If you’re interested in building better websites, make sure to sign up for my upcoming webinar for ALA TechSource on June 8 – Building the Digital Branch: Designing Effective Library Websites. Just click the link to sign up!

This will be the second time I have given this webinar. If you attended the first one, never fret! There will be new content – I’m going to talk about how Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library (where I work) built our current website (the redesign went live on March 1).

Here’s the blurb for the webinar:

Every library needs a presence on the web. Whether you work at a large academic library or a public library in a small town, you need to be able to deliver service and content to patrons outside  your building. David Lee King will once again present this popular workshop, taking you through the process of building an effective, user-friendly library website that will expand and enhance your library’s presence in the community.

In this workshop, you’ll learn:

• How to successfully plan and implement a redesign of your website
• How to find out what patrons want from your website
• How to use your website to interact with patrons
• How to create strategic plans and goals for your website

Sign up NOW!

Related Posts

• Copying Other Websites During a Redesign
• Check out builtwith.com
• Designing Digital Experiences for Library Websites
• Does your Website Look Professional?
• Inviting Comments

Some of you might be interested in attending this webinar coming up on December 1 and Decomber 8 (two part series) that Robin Hastings and I are leading.

Here’s the details (and here’s where you can register):

The popularity of social networking software—tools like Twitter, Facebook and blogs—continues to skyrocket, particular among younger populations. For libraries in the 21st century, a presence on these social networking sites is an essential part of library outreach and patron services. In this exclusive event, librarians and social software experts David Lee King and Robin Hastings will teach you about what tools you can use to engage with your patrons and the best practices for using them.

You’ll learn about:

• Collaboration with libraries and patrons using YouTube, Flickr and Dropbox
• Marketing your library with Facebook and Twitter
• 4 things your library must do when signing up for any social media tool (listen, plan, respond, and opening up)
• Time-savers and tools to use for maximizing your library’s social media reach

Robin Hastings is the Information Technology Manager for the Missouri River Regional Library in Jefferson City, Missouri. She manages the library’s network, websites and training classes, as well as social networking projects for the library. Recently, Robin went to England, Jamaica, California, Chicago (twice), St. Louis and Columbia, Missouri, giving presentations on Web 2.0, Learning 2.0, Library Mashups, RSS, OpenID and Web 3.0. When she’s not traveling, she spends most of her free time in front of a computer blogging at http://www.rhastings.net or writing articles, a book chapter on mashups in the library and a chapter on using Google Apps in the library, an issue of Library Technology Reports on Collaboration and a book on lifestreaming and microblogging.

David Lee King is the Digital Branch and Services Manager at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, where he plans for, implements, and experiments with emerging technology trends. He speaks internationally about emerging trends, website usability and management, digital experience planning, and managing techie staff and has been published in many library-related journals. David was named a Library Journal “Mover and Shaker” for 2008 and recently published his first book, Designing the Digital Experience. David writes the Internet Spotlight column in Public Libraries magazine with Michael Porter and maintains a blog at www.davidleeking.com.

Interested? Go register today!

Related Posts

• No Related Post

A couple of people have recently mentioned they like the quality of the sound in my videos, and have asked what microphones I use for videos and screencasts. Here’s what I’m using right now:

Audio-Technica ATR3350 lavalier

I usually plug this lavalier mic into my Sanyo Xacti videocamera. It’s cheap, it sounds fine, and it allows me to improve the sound of my videos. Did I mention it’s cheap (like $20 or so)? And for my Xacti anyway, it’s very easy to use – I just plug it into the viceocamera’s external mic input and forget about it – nothing else to mess with.

Samson C01U USB Studio Condenser and the Blue Snowball

When I’m making a screencast, I usually plug one of these two mics into my laptop via a USB cable. I like the Samson better – it sounds better to my ears. Also, the Blue Snowball had an issue with Windows Vista (as in it didn’t work for me), so it hasn’t gotten as much use at work (my work laptop has Windows Vista loaded). I have used it without a hitch on my Mac laptop – it sounds great, and has a couple of different mic signal patterns that you’d use for different micing situations.

RØDE VideoMic

We have a semi-pro videocamera at work (the Canon GL 2). It has an ok mic built into it, but the RØDE mic is a fine shotgun mic. Plug it in, aim it at someone, and they’ll sound like they’re talking into the mic, even if you’re 10 feet away from them.

