Expanding Your Knowledge - Webinars and Websites

Today has been packed with learning for me.  I sat through a webinar this morning as a facilitator/presenter and learned about how various technology can be used to better facilitate meetings and learning interactions.  I heard from quite a few people that it was one of the best webinars they've ever sat through.  I was proud to be able to put this together for NC SGMP.

It was not only about learning something new from the content of the webinar, but also learning how to be a good facilitator for questions, keeping the conversation going, and meeting the needs of the clients.  Clients being my fellow NC SGMP members.  I felt so incredible knowing that I had not only brought quality programming to the members, but that I, myself, am also better equipped in my job to handle meetings.

At 10:45 when our presenter stopped his presentation with 15 minutes to go with no questions coming in, I had to think fast to try and keep us going.  I'm not great at making this type of thing happen, but I was able to come up with a question on the fly and in turn, this sparked other questions from other participants.  What a success!

Following our webinar, I had an afternoon meeting about our new School of Government website.  I was able to sit with a colleague of mine and the website contractor to collaborate about how to best to migrate special kinds of content from our old website to our new website.  Although it took us a long time to get on the same page and "speak the same language" so to speak, we wound up at a solution that is both more efficient and more functional for the greater good of the School of Government.

Being able to collaborate with someone of a different mindset was humbling and incredibly useful.  Our website contractor has a library background where he attempts to categorize items, but also makes it functional on our new site.  He knows little about the content that we work with at the School, but is incredibly eager to learn about it.  By the end of the meeting, our collaboration had not only helped us understand how to best use the website, but also helped him see the end goal that we were trying to accomplish.  It also shortened the work time for him as well, which is a bonus.

If you stay closed minded about how things are done you will often miss opportunities for personal and professional growth.  I learned so much about producing webinars, filling dead space, collaborating with other people, and using new website tools.  All-in-all it was a most productive day!

Just another day in the life of an event planner!  What things have you learned on the job that you may have missed had you been closed minded about a topic?  I'd love to hear from you.