Tag: training

How I “Get” People to Talk to me so I Can Understand Them [en]

As the founding editor of Phonak’s community blog “Open Ears” (now part of “Hearing Like Me“) I contributed a series of articles on hearing loss between 2014 and 2015. Here they are.

A complaint I’ve heard a few times lately in the hearing loss support groups I hang out in is that “full-hearing” people resist making the effort to talk to us in such a way that we can understand them. Or they do sometimes, but then forget. I feel a lot of frustration around this for some people, sometimes translated into judgements about the other “not caring” or “not paying attention” or “being offended”.

Misunderstanding

This reminds me a little, in a “through the looking-glass” way, of how we “less-hearing” people are sometimes accused of “not paying attention”, “not making an effort”, or “being distracted”.

I try to always look at situations like this from the various points of view of the players involved. My work with people and technology, as well as teaching, have led me to adopt a kind of “user-experience-centric” attitude. Now, UX is definitely not my primary field of expertise (so forgive me in advance if it’s yours), but one thing I do quite consistently is try and put myself in other people’s shoes and see the logic in their way of thinking or doing things.

How does this apply here? What does it look like for people with full hearing who are trying to communicate with me?

People have communication habits. Volume of speech, but also, they know from experience when they can be heard or not, at what distance conversation becomes impossible. Most people being “well-hearing” (I kind of like that expression), their communication habits are adapted to people without hearing loss. Years ago, a friend of mine commented (when I said that I didn’t seem to have too much trouble understanding people) that everyone around me made efforts when speaking with me, but that I didn’t see it. They subconsciously spoke louder, learned to get my attention before saying something, etc. It was a bit of a shock for me. But it made sense. (This was before I got fitted.)

So, basically, when we have hearing loss, we’re requiring of people around us that they communicate differently with us, and break their deeply ingrained habits of speech for us. They need to learn and remember that they need to speak to us from distance x < “standard intelligible conversation distance”, for example. Or they need to remember not to speak to us when we’re not looking. Or when we’re in another room. Or too softly. All these things that “work” with almost everyone they know do not work as well with us. They’re used to talking to other neighbours from their balcony or across the street, but that’s too far for us.

I try to keep this in mind. I approach it like training. It’s my responsibility to teach them what works and doesn’t work with me, communication-wise. And sometimes spelling things out is really useful.

I usually take a moment at some point to tell “new people” that I don’t hear well, and that even with my hearing aids I might ask them to repeat stuff if they are looking away from me or in another room. If I’m without my hearing aids, I tell people.

I know they are going to forget even if they don’t intend to, and it’s never pleasant to be reminded that you forgot to do something that is necessary for somebody else. So even though it’s not my fault I have hearing loss and I don’t have to apologise for it, it’s not their fault either and I am asking them to do something out-of-their-ordinary to accommodate my particular circumstances. That’s why I often apologise when I ask people to repeat things (not systematically, but at least a few times in the beginning). I’ve never seen anybody be offended that I’m asking them to repeat. I’ve seen confusion when they repeat and I still can’t hear, irritation maybe at being asked again and again to repeat, or at failing to communicate.

When that happens, I try to give people clearer instructions: for example, I say “for me to understand you easily, get my attention first so that I can look at you” or “if you’re this far from me I probably won’t understand” or “if you’re in another room I probably won’t either”. Or “I’m sorry, even with my hearing aids in my hearing isn’t as good as yours, you need to speak louder for me to be able to understand you.”

I need them to do things differently for me, but if I don’t tell them clearly what it is they need to do, and if I don’t patiently give them feedback, they can’t guess.

How do you deal with this? I think strategies are going to vary a lot depending on the degree of hearing loss we have.

Habituation, Variety, and Intermittent Rewards [en]

[fr] Habituation, variété, récompenses aléatoires... il me manque un petit quelque chose pour lier tout ça ensemble.

Here’s another post in the “variety is the spice of life” series. My first intuition that it might make sense to vary the type of blog posts one produces to sustain reader interest didn’t actually have to do with my readings about habituation in The How of Happiness, although it was at the same moment and I then quickly put the two together.

