10 reasons why YOU specifically should apply for the SLA ECCA prize

Hey you, yes you! You may not think you are eligible for the Special Library Assocation's Early Career Conference Award, but there's a good chance you are. You may not think the SLA is relevant to you because you don't work in a 'special' library, but it IS, trust me.

Winning the ECCA award could change your whole outlook. It could be incredibly beneficial. Here are 10 reasons to apply:

1. You don't have to be THAT early in your career - it's within 5 years of obtaining your Masters. So in other words, I could apply! (Former winners can't actually apply but the point being, I qualified in 2009 so I am eligible in that sense.)
2. It's probably the best single prize it is possible to win in librarianship. To quote SLA-Europe's website: "Each Award is worth about $4000. It covers the full cost of Conference registration, hotel lodging, economy return airfare to Vancouver, and meals and appropriate incidental expenses." I mean, come on! I should just copy and paste that for the remaining 8 things. It's a ludicrously good prize by any measure.
3. Whatever your sector, the SLA has relevance to you. The SLA isn't all about special libraries. There is, of course, a lot of good content (both in the conference and the organisation more generally) if you're a legal, health, business or pharma librarian - but a huge percentage of members are from the academic library world, for example. There's public librarians too. But the information you can glean from the talks will apply to any sector - it's just really high quality speakers talking about really relevant things.
4. The SLA Conference is completely and utterly brilliant. It is SUCH a good event. I have only been once, but by all accounts it's amazing every year. I am going in 2014, I have FORCED myself to find a way back* because it was the single greatest experience of my professional career. It's on an epic scale but it's focused - you come away inspired, no longer gripped by whatever existential crisis is wasting our time in the profession, buzzing with ideas, and equipped to be a better information professional.
5. The SLA Conference is made more brilliant by experiencing it with the other ECCA winners. There will be 3 winners this year, from different divisions. The three of you will form a little gang and roam around Vancouver together and it is SO much richer for that. I won't labour this point because people told me about it before I went and I didn't really appreciate what they were going on about until it happened - but basically you make friendships and you have this great communal experience in a sort of ECCA bubble and it's ace. Also, everyone is incredibly friendly and welcoming to the ECCAs.
6. There is a very flat hierarchy at the conference. There aren't cliques of senior people and junior people. Everyone mixes with everyone, everyone has time for everyone else. It's a great opportunity to actually exchange ideas with very high-up people and be treated as an equal. You are, as Penny Andrews put it, valued. She also points out something I've mentioned a lot - the LMD (Leadership and Management Division) is NOT just for senior people, it's for people who want to become or learn from leaders and managers.
7. You get to travel and interact with the international community. Every time I've had the chance to go abroad I've found the international perspective on libraries and our profession invaluable. And you get to hear amazing speakers like Stephen Abrams and Mary Ellen Bates who rarely come to England (and then chat with them afterwards - see number 6, above).
8. You will become an SLA member if you aren't already. Becoming part of SLA is awesome. Everyone I know who is a member values it enormously. I've written before about how being part of the SLA gives you confidence. There are plenty of relevant events in the UK too. Also, you tend to go on to get involved with the SLA in some capacity or other - for example Sam Wiggins who won an ECCA the same year as me is the Chair of SLA-Europe next year, I've served on the main SLA Online Advisory Council and as an ECCA judge - the list is endless really. The ECCA is just the beginning.
9. There is a serious emphasis on fun. The SLA take the profession seriously but they take their fun seriously too. There are events and parties every night, there is a ludicrous amount of booze, and you have to really go out of your way to actually pay for anything. The conference never really stops the whole time you're there. It's intense, overwhelming, but, as Simon said, you still feel like you're buzzing a month later.
10. If you win the ECCA, then on June 11th 2014, you'll be on a plane back home, a more knowledgeable, creative, inspired, happy, confident and future-ready information professional.  It really is that good. .

Notice that none of the above are 'it's good for your CV'. Of course, it IS good for your CV, to win a prestigious international prize. But it's really not the winning itself which matters, it's what you get from it - and you get so much from it, that the CV is just an afterthought.

Finally a couple of quick tips for your application (speaking as a former judge):

• You will be representing SLA-Europe as an award winner. Remember that - it's not just about all the amazing things you've done in your career so far, it's about actually being in Vancouver as a sort of ambassador for the division.
• On a related note, your letter of recommendation matters too. The judges want to know what your referee things about you - they also want to know what they think about you winning this prize and going to Vancouver, interacting, networking, learning and so on.
• Part 2 of the application - "What specific benefits and knowledge do you hope to gain from attending the 2014 SLA Conference and working with SLA Europe and your chosen SLA Division in the future?" - is important. There are a LOT of very good applications for these awards, so it's really nice for the judges to be able to filter out a whole bunch and put them on the pile marked 'apparently just fancies winning an award / going on a free trip abroad'. You need to talk about the relationship you are entering into with the SLA and how that will develop over time.
• If you've applied before and not won, don't let that put you off. I didn't get it the first time I tried, I know other winners who were second time lucky. .

