into the LIS field. i still have all the business cards i collected at the conference and though everyon was from a different industry, doing a different job, they were all concerned with the dissemination of information. exactly the people i want to surround myself with.)

so Stephen is coming to talk to the LIS students of McGill (aka SISsies) and having seen him speak before, i know that a) it’s gonna be fun, and b) we’re gonna have lots to talk about.

i may live-blog it, since i’m addicted to Cover It Live.

i’ve just finished reading all the Movers & Shakers profiles.

my RSS feeder is now wonderfully full with the blogs of exciting folk in the LIS community.

so fortunate.

if you click on the link in the bar above you’ll be able to see transcripts of my live-blogging using Cover It Live (which is a genius app and i’m really happy with it.)

for some reason i lost connectivity (i blame SNOW) and had to rewire my house so there’s a big chunk missing between the first two sessions.