When I initially suggested varying blog post type/topic to somebody who had a blog which was made of a series of very similar posts, I was thinking of intermittent rewards. So now, I’m wondering: how does what I’ve understood about habituation, the need to vary one’s happiness strategies, and intermittent reward reinforcement fit together?

Clearly, a system with intermittent rewards keeps your brain on high alert. Is varying one’s happiness activities also simply just keeping one’s brain alert, by providing “rewards” (the boost one gets from doing something that makes one happy) not on a completely regular schedule? Do intermittent rewards work against habituation?

I feel I’m onto something here but I can’t quite bring it all together.

We have: habituation => need for variety; vary reward schedule => increased reinforcement. Are we talking about the same thing (brain-wise, are the same phenomenons/chemicals involved) — or are these two similar things, that look similar, but are in fact two separate issues? What is the missing link here?

If you have thoughts, data, research, or case studies around this, I’m interested.

I also think there is something in this which explains why we have “phases” (go a lot to the cinema during a few months/years, then less, or read a lot, then less, take up a hobby, abandon it) and why (at least in my case) we play games for a moment, then move on to another one (I’m playing Zombie Café right now but feel the need for something new soon).

Le monde a changé (Cluetrain 101 pour formation SAWI MCMS) [fr]

[en] This is a "Cluetrain 101" presentation I gave as part of the course I teach at SAWI on community management and social media. It was initially published on the course blog.

Je co-dirige la formation au diplôme SAWI de spécialiste en management de communautés et médias sociaux. Cet article a initialement été publié sur le blog du cours [voir l’original].

Si cette présentation est une “introduction au Cluetrain”, c’est en tant que le Cluetrain Manifesto est le représentant et l’expression d’une culture — et même, si on veut oser les grands mots, d’un changement de paradigme. Mon but n’est donc pas tant de faire un résumé du livre (lisez-le plutôt!) mais d’aborder un certain nombre de thématiques qui permettent de comprendre en quoi internet a profondément (à débattre!) changé la façon dont les organisations intéragissent avec les gens, que ceux-ci leur soient intérieurs ou extérieurs.

Sans vouloir mettre par écrit ici tout ce que je vais dire, voici la présentation Prezi qui servira de base de discussion, ainsi que quelques notes aide-mémoire.

Pas vraiment changé

  • retour à des valeurs pré-industrielles
  • “les marchés sont des conversations” => “les marchés sont des relations” — ça va plus loin!
  • culture de masse comme anomalie historique — traiter les gens en masse comme on traite les objets sur la chaîne de production

Perte de contrôle

  • une des conséquences les plus visibles, et les plus déstabilisantes pour la culture d’entreprise classique
  • démocratisation de la parole publique, redistribution du pouvoir (VRM)
  • on a les moyens de remettre en question les “messages” qu’on nous sert

Objets numériques

  • les lois de la physique n’ont plus cours en ligne
  • donner sans perdre (cf. tout le débat sur le partage de fichiers)
  • économie basée sur la rareté qui perd ses repères dans un monde d’abondance
  • “ideas want to be free”

Différentes conceptions d’internet

  • ville: celle des gens qui y vivent et y créent (des liens ou de la culture)
  • bibliothèque: celle des consommateurs d’information
  • télé: celle des annonceurs

Voix humaine

  • reconnaissable, désirée
  • très différente de celle de la communication officielle, du blabla publicitaire ou marketing
  • écoute, authenticité (qui n’est pas un vain mot), partage, humour, personnalité, transparence (jusqu’où?)
  • c’est la seule qui rend possible la relation (essayez d’avoir une conversation sensée avec un robot de service clientèle ou un communiqué de presse publié sur un blog)

Conversation

  • pas juste deux personnes qui parlent (être vraiment présent, authentique, désintéressé, transparent)
  • il ne suffit pas de dire qu’on a une conversation pour en avoir une (cf. blocages à la communication)
  • importance de la narration — ce n’est pas par hasard qu’on aime les conversations et les histoires
  • les conversations ont lieu de toute façon — l’entreprise peut rester extérieure ou se mouiller
  • on n’est plus dans une logique de broadcast; la profondeur des échanges importe plus que leur nombre