If you have any questions, leave them in a comment and I'll endeavour to answer them. Basically I can't recommend applying for this highly enough - it will make your life awesome if you win.

Finally, you can read my own reflections on the 2011 ECCA experience on SLA-Europe's blog, and embedded below is the video I made at the conference. GOOD LUCK!

(Here's that application link, one more time.)

*It's amazing how many ECCA's find a way back. Many have gone most years since they won. Despite the massive logistical effort it constitutes, and having to find ways of paying for it, it's so completely amazing that you find a way back.

Making your message stick - presentation skills for information professionals

On Tuesday the 12th of November I'm running a workshop on presentation skills in London. So many of us have to do presentations now, and it makes a big difference if you feel confident about it, and know some tips and tricks to make presenting easier and more effective. I'm really looking forward to it - it's the first time of doing this outside the British Library, where it's gone down really well. We'll be covering how to make lovely PowerPoints (even if you have to use a dreaded template), how to make your audience remember the things YOU want them to, tips for presenting itself, an introduction to Prezi and a bunch of other stuff too. You can read some of the kinds of things we'll be talking about in this 10 non-standard tips for public speaking post  and this presentation on making presentations...

It's hands-on, at PCs. The details, including a booking form, are here.

One of my favourite ever pieces of feedback came for this course (it was unsolicited, too):

What I enjoyed so much about the presentation workshop:

 1.      Expertise in the subject matter

2.      Relevant and highly useful information: presented and practiced

3.      Clear and engaging presentation style

4.      Professionalism with a great sense of humour, no hidden agenda

5.      Dedication to collaborative professional development, to high standards, to excellence

... so I promise it'll be good! :) Hope to see you there.

Ned

In praise of #bettakultcha (and a video about buying India a Library)

This post is about 3 things: the Buy India a Library project and my talk about it, the Bettakultcha event I did the talk at, and the generally sound principle of talking about library-related things at events which aren't remotely library-related...

Bettakultcha is ACE

Bettakultcha is a brilliantly simple concept - a night devoted to presentations of 20 slides, 15 seconds a slide, on anything you feel passionately about, and NO PITCHES. The fact that this works at all - that such a flimsy concept consistently produces a brilliant evening of entertainment - makes you positively giddy with delight when you're part of one. People talking about their passions is pretty much ALWAYS interesting - even if the passion itself isn't overly interesting to anyone else, or the presenter isn't a natural speaker. It's a very supportive environment in which to public-speak. The talks are only 5 minutes long anyhow so you never get bored; I've enjoyed every talk I've seen at a Bettakultcha event. I've been entertained, moved, fascinated. It's quite an intimate thing, to talk about your passions to an audience of strangers (my previous Bettakultcha talk was about Captain Fitzroy of the Beagle, with whom I'm somewhat obsessed - normally people have to know me quite well before they get the delights of me discussing his tragic life at great length) and it means you get a connection with people, you effectively jump ahead in your relationship. I've met people at Bettakultchas who have become my friends, and who I keep in touch with not just online but in person too. Bettakultcha really is ace.

Here are a couple more talks from the event I recently attended in York - Paul Smith making his passion for coffee properly entertaining,  and an amazing talk by a 14 year old on organ donation! Here's one I missed but I wished I'd seen - my friend Helen doing a completely silent presentation. There are musical talks, theatrical talks. Anything as long as it's not a pitch - often the simplest concepts result in the most creativity.

They run all over the North of England - if there's an event anywhere near you, I can't recommend it highly enough. Check out some other talks on YouTube, or search Twitter for the hashtag to find out more. The main website is here.

My #BuyaLib 20/20 talk

At the June Bettakultcha I gave a talk about Buy India A Library  - it's all about how we crowd-sourced $4000 in 2 weeks in order to fund a Library build for a school in Mysore. Here's the talk:

As mentioned above the format of the talk was that you have 20 slides which each move on automatically after 15 seconds (often known as the Pecha Kucha format, which is probably what the phrase 'Betta Kultcha' is referencing, must ask the organisers) - in my experience the key to doing this type of talk is a: to practice it the day before and b: DO NOT WAIT FOR THE SLIDES! People slip-up in 20/20 style presentations when they stop talking - it's best to plough on with a narrative, and have the slides provide a complimentary narrative, in their own time, underneath...

The audience were much more responsive than I thought they'd be - it was a really fun talk to do.

(By the way, the librarian blogger I mention near the start was @jaffne - sorry not to credit you by name, Jaf!)

The Echo-Chamber Escape revisited

A couple of years back Laura Woods and I did a lot of talking and writing on the subject of librarians escaping the echo-chamber.

We've stopped now because quite honestly we got quite sick of our own thoughts and voices on the matter! But it's still an important concept - we need to write for non-librarian audiences, talk at non-library events, and generally get out there. It's fun, too.

