GOVIS day 2 a vast improvement

So Day 1 did sort of improve as it went along but didn’t leave me super excited for day 2. I managed to arrive just before 9am today to find that the session had started early -  yes I hate it when things run over time but I also hate it if they start early especially when there are multiple streams.  There needs to be a 5 min gap between all sessions and you need to wrangle the audience at the beginning of each session to move to the middle of the rows. Honestly we’re all adults, can’t we sort our shit out already?

*Sigh* I wasn’t going to start this post off all grumpy but that didn’t last long.  So while I’m at it, the whole wifi situation or lack thereof – what century are we in? Day 2 and I can’t believe there’s no conference wifi. You seem to want the tweets, the blogging and the photos but you’re not going to help us get online? I know there’s cafenet and $10 is nothing to pay for a day but it was having its moments today so isn’t the answer. Besides, all these devices need juice and none of the venues have power boards set up for the attendees.  Have any of you been to Webstock? That’s how it is done.  Also some session in rooms with tables would be great. If you’re balancing your laptop on your knees you just forget to pick up the camera and take a few shots.

Today was a good day.  I couldn’t help but think it was a shame this wasn’t day one – maybe we’d have been less pissy about yesterday if we’d had the goodwill of today.  The conference proved itself today, yesterday it was just being annoying.  As pleased as I am with today, it did have what will probably turn out to be the best and the worst of the presentations. Before I look at some of the shining lights of the day I have to make some general points about presenting and presentations.

• Talk about a topic you know. There will be lots of people in the audience who only know a little about your topic but there will probably be a couple of super experts. They may not challenge you after but they will be getting bored, dissecting your failings and twittering about it.
• If you are a vendor don’t turn it into a sales pitch.  I’d guarantee you abstract didn’t declare that you “will sell the audience X” so don’t do it. You cheapen your presentation and we see right through it.  If we want to chat about your product we’ll visit you in the vendor hall. I want to be challenged by your ideas and thinking, not sold your product.
• Bullet points and lots of text doth not a presentation make. Do we have to keep doing silly small text on PowerPoint? Can we move on? I’m done with ugly PowerPoint templates too. Just saying.
• Teeny tiny diagrams – seriously, you expect us to read those? I don’t know if I’d understand them after a half hour chat with you, 5 seconds on the screen certainly isn’t going to cut it no matter how many boxes, arrows and colours you use.
• The audience is in front of you. I know sometimes the light is bright and you can’t see us but do you need to look at the big screen? Surely you know what is on your slides, and besides, it is on the monitor in front of you.  I’d rather not see the back of your head.
• /rant

Well, not quite the happy day post I started out to write.  Honestly, there was some good stuff today and I even took notes, so more posts to follow as I get time.

GOVIS day 1 1.30pm-5pm

I turned up to my session after lunch and started to wonder it it was going to be another no show from the SSC.  The session minder finally decided to mention we were just waiting for the speaker to arrive when he showed up.  He started a little bit flustered but soon got into it. On the whole I enjoyed the session but a couple of things annoyed me. The presenter several times either didn’t seem to know the different between government and parliament or just didn’t care. He even seemed to criticse the parliament.nz domain for not being part of the .govt.nz domain. I don’t mean to be unduely harsh but there were also times when he didn’t seem to remember he was talking to a bunch of computer/techy/geek people.  Some stuff was presented as though it would be new to all of us but just wasn’t. I thought we’d have been past even mentioning information overload these days.

Mike Pearson’s “Working without walls” was a rare treat. Even in the deadly post luch slot he had us making spooky ghost noises on cue several times – you couldn’t afford to nod off or you’d be found out. More pictures than bullet points and plenty of twitterable phrases it was my kind of presentation.  I really like the idea of the hotel.gov concept he spoke about. Goverment departments housed in a building run like a hotel, book the rooms and space you need when you need it rather than occupying large buildings which vary between being too small or too big and you’re stuck there. Of course I’m still not sure how I’d personally cope with the idea of hot desking – I mean, would I have to carry all my lucky gonks and squishy balls with me? I like to have toys on my desk.