Bouche à oreille

  • le plus grand influenceur
  • en ligne, prend une autre dimension (espace public + objets numériques)
  • libre choix de ce dont on parle, d’où sa valeur
  • véhicule: la voix humaine

Espaces semi-publics

  • difficulté à se positionner
  • le cloisonnement en perte de vitesse
  • impose la réconciliation de discours parfois contradictoires
  • “public” élastique (taille, nature)

Réseaux

  • renversent la hiérarchie
  • réseaux de gens, réseau hypertexte — le double réseau internet
  • chacun en son centre, propagation, veille, recherche

Communautés

  • groupes restreints
  • investissement émotionnel
  • émergent de la complexité des rapports entre les gens et aux choses

Retour à la conversation: en quoi internet change-t-il la donne pour vous? Si on prend quelques pas de recul sur nos peurs, que peut-on dire sur ce qui se passe dans le monde? En y regardant de près, beaucoup des thèmes que nous avons abordés sont présents dans la fonctionnement de l’entreprise classique, mais clandestinement ou inofficiellement.

Liens en rapport, ou notes de dernière minute:

Invest in Social Media Training [en]

For all of you in companies around the world who are wondering what place to give social media — you’ve heard about it, you know there’s quite a bit of hype, but that you should be “doing it” — here’s a piece of free advice: invest in training your staff and providing them with the “social media” skillset.

The trend I see these days is companies and organizations hiring social media consultants, strategists, and community managers. They want somebody to “do their social media stuff”, and often this person is external to the company.

Take a few steps back and think about computing. Nobody today would even dream of hiring somebody into the company to deal with the “computer stuff”. Instead, employees simply know how to do things on a computer. Some more than others, I’ll grant you that, but “working on the computer” is usually so much part of the job description for any office position that it’s not even specified in the job description anymore.

A few years from now, it’ll be the same thing with social media. Knowledge workers will know how to write a blog post (or even open a blog and manage it to some extent), use a wiki, create an event on Facebook and use their network to promote it, set up a Twitter account and put a video on YouTube — just as your average knowledge worker today knows how to create a Word document, send an e-mail, search for something on the web.

You can wait until people naturally learn how to do these things, or the younger, more social-media-literate generation invades the workplace — but you can also speed things up by actively providing your employees with opportunities to acquire these skills.

And yes, shameless plug: if you’re looking for somebody to train your staff, this is clearly something I do (I’m working on preparing proper marketing material for my services these days, so in a few weeks I’ll hopefully have shiny handouts/PDFs describing all the things I do).

Seminar on Social Media Adoption in the Enterprise [en]

[fr] Dernier jour pour s'inscrire au séminaire sur les stratégies d'adoption des nouveaux médias dans l'entreprise organisé par mon amie (et néanmoins experte de renommée internationale) Suw Charman-Anderson. C'est à Londres, ce vendredi.

My friend Suw Charman-Anderson is organising a seminar this Friday in London on the
adoption of social tools in the enterprise: Making Social Tools Ubiquitous. There are still some
places left. The sign-up deadline is tomorrow — act fast.

You’ll find a description of this seminar below. This is a chance to
learn about social tools in the enterprise directly from a world-class
expert who has practical experience introducing social tools in
various businesses. Want a peek? here are notes I took from her talk
last year at the Future of Web Apps conference.

Overview
You may have heard that social tools – such as wikis, blogs, social bookmarking and social networking – can help you improve business communications, increase collaboration and nurture innovation. And with open source tools, you can pilot projects easily and cheaply. But what do you do if people won’t use them? And how do you grow from a pilot to company-wide use?

Social media expert Suw Charman-Anderson will take a practical look at the adoption of social tools within your business. During the day you will create a scalable and practical social media adoption strategy and discuss your own specific issues with the group. By the end of the seminar you will have a clear set of next steps to take apply to your own collaborative tools project.

The setting
Fruitful Seminars take place in an intimate setting, with no more than 9 people attending, so you to get the very most out of the day. The are held at the luxurious One Alfred Place, and include tea & coffee, and lunch from the restaurant.

