New Beginnings

I, in essence, have a new computer. Not by choice. My hard drive crashed. And I lost pretty much everything I've done in the past year, which, luckily, wasn't much. I haven't been very productive in my personal life. But, most importantly, I've lost my pictures, and I've lost all my notes from Podcamp. So, that second wrap up you were all holding your breath for? Breathe now - it's not coming.

I did manage to hold on to my music, thanks to a handy little program called PodWorks. But all my pictures from the past year, including my "week in the life of..." pictures, are gone. (I knew I shouldn't have procrastinated in scrapbooking those!)

As frustrating as it is, I really am okay with it. Maybe it's because I didn't lose a lot of stuff. But it's kinda nice having a "brand new" computer. A fresh start. And, my hubby bought me a cute little green and black external hard drive to back things up on.

Isn't it pretty? And oh so functional! It even comes with it's own carrying case. Ah, the little things that make me smile...

Starting to Wrap Up...

I'm reaching information overload. Either that, or these last few sessions aren't that interesting.

I really got a lot out of 2 sessions today, Gavin's (the session I came for) and Storytelling for Gen X&Y.

I'll start with Storytelling... it was a really good session with a guy from Ethos 3, a company that strives to help people with presentations. His session was about presenting to and connecting with Gen Xers and Yers. I am a Gen Y, my hubby and sis Gen Xers, and I was intrigued by this session because I'm really into generational theory. (I had one or two class sessions on it in college, and it really spoke to me. Not quite sure what to do with it yet, but it's on the back burner.) But, this session he talked about how you have to know the culture of the people you're trying to reach, so he talked about his "cultural DNA" - all the things he grew up in/with that make him who he is today (nurture, for the nature vs. nurture fight). And then he gave some guidelines on creating a presentation. Overall, it was very interesting and gave some really good tips on creating presentations for this generation, including:

Get back to basics and leave ego at the door
Have Stellar content (craft a story), design it, deliver it
Know your audience (Myer’s Briggs, Multiple Intelligences)
Avoid templates
Know where you’re going, know what’s next
move quickly, keep slides moving - 3 sentences, then move to next scene - say main points, then move on
Cut 30% of fat of presentation before you give it

Some good ideas.

Okay, I'm on the move. I'll post about Spirituality and Social Networking later!

PodCamp 2009

I'm taking another step into the "techy" world and attending PodCamp 2009. I'm very excited about some of the sessions, especially the one being led by Gavin on Spirituality and Social Media. There are some others, too, mostly about social networking, so it should be an interesting.

I'm thinking I'm slightly out of the loop when it comes to all of this stuff. I don't twitter, I don't podcast... about all I do is facebook and blog, and not even that all that often! But I'm excited to hear some new information, hopefully learn some new things that I might be interested in getting more involved in.