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Nov
19
My handout is here.
Pictures of the event are here.
I’m still trying to figure out how to turn my Powerpoint into something you can watch.
When last we heard from out intrepid blogger, she had just told the conference organizer that she’d have a Powerpoint presentation to show during her portion of the panel, but, she now readily admits, that was only because the two newspapermen weren’t going to be doing one. Ha.
But, alas, the blogger was a phony and had never done a Powerpoint before. Never letting a lack of knowledge stop her, she procrastinated until she knew that if she didn’t get her ass in gear, she was going to flop miserably and further destroy whatever modicum of respect she had helped to procure for bloggers (a lowly amount, no doubt, but a modicum nevertheless – and, she would later learn, far more than even she realized).
Frantically, she emailed every blogging guru she’d ever met or read about and inquired, what can I say that no one has said before? What can I say that isn’t the same old “new media v. old media” or “are bloggers journalists” or “is blogging journalism” and so on.
A few took pity on the blogger and provided excellent suggestions.
Which she let sit, for a few days, to, you know, digest and maybe even organize themselves into a Powerpoint presentation.
But when, morning after morning, until about six or seven mornings before the conference, no Powerpoint presentation materialized, she began in earnest to figure out how to do one. She clicked open the Powerpoint tool in her Office Suite and marveled at all the icons. Then, she screamed up the stairs for her teenage son.
He showed some patience with her but, never liking it when she didn’t know something that she desperately both wanted to know and needed to know, she cut off his tutorial after only a few moments and decided to figure it out by trying. And trying. And trying.
Friday night after Shabbat dinner. Saturday morning while everyone was at synagogue. Sunday, during her children’s karate class at the Orthodox shul.
Yes, it took her nearly as long to create a Powerpoint as it took God to create the world. And she even squeezed in a few necessary e-mails to request permission for images she decided to use.
Now, the blogger had sat through many a Powerpoint presentation and did a little Googling on the subject. She found this post by Seth Godin, and it was good. She followed his “no more than six words” rule and the picture is worth a thousand words thing and she liked them and used them and liked the results. But none of her reviewers did (mainly the teenage son). Her son failed to see the beauty in the less is more approach but she didn’t care. Her gut said that it was good, and that she had no time left to tinker, for, in reality, she didn’t.
Our blogger arrived in her hotel room on 10/11/07 exactly five minutes before she was to be at the dinner, after which she would be sitting on a panel with two newspaper men. The talk was titled, “News, Bloggers and New Media in 2008 Ohio.” Flinging off one set of clothing in exchange for another, she stretched on the nude knee-hi’s and high heel straps, grabbed her MacBook and made off with all the cords that could possibly be needed to make the Powerpoint purr.
And purr it did.
To be continued…
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:38 pm November 19th, 2007 in Blogging, Campaigning, Elections, Ohio, Politics
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