Who should come?

  • CXO executives
  • managers
  • team leaders
  • decision makers
  • social media practitioners
  • social media vendors

Or anyone in situations similar to these:

  • You have already installed some social tools for internal communications and collaboration, but aren’t getting the take-up you had hoped for.
  • You have successfully completed a pilot and want to roll-out to the rest of the company.
  • You want to start using social tools and need a strategy for fostering adoption.
  • You sell social software or services and want to understand how your clients can foster adoption of your tool.

For more information, check out these recent posts Suw wrote:

The second Fruitful Seminar, held by Lloyd Davis, will take place on July 16th: Mastering Social Media.

Not for you? tell your friends about it. Not this time, but want to keep an eye on what Suw, Leisa and Lloyd are doing with Fruitful Seminars? sign up for their newsletter. Otherwise… time to sign up!

Quelques pages en français [fr]

[en] I've added some French content to stephanie-booth.com. One page describing my standardized offer for blogging in business (of course, other packs can be negotiated -- this is mainly to help my clients get started). Another detailing private classes I offer individuals (not my main business, but I like doing it and I'm regularly asked to). A description of the "Get Started with Blogging" seminar -- I'm doing it as a workshop at LIFT, but I also plan to organize these regularly here in Lausanne (or elsewhere if there is enough interest).

I'd like to announce a first blogging seminar end of February -- but I'm a bit concerned about how I'll get the word out about it. You see, I'm pretty good at communicating stuff using new media, but I do sometimes feel a bit at loss with more traditional ways of promoting events or business initiatives. Any advice or assistance in that department would be greatly appreciated.

Chers lecteurs francophones (si vous êtes encore par là!), j’aurais besoin de vous. Dans le cadre de l’opération “mettre vaguement à jour stephanie-booth.com“, j’ai ajouté un peu de contenu au site francophone. Alors bon, comme d’habitude, c’est un peu brouillon (mais j’ai quand même réfléchi un peu à ce que j’écrivais) et c’est déjà en ligne. Mais votre avis sur ce que j’ai écrit m’intéresse. Bien? Pas bien? Détails à corriger? Problèmes de fond? Mauvaise stratégie? Parfait-y’a-rien-à-retoucher?

Vous voyez l’idée.

Les pages en question sont les suivantes:

  • Blogs et entreprises — j’essaie de “standardiser” un peu mon offre pour que les clients puissent s’y retrouver. Il y en a pour tous les budgets, et bien sûr, on peut toujours discuter de formules particulières. Mais il me semble qu’offrir 2-3 “packs” est une bonne chose.
  • Cours pour particuliers — ce n’est pas mon business principal, mais il faut bien que je me rende à l’évidence, on me demande pour ça. J’essaie d’expliquer dans quel contexte je fournis ce genre de service.
  • Cours d’initiation aux blogs pour particuliers — il s’agit de la fameuse idée de cours, que je propose dans deux semaines sous forme de workshop à LIFT (si vous allez à LIFT, profitez-en).

Concernant cette dernière offre, j’aimerais fixer une date pour un premier cours à Lausanne toute fin février, mais j’avoue que ce qui me fait un peu souci, c’est comment communiquer là autour. Voyez-vous, je suis une spécialiste de la communication nouveaux médias, et les personnes à qui s’adresse ce cours ne s’alimentent probablement pas quotidiennement sur les blogs.

Il faudrait recourir à des moyens de promotion plus “traditionnels” que je maîtrise mal: annonces, affichettes, mailing-listes un peu “pushy” (oh horreur!), alerter mes contacts journalistes, mon entourage offline, faire passer des infos dans écoles ou entreprises… Tout conseil ou coup de main dans ce domaine serait bienvenu. Merci d’avance.

Adapting to Budget: "on peut tout faire avec tout" [en]

[fr] "On peut tout faire avec tout", me dit une copine designer avec qui je parle d'un mandat pour ma conférence, Going Solo. Ce qu'elle veut dire, c'est qu'il y a généralement moyen de s'adapter au budget du client.

