Conference Note
February 15, 2006Okay, I’ve pasted below the vlog post (dated 8 Feb) that caught my eye, and the comments that it generated. My response (No 7. dated 13 Feb) was a tad late. Do crossblogger comments ever happen well after the post has been made? Must investigate…
February 8, 2006
Prat
Last Sunday I was one of the speakers on a panel at First Person. I was with Barbara Ganley (who is doing wonderful things with blogs and teaching) and Jean Burgess (who is writing the book on the intriguing question/problem of vernacular creativity). I got to go last. I was embarrassing.Now conferences are microcommunities. A good conference is like a nomadic tribe. They come together, hang out intensely, basically talking, arguing, eating and drinking together, then disperse. During this, a culture develops. Each conference has its own culture, though as some tribes meet regularly, some standard totemic lines form. Unfortunately I could only attend for my one session on the last day. This means I have no sense of what has been spoken of, the tenor and culture of the conference. So I come in, and talk about my stuff, without the context of knowing what others have already said, have already discussed. That’s the first problem. You appear as full of yourself and only yourself. And I probably was.The second problem was that I acted out the role of the speaker who comes in only to immediately leave. I have seen others do this. They are brash, rude, overly confident and glib. I managed all four. I imagine some in the audience may have had longer lists.I was a prat. Was a good, though painful lesson.
Comments
- Hi Adrian,Actually missed you presenting in Mooloolaba so was glad to see you on the presenters list. Would love to have picked your brain after the session but alas will have to leave that for another time.Don’t feel too bad about the session. You had some interesting things to share which got me thinking. That is what I expect from any presenter. If I walk away and have learned nothing new or fail to at least look at my own practice THEN the presentation was a waste of time.Look forward to monitoring your vlog.Cheers!Adrian (another one)p.s. Regarding…“They are brash, rude, overly confident and glib. I managed all four. I imagine some in the audience may have had longer lists.”Have seen much worse!!
Comment by Adrian Greig — February 8, 2006 @ 7:55 am
- Adrian! You were not a prat! I was personally glad of your intervention – if digital storytelling is going to be something other than home-made television, then it needs to be understood in the context of what is (or isn’t, but could be) new about new media!I felt just as weird about trying to make ‘academic’ arguments in that context, btw. I should blog about the conference, and I will.Comment by jean — February 8, 2006 @ 8:29 am
- Adrian, I enjoyed your presentation and felt it had a great fit with Barbara’s work. Nothing pratly about it at all, and I noted other presenters throughout were happy to make some tough remarks about their work from time to time too. (If all of my piece on Screen Hub about this gets up, you may see that.)Comment by genevieve tucker — February 8, 2006 @ 9:31 am
- hi Adrian,Of all the panels that I attended at that conference I found that the one yourself, Jean and Barbara were on was the one that spoke to me and my research/teaching interests the most (perhaps not directly but thematically).That was in no small part due to your discussion of using blogs in teaching and your approach to understanding emerging “media”.I think it’s fair to say that this panel came across as far more… academic… than many of the other sessions but then I think that’s because the tone of the conference came across as being more about using digital tools democratically in the wider community, rather than a rigourous thinking through of these kinds of issues.As for your actual presentation, I don’t think it was bad. You were giving a presentation and engaging the audience, instead of just reading from a sheet of paper and hoping your visuals distract the audience (I saw the latter approach a fair number of times over the weekend).As another previous commenter typed, I’ve seen much worse as well (I almost fell asleep during another different session that very same day).yeah, so I enjoyed the panel. thanks for sharing.
- Yes you were all of the above – you forgot bored, your furtive glances at your watch when others were speaking indicated you would much rather be somewhere else on a Sunday morning – with your family????However, having sat through all the presentations – your was one of the most engaging – the content was excellent concise and to the point. I walked away thinking differently about blogging and hence here I am – a non blogger responding to you as a result of your wonderfully arrogant and entertaining performance “got to give good blog to get good blog…. – nice is ever so boring to watching…Your students must enjoy your performances!Comment by Helena Bezzin — February 10, 2006 @ 6:23 am
- Nah, the watch glancing is a nervous habit which happens before speaking iin front of a crowd, and because I couldn’t find a pen to take notes from Barbara and Jean (who made points I wanted to keep!)Some others think I was overly harsh in my self assessment – personally I think I was a bit light so thank you for a) affirming this and b) letting me also see that it is not all or only negative.Comment by Administrator — February 12, 2006 @ 3:47 pm
- Hey Adrian,You weren’t that bad! Methinks you are too hard on yourself! I enjoyed the session with you, Jean and Barbara. I agree with adam m and had felt like dozing off at some of the other sessions during the weekend, which I found ‘folksy’ rather than ‘cutting edge’.In fact I had dozed off on the opening night and was rudely awakened when the person next to me wanted to grab my hand. I gather people were under instructions from John O’Neal, the keynote speaker, to share the love, or vibes, or something. Actually made me wonder if my expectations of the ‘conference culture’ were way off the mark! Only your session and the one including Ana Serrano really impressed me.Am in your Integrated Media class in first semester and currently using your blog for a summer school blog/essay. So, from a purely selfish perspective…thanks for eating humble pie and providing material to assist MY work!Comment by sallyb — February 13, 2006 @ 12:46 pm