Tips on using these mics:

• If you plan to plug the mic into your computer, buy a USB powered mic. Otherwise, you will also need to buy some type of soundboard or analog/digital signal converter to boost the audio signal up loud enough to play with. You might like doing that – if so, great! You’re sorta like me. But even though I happen to have some of that type of recording equipment, for a quick Jing screencast, nothing beats plugging the Samson USB mic into my laptop. One step and I’m done.
• Batteries (the lavalier mic I use needs them) – buy two at a time. Because you WILL sit down, all ready to record, and find out that the battery’s dead … because you didn’t turn the mic off last time you used it. Been there, done that.
• While we’re talking about on/off switches – if the mic has one (the lavalier and the RØDE Videomic do, doublecheck that you flipped it “on” before recording. I had to do some fancy editing on a video because part way through recording, I realized the mic was off (one of my more watched videos, too).
• The really long cable (20′) on the lavalier mic will get frustrating. It gets tangled easily. But then, it only costs $20, so I can put up with that. I guess.

Related Posts

• Playing with Mics
• 5 Mic Tips for Presenters
• i-Microphone for the iPhone
• How I Made my Screencast

I’m teaching an ALA TechSource Workshop about building digital branches on August 3rd – and I hope you attend!

Here’s the blurb about the workshop:

“Every library needs a presence on the Web. Whether you work at a large academic library or a public library in a small town, you need to be able to provide service and content to your patrons beyond the walls of your building. In this workshop, David Lee King will take you through the process of building an effective, user-friendly library website that will exand and enhance your library’s presence in its community.

This event will take place on Tuesday, August 3rd at 2:30pm Eastern (1:30pm Central, 11:30am Pacific).

Whether you’re looking to launch your first website, redesign your site, or expand the site you have, this workshop will provide practical guidance for every step of the process.”

Interested? You can find out a bit more on this page, and you can sign up here!

Related Posts

• New Presentation: Creating Community Experience Using Mostly Free Stuff and Staff
• Building the Digital Branch – A Webinar for ALA Techsource
• Designing Digital Experiences for Library Websites
• Think Simple
• Designing the Digital Experience at NEFLIN

Check out the fall lineup of online courses and Tech Tuesday webinars for the Education Institute:

Online Courses:

• September 15 – October 9, 2008 – Time Management for Library Staff – Cheryl Stenstrom
• November 3 – 28, 2008 – Say It Right: Speaking Confidently and Effectively – Cheryl Stenstrom

Technology Tuesday Series:

• September 23, 2008 – Cool Tools for Library Webmasters – Darlene Fichter and Frank Cervone
• October 7, 2008 – Fast and Easy Site Tune-ups – Jeff Wisniewski
• October 21, 2008 – The Secret to User-Centered Web Sites: Cheap, Easy & Effective Usability Techniques – Erica Reynolds
• November 18, 2008 – Designing the Digital Experience – David King
• December 2, 2008 – Web 2.0 for Smaller, Underfunded Libraries – Sarah Houghton-Jan

2009

• January 13, 2009 – Ten Trends & Technologies for 2009 – Michael Stephens

Related Posts

• No Related Post

Brenda Hough asked me to come up with some presentation tips for online and “normal” presentations… and I decided to post them! So…

When I’m planning out a presentation, here’s what I generally do:

• Use a mind mapping program to outline the presentation. I use MindJet’s MindManager Pro, but any will do. I like the more “visual” way mind maps work – I can randomly come up with ideas around a topic, then easily arrange those ideas into points and sections as needed.
• Turn the mind map into slides. Most of what I have on the mind map ends up being dumped into the presenter notes of Keynote.
• Customize the slides. I’ll find a slide template I like, then hack away at it – usually, the default bullet points/text/ sizes/etc don’t match what’s in my head, so I pretty much make each slide from scratch, moving text around, adding images, etc until I like what I see.
• Make sure I have strong intros, transitions, and an ending.
• By this point, the topic is stuck in my head, so I don’t rehearse much at all. Usually the night before my presentation, I’ll run through it once – and customize if I need to (ie., “dang! It’s WAY TOO LONG – I’d better cut stuff”).

Other tips:

For any presentation:

• Don’t read your outline – your audience can do that! Instead, talk around the outline
• tell stories to make a point
• use graphics that enhance that story or point
• if you can, use the presenter notes part of Powerpoint or Keynote. This helps you still “feel” like you’re reading from a script (if you need the safety net or have specific points to remember), while at the same time not having that “I’m reading my outline to you” sound.
• Transitions are important! So – make sure to have a strong intro, a strong finish, and make transitions between segments obvious.
• If you can be humorous, do it. If you aren’t that humorous, DON’T TRY.
• Nerves – everyone gets nervous before a presentation. Remember – attendees did not come to critique you or laugh at your choice of clothes. They are attending your session because they thought the topic sounded interesting, and want (or hope) to learn something.
• Spell check! Remember – we’re speaking to librarians. They will notice. I know… I once left out the “L” in “Public.” I was told. <how embarrasing>
• Make sure your talk covers whatever was listed in the presentation description.
• speak clearly. Slow down.