C'est vrai pour moi aussi -- du moins dans certaines choses que je fais, comme apprendre aux gens à bloguer. On peut mettre en place un blog pour une entreprise pour 2'000CHF, mais aussi pour 50'000. Dans les deux cas le client aura un blog, mais les choses seront tout de même assez différentes:

  • Dans le premier cas, le client sera livré à lui-même pour découvrir la culture de la blogosphère et la stratégie de communication qui lui est propre. Je lui en aurai parlé, bien entendu, mais cela restera inévitablement abstrait. Il va devoir apprendre en public, perdre la face peut-être. Il fera des erreurs. Si tout va bien, il s'en sortira, à long terme. Au bout d'un an, de deux ans, il finira par réellement comprendre ce que ce nouveau média a à offrir -- s'il n'a pas abandonné, découragé.
  • Dans l'autre cas, le client sera accompagné, suivi de près, conseillé, coaché pendant six mois. Il apprendra "juste". Il fera moins d'erreurs grossières. On ménagera sa susceptibilité en ne l'obligeant pas à apprendre sans filet sous les yeux du public. Il y aura des crises également, c'est sûr -- mais il ne sera pas seul pour y faire face.

Il n'y a pas une méthode plus juste que l'autre, c'est ce que je suis en train de comprendre. Ça dépend du client. Est-il prêt à être livré à lui-même, quitte à échouer misérablement ou à se décourager? A quel point tient-il à apprendre à maîtriser ce média? Son budget est-il limité? Je m'adapte.

Last week, I recontacted a girl I used to do judo with, who is now a designer (not a “graphic designer” per se — an object designer). We talked about her work and what she did, and ended up trying to see if there was anything we could do together for Going Solo.

I met her to discuss this — it was a very strange experience for me to be “the client” and to feel totally lost about what she was going to do for me. And also, to be wondering how much this kind of thing would cost me. I had more than a few thoughts for my clients, who sometimes turn green when I tell them the price tag for what we’ve discussed.

What I’d like to talk about here is something she said: “on peut tout faire avec tout”, meaning “you can get anything for anything”. Not very clear out of context, I’ll admit. We were talking about budget. Basically, what she meant is “tell me how much you have for this, and I’ll figure out a way to give you something for that price”.

As the client in this story, I personally found that much more comfortable than to have to wait for her to come up with a quote (which would probably make my heart sink) and then get into painful discussions to see how we could reduce the cost.

My needs here aren’t very specific. I want a logo, a “look”, banners, some printed material, etc. And it makes sense: I can probably get that for 2000 CHF, and I could also get it for 8000. What I’d get would be different, of course — but basically, it would fulfill the basic need.

I liked what she said, because it resonated with some background thought process of mine which never quite made it to the surface. In my “industry” (let’s think of social media here, like corporate blogging), you can also “get anything for anything”. Want a corporate blog? Well, we can do it for 2000, but also for 20’000 — or even more.

Let me explain a little. This is something that’s been bothering me for a few months, and I’m glad I’ve finally figured it out.

When I quit my day job (or was about to do so), I set up blogs for some clients. It was very lightweight: evangelize, install WordPress, show somebody how it worked, adapt a design to a WordPress theme, give some strategic advice (not always received) — and there we go. Sometimes, I didn’t even go through all that. It was “talk a couple of hours, open a WordPress.com account, done”.

But I wasn’t that happy with the results. People often didn’t really “get” it. I felt they were under-using their blogs, that they could be doing so much more with them. Sometimes, people “didn’t get it” to the point that they actually didn’t really use the blog we’d set up.

So, I changed my way of working. Over the weeks and months, I came to understand just how vital training was when it came to understanding social media. Not just the technical aspects, but as I’ve written again and again (and probably elsewhere), the cultural and strategic aspects of it. So, I started to include that in my discussions with clients.

“Setting up a blog and learning how to publish a post is just the beginning. The big job is understanding the blogging culture, and figuring out how blogging fits into or changes (in most cases!) your communication strategy.”