Afternoon tea supplied us with little chocolate afghan cakes and another chance to “chat” to vendors. After tea I decided to go to Jana Lyn Holly’s “Citizen Services Workshop”.  It was sort of what I expected. It was a real shame there were so few of us there and that we had one who dominated a little too much.  The rest of us didn’t really agree with him and he didn’t seem to accept that. He just kept insisting we had mis-understood him and restating his case. Maybe we did misunderstand him but I personally found some of his comments domineering and too much.  There were some opinions in the room I’d like to have heard more from, there are some people I’ll try to have a chat with in the next couple of days. Jana has been sketching GOVIS keynote speeches since 1997 and I’ve long been a fan of her infographics/mindesigns.

GOVIS day 1 11am-1.30pm

The food at morning tea may have been disappointing but wandering round the vendors was a very pleasant experience. It was however a little different from how it has been in previous years. I must admit I was really surprised to see so many attractive items of schwag begging to jump into my bag.  Honestly I wasn’t really expecting to get anything with the way the economy is but instead it seemed like they’d made an extra effort.  I didn’t seem to get any of the hard sell of previous years either.  It isn’t like I have any authority to spend any money anyway so shmoozing me is pretty much wasted.  I can actually say I enjoyed the conversations I had with various vendors today. Coolest schwag item of today has to go to Eagle Technology for the very cool orange highlighter set – like those chocolate oranges only with highlighters and no chocolate. 2nd prize goes to, umm, *shuffles awkwardly*,  the lovely person with those squishy coffee cups. So I’ve looked at the vendor map in the booklet and the names on the coffee cup and they don’t match so I’ll see if I can figure it out tomorrow and add a link. Third equal are SWIM for the world’s smallest highlighters and Brother for the recycled pencils.

So back to the serious stuff. I headed off to the sessions. It took me a little while to settle into the first session after morning tea. Mentally I was crossing my fingers it wasn’t going to be a video. Next I realised I was watching the presentation as though I was critiquing it. I’ve been doing a  lot of thinking and reading about presentations recently and I found myself running through my checklist of what could be improved instead. I switched off that voice and for the most part became absorbed in the presentation. The GOVIS banner at the immediate left of the slide space was annoying though. It just looked part of the slide and my eye was drawn to it more than it should’ve been. It isn’t fair on the speakers using that stage. The second session had two speakers. The first, well, I struggled with. Maybe I just wasn’t the audience that talk was meant for, it was a bit general and had too many of those phrases which sound good but mean nothing. The second speaker was excellent. She had a real project and real examples to talk about.  She had plenty of content, finished in good time and got some excellent questions from the audience. She did have a “that guy” in the audience with one of those questions which makes you groan but she handled it well.

Lunch was a little ho-hum but thankfully came finished off with chocolate caramel slice. Phew, sugar levels restored. I found a power point and charged up my devices I’d forgotten to charge last night *doh*.  I twitched at my work email but mostly managed to ignore it.

GOVIS day 1 9am-11am

When GOVIS was first advertised for this year I pondered whether I should go or not.  In face with Webstock this year as well I thought I’d only get to go to one conference and I’d pick Webstock every time. But then I read the programme and looked at the speakers and decided that I didn’t want to miss GOVIS after all.

This morning I arrived, got my first shock at the sight of the farmers market hessian bag which was purporting to be the conference bag. On the bright side, the stickers peel off and it will be a handy bag to take to the vege market.  Peering inside it was bereft of any of the usual conference goodies, not even a pen to write with *gasp*.  Welcome to the recession I thought.  In all fairness, given the current climate, I’m sure organising this conference has been no picnic.

My second shock was walking into the main conference hall.  I was a *ahem* few minutes late and thought like previous year I might be sitting on the steps. Hell, this time I could’ve had several rows to myself. It seemed like there were only about half the number of attendees compared to the last GOVIS conference. I was starting to feel a little more fortunate to be there.  Clearly there are many government departments who can’t afford it this year.

