Trends I Love to See
July 3rd, 2006Rick Librarian posts about some trends he saw at ALA. A few that got my juices flowing in a good way:
“6. PowerPoints were down. I went to three programs with no PowerPoint presentation at all. Only one program that I attended was totally PowerPoint driven.
7. Handouts were down. Few programs had any handouts at all other than evaluation forms. People seemed to take their notes on the backs of the evaluation forms. I had many people ask me, “Were there handouts?”
10. Blogging was up. There was even a room set aside for bloggers. Blogs about the conference can be found at the conference wiki. Go to Conference Bloggers to see who was writing. An alphabetic list of conference reports is started at Stories, Reports. The latter needs more input. If you wrote or know of conference reports, add them in.”
Rick is right. There is a huge shift going on. I hope there comes a time when Powerpoint is not only not used at conferences, but frowned upon. I’ve also always been a big fan of not providing handouts. They are just too distracting for everyone involved. I have no problem with providing handouts after the presentations.
Also, blogging is the norm at events like this these days. Most associations are doing it, many individuals are doing it, and I’m thrilled with this. I wasn’t in New Orleans, but I felt like I was, because of all the reporting.