I didn’t want my clients to be disappointed in their blogs, or to “fail”, or to mess up too much. It brought me to quoting healthy 5-figure prices for “we’d like a corporate blog” type of requests.

Not surprisingly, they thought it was a tad expensive. “Isn’t the whole point of this social media stuff the fact that it’s supposed to be cheap?” So, I didn’t get the gigs in question, and I wasn’t very happy either. The corporations I’ve been in touch with seem quite ready to be evangelized about social media, but not really ready to bet money on it.

(I know a lot of what I’m saying is old news, so forgive me if I seem to be stating the obvious to some of you.)

About a week ago I had a chat with one of my old clients, who told me that after about a year of having a rather non-bloggy blog things were slowly starting to change. Nothing very notable, but they were loosening up. They brought in somebody to help for the website who was more of a “web” person, and that had a positive influence on how lively the publication was becoming.

This seemed to bring me an answer to something I’d been uneasy about: lately, I’d caught myself explaining how blogging, as a tool, creates a certain kind of culture and communication strategy — but in the same breath, kind of negating that by insisting that throwing blogs at people doesn’t make bloggers out of them. I still think I’m correct about this, but it’s more complex than I make it sound. If you give somebody a blog, and they use it long enough, sooner or later they’ll start to “get it”. The catch is that there are high chances they will give up before they get there. And also, there is no knowing how long they’ll take to “get it”.

So, what do I do with this? On the one hand, it is possible to keep blogging “cheap”. On the other hand, I do believe it makes sense (particularly for corporations) to invest a hefty chunk of time and money in learning to get it right. (Corporations don’t hesitate much about spending lots of $$ — or even €€ or ££! — on software solutions… put that money you’ll save on the software in training and strategic consulting when it comes to social media.)

I realised that the key was compromise.

Say your budget for opening a corporate blog is 2K. We’ll open a WordPress.com account or install WordPress on a server somewhere, get you a domain name, maybe a cheaply customised theme with your logo in it. I’ll show you how to use the tool’s basic functions. I’ll give you some advice (blogger’s survival kit), recommend some other tools to try, and that’s about it. You’re on your own.

You’ll scrape your knees. It might take you a year or more to figure out for yourself that blogging isn’t about reproducing your “print” or “old marketing” content in a light CMS called a blogging tool. You might give up, or decide that this blogging thing is not all it’s hyped to be — it’s too hard, it doesn’t work, it’s just a fad. On the other hand, if you do hang on in there, feel your way through the crises, engage with your readers, learn to be part of the community, mess up and apologize… There is a lot of value in there for you.

If your budget is 50K, we’ll do things differently. I’ll follow and train your team over 6 months. I’ll walk you through the crises. I’ll help you prevent some. I’ll hold your hand while you learn. Talk with you when your communication strategy feels rattled by this alien blogging thing you’re doing. Help you see clearly so you understand what’s at stake more clearly when you have decisions to make. Spend time convincing the sceptics that what you’re doing really has value. Teach you to write better, as a blogger. Show you how blogging is part of this Bigger Thing that’s been happening online over the last years. When we’re done, I’ll have taught you almost as much as I know, and you’ll be autonomous.

In both cases, I’m compromising. The client is compromising. Blogging is about learning in the open, messing up in public, and getting scalded by the heat of real relationships and real people and real conversations. It’s about being human.

Where exactly is the compromise?

In the first scenario (the “cheap” one), the client isn’t really ready to invest much time and money in understanding blogging, or doesn’t have the means to do so. If he’s not committed or not passionate enough, the whole thing will fail. Remember that many people start blogging, and then stop. They’re just not around to tell us about it. All we see are the natural bloggers, those who have it in their blood, so to speak. Those who have a personality that fits well with the medium. On the flip side, the client gets the “real deal” right away. No training wheels.

In the second scenario (the “expensive” one), the compromise is in saving the client’s face. It spares the client the indignity of learning through making lots of mistakes, and in public. By investing time and money, and hiring competent people, you can avoid making gross mistakes, and appear to “get it” faster than if you jump in and half drown before you figure out how to float. We’re compromising here by preventing the client from looking too bad while he gets to grip with the new medium. Ultimately, the client will have to learn to lose face every now and again — nobody can prevent the business from messing up now and again. But it won’t be due to being uncomfortable with an unfamiliar medium.