For online, “webinar” presentations:

• All the stuff above still applies
• test out all the technology the day before! You need to make sure that you can actually deliver the presentation.
• If using a microphone instead of the telephone to deliver audio, if you can, invest in a better-quality USB mic. You will sound better.
• Pace yourself! When you’re presenting by yourself, in an empty room, it can feel weird – like you’re practicing instead of actually presenting.
• Turn your phone, email alerts, twitter alerts, etc off if they make noise – your microphone will hear it!
• Shut your door, if you have one. If not, use a meeting room with a door if possible.
• Pretend that you’re speaking to someone who is captivated by your presentation. You most likely really are… but you can’t see them, so it helps to visualize the person.
• if you can use interactive components, like a polling system, a raising hands system, or even a Q&A at the end, do it.

For training sessions:

• make sure attendees know they can ask questions. I usually pause between each major section and ask “any questions?” Then pause. For what seems like a long time.
• let people interrupt you – and tell them it’s ok to do it. They’re attending to learn – not to hear you speak.
• at the same time, if you have a “needy” trainee who just isn’t getting it, you might have to tell that person to hold off on more questions, so you can finish a section on time – then get with him/her on break or after the session to go more in-depth.

Anyone else have thoughts? Add ‘em in the comments!

Related Posts

• 10 Tips to Do Presentations Like Me: The Whole List
• 10 Tips to Do Presentations Like Me: Use Screenshots
• 10 Tips to Do Presentations Like Me: Learn Your PC
• 10 Tips to Do Presentations Like Me: Use Presenter View
• 10 Tips to Do Presentations Like Me: Use Presenter Notes

I just finished doing a SirsiDynix Institute webcast presentation, titled Video on the Web: A Primer. Always a fun time – SDI does a great job with these webcast presentations.

I said I would link to some videos on my blog, so here goes:

My own videoblog, for starters: David Lee King’s Videoblog

Rocketboom

Arlington Heights Memorial Library:

• LibVlog – What’s Up May 5-25

Allen County Public Library:

• Zombie video
• iACPL 4.0

Orange County Public Library:

• Hip Music. Hip Library.

Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library:

• What if Barbie had a Book Group?
• World of Warcraft parody
• Book Teaser: The Eyre Affair

And finally, those Video Search Engines I mentioned:

• blinkx
• clipblast
• mefeedia
• Google Video Search

In a week or so, the webcast will be online – I’ll make sure to link to it here. enjoy!

Related Posts

• SXSWi2008, Day 2: Quit Your Day Job and Vlog
• Photojojo Lenses on an iPhone
• Focus on Youtube – Summary and Why?
• Focus on Youtube – Use Annotations!
• Youtube – Calls to Action

In my post on Pointers for Successful Webcasting, I mentioned buying a better microphone, and also going one step further and setting up a podcasting studio as ways to improve your podcast and webcast sound quality. This post goes into a little more detail on microphones.

To do a podcast, you need a way to record your voice, and you need a way to turn that recording into some type of usable audio file (usually an .mp3 file). So, let’s start off with the microphone. There are a number of choices:

1. Cheapie clip-on mic, like this one. This mic looks alot like the mic that came with my Mac LC a long time ago… it has a 1/8 inch plug, so you’d plug it into your sound card. Cost? $12. This version has a clip so you can clip it on to your shirt or tie, like a lapel mic. That way, it’s out of your face.
2. One step up – the Logitech USB Desktop Microphone. It’s a USB mic, so you plug it into a USB port on your computer. The Logitech site claims the mic sounds great… but I’m picky, so I doubt it. But still, it’ll work and it’s simple. Cost? $30.
3. Another step up – the Samson C01U USB condenser microphone. It’s cool because it’s still pretty cheap, but it will sound HUGE. It has better internal “guts” and a better-quality diaphram (the little thingie inside all mics that captures your voice’s sound waves), so it will most definitely sound better than the two mics mentioned above. Plus (and this is a big one) it plugs into a USB port, so you don’t have to mess with audio soundboards or preamps (geeky musician stuff). Cost? $ 79.99 at Sam Ash.
4. Even better… the Blue Snowball (yes, that’s really it’s name). It’s really much like the Samson mentioned above, but it’s a little better quality, and it looks REALLY COOL. Cost? $139.99 at Musician’s Friend.
5. Or… you could just buy a Mac. Most modern Macs include a built-in microphone (all the laptops and the iMac do, anyway). It’ll sound similar to #1 or #2 above, but it’s simple – nothing to plug in. Cost? Free (of course, you have to buy the Mac to get the mic…)

Update: I just discovered another option – the Samson Q1u microphone – $50 at zzounds.com.
Podcasting

Related Posts

• No Related Post

As of now, I have given two online webcasts, where I spoke into a phone or a microphone plugged into a PC, and clicked through a web version of a Powerpoint presentation. I’ve also listened to quite a few webcasts, either live or after-the-fact via podcasting.