Conference got off to a really awkward start. The welcome finished early so then the Minister’s speech finished early. Mike rustled out  a couple of filler TED talks, both of which I’d seen before and I wasn’t quite seeing the relevance of.  Plus fillers so early on was worrying me. Full marks to Mike being prepared for this but worrying all the same. It got worse. The State Services Commission was a no show.  Mike had a statement to read and we all know it isn’t an easy time. Changes are happening, people will lose their jobs.  Lots of people have to reapply for their jobs and there wont be enought to go around. There are announcements to make but we are a couple of weeks too soon. It was just really awkward and it didn’t seem right not having a keynote to set the scene for the rest of the conference. UPDATE You can read about it in Computerworld.

The replacement act was the video US Now. Great film, loved it, loved it the first two times I watched it.  Second time I saw it I went and looked at the various sites on the internet they  talked about and read some more of what those interviewed had to say. Did I need to see it a third time?  While some twittered about being trapped in Hell’s own mini theatre, others walked out. I decided to stay and just hope it all got better. Morning was afterall next and held much promise but alas our hopes were dashed – WTF wraps? No sugar in site, no sniff of chocolate brownie, nothing. I know it was good for us and probably kept us awake till lunch but really, we’d have prefered something chocolately.  Thank goodness for the exhibitors trumpet stash. EDS icecream to the rescue.

your screen is not my screen

The last presentation to note from the 8th Annual Strategic Intranet Summit is Greg Comfort’s. The three things to remember were: mind your assumptions, get staff involved and evolution not revolution.

His point about assumptions were ably demonstated by the use of a loan laptop. It didn’t have the font he’d carefully chosen and defaulted to Arial or something similar. The scale was wrong and not the look he’d been going for. It is so true, you can never know how many different ways people will find to do things. I remember visiting the desktop of a colleague who always commented they could never find the intranet no matter how carefully they typed the URL.  It turned out they’d been typing it in to Google, not the adress bar.

Getting staff involved – make the intranet something they need and want to use. Give them a way to interact – updating profiles, sharing photos. I liked one idea – showing what other people are searching for/using on the intranet - I like the idea of seeing what is the most commonly used. 

Lastly avoid the big launch – smaller incremental changes are better. Boy do I know that one from personal experience.

a fully clothed Mike

Last time I saw Miramar Mike speak at a conference he took his clothes off on stage. Mike is talking about web 2.0. His talk came down to two main things, it is all about being open – sharing data/content and it is all about the people – not the technology.

There were some quotes to amuse: 

Search is just a box with a button labelled search – Google has raised expectations ridiculously.

Mike’s talk was a good reminder of the fears and misconceptions people can have – every wiki is not wikipedia, and the edit button can be frightening – you want to participate but fear getting it wrong. 

He also made me reflect on my web 2.0 life, I blog, I twitter, I re-blog on tumblr, I post photos to flickr, I’m on Facebook and Linked-in, save articles/sites to del.icio.us and have been known to edit items on wikipedia. What I can’t figure out is what I filled my time with before the internet existed…

make the pencil disappear

Joker

The presentation which has had the biggest impact on me is Michael Sampson’s.  He managed to get many Dark Knight metaphors into his talk and even mentioned Mamma Mia. The one I liked the best was the comment that just like the Joker, intranets should make the pencil disappear. I must admit I was sitting there thinking ouch, that’s one gruesome metaphor. If you haven’t seen the Dark Knight, well, google it but it isn’t pleasant. Anyway, the intranet aspect, with a whole lot less violence is that we shouldn’t have it filled with forms which have to be printed out, filled out by hand and delivered somewhere. The thing is, although I may screw my face up when I think about it, I won’t forget that in a hurry.

Michael managed to weave the latest incarnation of the Batmobile into his talk too.   He talks about: Capability, Possibility, Applicability, and Changeability.  He uses the transformation of the Batmobile to the Batbike to illustrate this.