I don’t think there is one right way to get into blogging. Just like there is not a “best” way to learn, between taking classes and learning all by yourself. Both of these scenarios are good — and all those in between. It will depend on the client:

  • is the client ready to scrape his knees in public, a lot — or is he still happy with a rather controlled communication strategy, which he wants to ease out of gently?
  • is the client willing to see his attempt to get into blogging fail (for a variety of reasons) — or does he want to put all the chances on his side to make sure he sticks with it?
  • is the client on a budget — or is money not an issue?

Which brings me back to where I started. Translating what my friend says to my own business: if you want to get into blogging and your budget is set, it’s possible (within reason, of course). In all cases, you’ll get “blogging”, but you’ll get different flavours and intensities of it.

You just have to trust the professional you hire for this to be giving you your money’s worth.

Vidéo: nécessité d'une formation blogs [fr]

[en] I explain that it's normal that most people don't "get" blogging naturally. Active bloggers today "in the wild" are the result of a natural selection. You can't turn a bunch of politicians or employees into bloggers (all the more good ones) just by throwing blogging tools at them. Training is needed. Media education.

Voilà, chers lecteurs (et maintenant auditeurs!) francophones, c’est à votre tour d’être les victimes d’un vidéocast Climb to the Stars, après mes lecteurs anglophones qui ont eu l’occasion d’entendre pourquoi je pense que Lush devrait bloguer. (Je sais que podcast est également un terme techniquement correct pour ce que je fais ici, mais j’aime bien indiquer qu’il s’agit de vidéo.)

En sept minutes et une ou deux poussières, j’essaie d’expliquer pourquoi même si le blog est un outil facile à utiliser, il reste utile (voire indispensable) d’apprendre à bloguer autrement que sur le tas.

Dailymotion blogged video
CTTS: Nécessité d’une formation blogs
Vidéo envoyée par Steph

Quelques liens en rapport avec le contenu de cette vidéo:

Edit 12h30: Je vois maintenant qu’il y a des sauts, dans la vidéo — quelqu’un a une idée à quoi ça peut être dû? Il me semble pas que j’avais ce problème avec la vidéo d’avant. Le seul changement que j’ai fait c’est d’avoir mis les “key frames” sur automatic au lieu de 150 à l’exportation.

Stamm Genilem sous les projos [fr]

[en] Spoke briefly at a networking event this evening. Almost froze up on stage (try cramming a general talk about blogs in business in 4 minutes, and then speaking with huge spotlights in your face which don't let you see the public at all). Didn't get a chance to say that if blogging is technically rather easy, mastering it as a media and a culture is more difficult. That's why blogging classes make sense, particularly if you're looking to use your blog "seriously" (business, politics) and can't afford to mess up too much as you learn.

Il y a un peu plus de deux mois, je découvrais ce qu’était un Stamm Genilem. Il faisait froid.

Aujourd’hui, je me suis retrouvée sous les projecteurs pour un brève présentation des blogs. Quatre misérables petites minutes! Si vous me connaissez un peu, vous savez que la concision n’est pas mon point fort. Moi qui ai l’habitude d’avoir tout l’espace que je désire à disposition sur mon blog, et de blablater durant une heure ou plus lorsque je parle en public…

Quelques réflexions un peu un vrac:

