Improv'd 'social media' session trumps powerpoint

[Leif Hansen]

Just wanted to share a recent rewarding experience, where I took an 'improv' risk with a group that was not expecting to interact.

A few weeks ago I presented at Seattle Bizjam on "Building Rich Online Communities". After each of the first few sessions, I kept hearing attendees sharing how they were feeling info-overloaded, tired of Powerpoint presentations, etc. Now secretly, I was feeling good hearing these comments because I was already planning on having some more interactivity in my forthcoming session.

However, by the time of the session, with some needed encouragement from other peers ("but what if they think I'm unprofessional"), I decided to go hard core freestyle and dump my "Look at me, I'm a pro with all the answers" introduction and jumped straight into some sociometrics, games and small group discussions trusting that the group's intelligence would far surpass mine.

It worked.

I was overwhelmed by the positive feedback I received, often hearing "that was the best session" of this conference, I wish we could do all sessions like that". Anyway, just a short story to say --go for it, even in nontraditional settings!

Here are some pictures from the session that give a sense of the interactivity involved:

Find more photos like this on Spark Social Media