Here are some pointers to think about when preparing for a live webcast:

I. Before the Webcast

Test EVERYTHING beforehand, preferably a day or two in advance, so you have time to make changes if needed. Here are some ideas of things you should check out:

• webcast software – there are many different types in use, and all have different features. Make sure to test the system being used beforehand, so you know how everything works.
• Your Powerpoint – if you plan to use a Powerpoint presentation, make sure to test it out within the webcast application. And remember – since there can be a lag between the time you click to the next screen and when the screen actually changes, you might want to cut back on the fancy animations and transitions – simple and functional is best.

Check, check, one two … test the microphone. You’ll either be speaking into a telephone or a microphone:

Telephone tips:

• If your phone has an earbud/mic input, use it – that way, your hands are freed up, you don’t fade in and out or make extra distracting noise when you move the phone around, and you’re less likely to accidentally hang up in the middle of your most important point by pressing a button with your cheek.
• Do you have access to a conference phone? If so, then use it for the same reasons as above.
• No cell phones! The sound quality isn’t as clear as a “normal” phone.

Microphone tips:

• Test the microphone beforehand to make sure it works. A good way to do that is to download Audacity (a free, open source sound editor), and record your voice through the microphone you plan to use, then listen back.
• If possible, get your hands on a better microphone. I’m not asking you to spend $5000 on a studio-quality microphone, but … if you plan to do more than a couple of webcasts or plan to create podcasts, you might benefit from a better mic – try one of the newer USB-equipped large diaphram condenser microphones on the market right now (check them out at musiciansfriend.com). Or, get one step geekier, and purchase a basic podcasting system, coplete with mic and soundboard.
• Make sure you’re not too close to the mic (icky distortion sound isn’t good) or too far away from the mic (echo and that “I’ve fallen into a well” sound aren’t good, either)..
• Don’t move your head around! You don’t want your voice to fade in and out, do you?

II. During the Webcast: just a few pointers…

• if you blog, send out your Powerpoint or handout BEFORE the presentation – like 10 minutes before. This gives attendees the option to print it out and take notes, if desired. It’s a nice touch.
• Stay focused – it’s harder to stay focused and not ramble when you feel like you’re speaking to yourself. Force yourself to stay on topic.
• Make sure you’re in a place with no distractions or interruptions – no pets, kids, or co-workers pounding on your door!
• Speaking pickiness: watch those “ummms” and “aaahhhhhs” – they are magnified when people are listening to your voice alone. Practice this – when you feel the urge to say “um” – instead, just be quiet. It sounds so much better.
• Interaction – most webcast applications incorporate some type of text chat. Make sure to use that to your advantage! Do you want to take a show of hands? Then do so – ask attendees to type 1 for no, 2 for yes, etc. It’s a good way to take a quick, informal poll.

III. After the webcast

• Question time – remember that there are voice questions and typed chat questions – address both.
• Provide your email, blog URL, etc for follow-up or more information.

Now – go out there and digitally WOW us!

Webcast

Related Posts

• No Related Post

I just finished my first webcast – it was a blast! The webcast was for the Education Institute, and was on creating library website subject guides. 

For those of you who might venture into doing a webcast sometime, a few pointers:

• If possible, have a backup phone. See the nice Polycom conference phone in the photo? I didn’t use it because of some “ocean like” static. It worked great the day before… go figure.
• Make sure you have a good internet connection.
• Make sure to pace yourself – since you are, in essence, talking to yourself in an empty room (that’s what it feels like anyway), you might ramble on, rush through slides, etc – just pretend you’re in a room full of people. Not too much of a problem for me, since I’ve been a radio dj in the past – same concept.
• Set up early. I set up everything about 30 minutes before, then went online about 15 minutes before the start of my presentation. Since I had “phone issues,” I had to call in about three times on different phones. Last minute testing, well, needs time! (which I had, thankfully)
• Have fun!

Related Posts

• No Related Post