Marketing Libraries: What the not-for-profits can learn from the lots-of-profits!

A couple of weeks ago I presented a webinar for WebJunction on marketing libraries. Part 1 of this post is all the information from the presentation, including a video archive of it, and Part 2 is about the process of presenting in a webinar, for anyone interested in that side of things.

Part 1: Marketing Libraries

The webinar covered marketing principles (several ways to start thinking like a library marketer) - and marketing actions (ways to communicate including Word of Mouth, the website, social media etc). There are various ways you can access the content.

If you want a brief overview:

Here are the slides, with a couple of bits of info added in so they make sense without me talking over the top of them.

Marketing Libraries: What the not-for-profits can learn from the lots-of-profits! from Ned Potter

If you want the full detail:

You can view the full Archive (combined archive of audio, chat, and slides) - this requires JAVA and is a bit more technically complicated than the options above and below, but you get the full experience of the slides, me narrating them in real time, and the chat happening in real time, where you'll find lots of good ideas.

If you want a version you can watch on any device:

Here is the YouTube vid of the webinar - the good thing is you can watch this on a phone etc, the downside is some key points are missed where it skips or the live-streaming briefly went down, and it's hard to read the chat that added so much to the presentation. (You can, however, download the  chat (xls) to read in Excel as you go along.)

When I get a bit of time I'm going to break this down into smaller videos on each topic.

Part 2: Presenting a Webinar

Presenting a webinar is an inherently odd experience because you can't see the faces and responses of your audience. I rely on this a lot to know what is working and what isn't - a presentation is all about communication, after all. Not only that but it's a much bigger audience than for a normal talk - there was nearly 600 people watching this as it happened.

Above is what my desk looked like - iPad to monitor tweetstream (which I didn't have the wherewithall to actually do), landline phone to speak into (I had it pressed against my ear for the first half hour before realising there was nothing to actually hear), G&T to drink (later decanted into a glass with ice, don't worry), iPhone to live-tweet pre-written draft tweets from (it was too stressful to do this well, so I sort of tweeted them in clumsy groups), PC to present from and clock to keep to time by.

I asked for some advice on Twitter about what makes a good webinar - much of it was about good presenting generally, but the web-specific stuff centered around making it as interactive as possible (the technology limited how much I could do this, but I tried...) and giving people time to catch up (I think I pretty much failed to do this). Very useful advice from Jennifer at Web Junction included not putting any animations on the slides because these don't render well in the webinar environment (if I wanted stuff to appear on a slide as I went along, I made two versions of the slide and moved between them). The particular platform we used meant I had to dial in with a phone - a PHONE! - and talk into that whilst manipulating the slides, that was very strange. I had a practice run the night before and I'm glad I did - in essence I found out I just cannot present sitting down, I need the energy that comes from pacing around, so I ended up using my slide-clicker so I could wonder about my house without having to be too close to the PC... The downside to this is I couldn't monitor the chat nearly as well as I wanted to, to respond to questions, because I often wasn't close enough to read the small text.

This was the first time I'd done one of these solo - previous webinar experience had been as part of a panel. As is often the case, as soon as I've done something properly and learned how it works, I want to do it again but much improved based on what I now know. So I'm hoping to work with WebJunction again next year (I find their site a really useful source of information and expert opinion). But the feedback from this one was great, some really nice comments in the chat and even a reference to my accent via private message...

I enjoyed this whole thing, and clearly live-streaming and web-based events are going to be more and more important. They're very convenient for attendees, less so for presenters (I had to banish my family upstairs for example!) but I did get to wear shorts for a presentation for the first time, and even drink Gin & Tonic during it, and that was ace.

This Thursday (free) WebJunction Seminar on Marketing Libraries

Just a quick heads-up that on the 29th of August, I'm running a webinar for WebJunction and my hope is it'll have a lot of useful information for anyone interested in marketing their library successfully. Details below - click the pic to go the website where you can sign up. Places are limited to 1500 and believe it or not we've already got 1300 people registered, so hurry!

I'm really looking forward to this - I've been doing a LOT of stuff around marketing with new tech / social media recently, and even though that's my favourite area, it's nice to get back to some marketing basics with this webinar. It's about marketing principles and marketing actions - as always I try and keep it jargon free and low on waffle / high on things to actually DO when you leave. The focus here is on what the traditionally not-for-profit library can learn from the big businesses (there's plenty); I'll be referencing Apple, Honda, Hellman's Mayo (of course...). I'll also be covering word of mouth marketing, strategy, a bit of websites and social media, and bringing your team along with you in your marketing efforts - here's a sneak peak at a slide on that subject:

So if you think this sounds like it may be useful to you, go to the WebJunction site and click the button to register.

I've always found Web Junction materials really useful - particularly when writing my book - so I'm excited about doing something with them, particularly something that anyone with an internet connection can come along to. Hope to see some of you there.