On the matter of change Michael notes that people hate change being done to them, but usually are happy to change themselves as they like to improve.  I’ve thought about this one before in organisations.  So often change is dictated from the top and managers declare how fond they are of change and how change is good for you. If you have control over how much change and when I think it makes all the difference. It comes down to who has the power and control of the change situation. 

At the beginning and end of his presentation Michael showed us some images and asked us to think about what they meant. The images were of earphones, a person using a laptop, TV screens and a fourth I can’t remember.  After a few different guesses the room got to the realisation they were all to do with isolation.  Thirty-five years ago there were more commonly shared experiences with those around you. You probably all watched the same thing on TV the night before (if you had a TV). If a family listened to music they proabably all listened to the same record. These days everyone is doing their own thing, the chances of those physically closest to you have common experiences is more remote yet of course with the internet it is easier to find someone on the opposite side of the world.

it depends

Dale Hartle’s presentation left me with a quote I’d love to put up on the wall – there’s no room for it depends in business processes.  Porirua City Council are in the process of moving to a one stop shop for customer enquiries and putting in place the tool their staff need to deliver a consistent service.  Processes have been mapped and are served up in a template form then arranged so everyone can find them.  Dale got involved with the project right from the start so was able to develop a template from the beginning rather than have  someone else come up with something which wouldn’t translate so easily to the web.

Dales’ performance also highlighted the importance of being passionate about the topic you’re presenting on. Her PPT wasn’t the flashest but she had the personal energy and content so it made for an engaging presentation.  He had one other key ingredient – the ability to tell a story. Her use of photos and quotes from people brought her topic to life.

do bees scare you?

If you are an elephant you will have answered yes to that.  Yes, really, its true. Honestly, just go google it then come back and read on. Cairo Walker from Step Two Designs told us the story of her work with WWF.  Boy am I jealous of the places she’s travelled to with that job. Cairo talked about collaboration and what her work has shown you need to make collaborative work a reality.  She listed 6 things: serendipity, relationships, compelling need, emotional engagement, remove barriers, and experience.  As I listened to her speak I think three things dominate – the compelling need, a way to communicate and people. Serendipity certainly played an important part in her story but for me that comes back to the people aspect, take an interest in those you meet and find a way to connect.

So what’s all this got to do with Elephants being afraid of bees? Cairo spoke about and African village having trouble with elephants entering their village. Strategically placed beehives removed the problem. With her travels, Cairo discovered someone in India having a similar problem and looking for a solution and Cairo put the two people in touch.

UPDATE  In the hour or so since I wrote this the serendipity aspect has been bugging me. Making discoveries by accident.  I’ve been having a philosophical discussion with myself and I just can’t entirely accept the role of serendipity in collaboration.  I believe the choices you make create the oppotunities you get.  I have to think of serendipity as a “nice to have” but the need, people and way to communicate as essential.

8th annual strategic intranet summit

I’ve just spent two days immersed in all things intranet.  I was lucky enough to get a free pass and I almost didn’t go. I’m pleased I did as I met some really interesting people.  On the whole, most of the presentations were interesting too.

My fascination with trends in presentations means I just have to start with that. There were plenty of movie clips (but no popcorn), a definite reduction in the numbers of words on slides and a few more people are managing to work audience participation into their presentations.  The idea of telling a story is also becoming more than norm than the rare breath of fresh air it used to be.

I contemplated blogging from the conference but I wasn’t sure if there’d be wifi and I didn’t think there’d be free wifi like there is at webstock.  Besides, a day later I find it interesting which presentations have stuck and which ones I barely remember.

The 2 days were ably chaired by Dorje McKinnon and he managed to make an impression from the start. In introducing himself and his role he put up an image of Mao. Uh huh I thought, this conference has a sense of humour and that relaxed me.

I’ll do separate posts on the presentations which stuck as I get time over the next couple of days.