John and I presented a webinar the other day, to an audience of about 250. It reminded me that I don't like webinars much and that I'm not comfortable doing them. Summoning up imaginary people I don't know moves into the too-hard-to-have-a-conversation-with department.

Then yesterday Nancy said yesterday made sense to me: Webinars are a performance art. Yes! If I can think of a webinar as a chance to perform rather than as a way of talking to people, then it opens up a whole different mindset and range of possibilities.

You probably need a brief, focused message for a webinar which is spun out into a good performance. It's the performing of a parable.

Perhaps I've become too precious about having meaningful conversations... I need to get better at performance skills - and to practice those performance skills in the dark.

Meantime I don't have the concentration to sit through a webinar or webcast (or even a telephone conference presentation) so I'm missing opportunities to learn through good examples.

I think I'll go and watch some TED talks instead and look for related performance inspiration there. 

I'm all different now, in case you haven't noticed. My blog/website has a cleaner look, different features and a new URL (the RSS feed stays the same).

I managed to delete my database in the process of updating to Joomla 1.5, but was saved from looking too foolish by generous friends and Dreamhost backups.

The page keeps the same style, but looks less cluttered. The comments (from ChronoComments) is much more elegant than before - try it!

There's a tag cloud on the top left (Raf cloud) which comes from most used words and tags on the whole site (i.e. not just tags). If you click on any of those words, it takes you to a good search

There's also a live Search (PixSearch) which looks while you're typing, although someone told me it got stuck for them (using browser IE 7.0). Please let me know, if you also have the same problem.

I've also got News Show in the left side-bar, which randomly (for the moment) takes previous posts and puts them on the front page. It resizes pictures for the side-bar news article and is generally great.

My URL is now bevtrayner.com. The name of my company isn't doing it for me. No-one says .. oh yes, that's from Eudaimonia! Bev Trayner is easier to say and needs less explanation.

The content is another story! I've got to keep up with blogging AND update all the content, which already seems oh-so-'08 and out of date!

And, dear Bev, go find yourself another profile pic. Since when did you identify with being a geography teacher?

John Smith and I are presenting a webcast for the Human Capital Institute (HCI) next week. It's called "It's the Sign of the Times: Building Competencies through E-learning" and is sponsored by Safari Books Online.  They will also be blogging about the webcast in the Talent Development blog.

I'm a little uneasy talking about e-learning in one hour. Apart from anything else, there are so many interpretations of what it is. At one end of the spectrum there are those who think e-learning is a better ways of broadcasting content and at the other end are people who see it a sense-making enterprise. 

(My experience has been more as a sense-making enterprise although I am increasingly interested in better ways of presenting "stuff". We have so much information around nowadays that it's quite a relief to find something that has been carefully thought out and is imaginatively and elegantly presented.)

Anyway, our experience of the HCI has already been a benchmark in terms of priming and preparing speakers in preparing for using the technology and slides, and also in terms of negotiating the content. I've learned a lot from their process and organisation of this webcast. It's been a subtle blend of excellent presentation of their own stuff and negotiation of meaning, with online tools as an integral, but background, part of the practice.  

Five stars for this webcast, even without taking into consideration our presentation!