  • ne pas compter sur le bon fonctionnement de la technologie pour sa présentation
  • si on fait parler des gens qui ont un ordinateur à piloter (ou pire, une connexion internet!) pour accompagner leur présentation, prévoir un micro “sans les mains” (je le mets où, le micro, pendant que je pianote à l’ordi?)
  • beaucoup de personnes présentes dont l’activité tourne autour d’un site web ou de la fabrication de sites…
  • 4 minutes, c’est court
  • un spot, c’est éblouissant
  • quand on voit pas à qui on parle, c’est flippant
  • j’ai passé très près du “blanc du bac” (= crise de panique muette accompagnée de paralysie) environ une minute après le début de la présenation, mais Dieu merci il paraît que personne n’a rien vu
  • très sympa de voir tous ces gens que je connaissais déjà, et de discuter avec de nouvelles personnes
  • blogs et Stamm, il y a vraiment un point de rencontre: réseautage (dynamique très similaire à mon avis)
  • pour savoir ce qu’on dit de vous: tapez le nom de votre entreprise ou d’un événement dans Technorati, par exemple (qui parle de Stamm Genilem)
  • toujours en encore surprise de ce que beaucoup de choses concernant l’utilité des blogs et les dynamiques qu’ils permettent de créer aillent aussi peu de soi pour la majorité des gens; ceci n’est pas une critique à l’égard des gens en question, mais plutôt une critique que je m’adresse à moi-même: j’oublie sans cesse toujours, malgré tout, à quel point les blogs représentent un choc culturel.

Qu’est-ce que j’ai dit au sujet des blogs? En deux mots, que leur importance aujourd’hui est symptomatique de l’importance du tournant que prend (qu’a pris!) le web, pour devenir un média conversationnel. L’ère de la main-mise de certains sur l’information est révolue (médias, dirigeants, personnages publics). Le blog est un outil qui permet une publication techniquement facile et à peu de frais, et qui crée des relations entre auteur du blog et lecteurs (clients, public, partenaires…) C’est un outil de réseautage via internet, une porte qu’on peut ouvrir sur le web vivant d’aujourd’hui, et qui nous permet de faire entendre ce qu’on a offrir ou communiquer. Une image: du bouche-à-oreilles aux amphétamines.

Ce n’est pas exactement ce que j’ai dit, bien sûr, mais ça allait dans cette direction. J’ai aussi parlé du tailleur-blogueur londonien. Je n’ai pas parlé de la démo foirée de reconnaissance vocale de Vista, mais si j’avais eu un peu plus de temps…

Une chose que je n’ai pas dite du tout et que je regrette, c’est que même si on met en avant la facilité avec laquelle on peut publier quelque chose grâce à un blog (et le fait que n’importe qui peut aller sur WordPress.com et ouvrir son blog — si vous me lisez et que vous n’en avez pas, filez tout de suite en ouvrir un histoire d’essayer, et donnez-nous l’adresse en commentaire), bloguer ne va pas de soi. C’est un nouveau média à appréhender, et qui l’est d’autant plus difficilement que nous en avons une expérience passive très limitée. C’est une culture à apprendre, et dans laquelle on ne s’immerge souvent pas sans choc culturel.

Tout le monde doit apprendre à bloguer. Allez regarder les premiers billets que j’écrivais quand j’ai ouvert ce blog, pour rire. Si on fait un blog pour son propore plaisir, alors on peut sans autre apprendre sur le tas. Les erreurs sont de peu de conséquence. Si le blog ne décolle pas, on se découragera peut-être, mais ça n’aura pas d’impact grave (quoique, psychologiquement, suivant la situation et nos motivations…). Par contre, si c’est son entreprise qui est en jeu, ou bien sa carrière politique, il est normal de se sentir un peu frileux.

Donc, page de pub: primo, il y a le cours du Centre Patronal sur les blogs. Inscrivez-vous.. Rectification: le cours sur “comment faire un site web facilement et sans prise de tête, en profitant de surfer sur la Vague 2.0 le Web 2.0 pour augmenter sa visibilité en tirant parti de la puissance de réseau d’internet” (c’est bon, vous pouvez respirer). Oui je sais, je la ramène souvent avec ce cours (vous pouvez donc en déduire qu’il reste des places). Si vous avez des idées plus originales pour le faire connaître, je suis preneuse.

Deuxio, c’est pour ça qu’on loue les services des gens qui s’y connaissent (bibi entre autres) quand on se lance dans l’aventure, bêtement. N’hésitez pas à prendre contact, et on verra si je peux vous aider ou vous aiguiller vers quelqu’un qui peut.

Voilà, fini la pub. Vous pouvez aller vous coucher. (Et moi aussi, accessoirement.)