Thing 17 : Prezi, data visualisation and slideshare

I am skipping Prezi for the moment, but cheekily borrowing an idea from the "the disconnected librarian"  - "marking the place". The things should be in order, really, especially to a cataloguer's mind! Watch this space ...

Two weeks later ... (17th November)
I had been planning to create a Prezi for this thing and kill two birds with one stone by using it for part of an actual training session which I am due to give in December. I've seen several Prezis, including two great ones by colleagues at yesterday's social media event run by CLIC (Cardiff libraries in co-operation). One colleague even neatly used Prezi to talk about CPD23, thus fulfilling thing 17 at the same time! I'd heard people talk about "Prezi seasickness", and as someone who feels ill on just about anything that moves and can't look at the new weather forecast map I wondered what they meant, as I haven't had any problems seeing other people's. It's very different when you actually try to do one yourself! I have a nascent Prezi here, but it is very incomplete as after an hour I really did feel that I couldn't go on. I also found it quite hard as I am without sound or headphones in the library, so the tutorial seemed less helpful than it probably is.

I realise that the concept behind it is something I am likely to have difficulty with in any case, as I just don't seem to have a very visual mind. The default for all our files and folders is icons, and I have to change them into a list before I even start doing anything. I really don't "get" mind maps. I must be a card catalogue person at heart! I do like the effects some people achieve with their Prezis though, and I like the idea of a break from Powerpoint. I think Prezi is probably better for something which tells a story, even though it doesn't look linear. The points in mine are really just that, headings to talk to, so Powerpoint is perfectly adequate. If I do manage to finish it without being ill, I think it wouldn't be too bad to use, as it really doesn't need a lot of zooming about.

Slideshare looks like a good way to keep presentations together, although once again it may not be relevant for us as we have a training materials repository. Once I have got this year's presentations into a form I am happy with I must remember to upload them. The problem with being almost "the only Welsh speaker in the village" is that if something prevents me from doing a session there are not many other people who can take my place, and everything ought to be where somebody else can find it. Prezi and Slideshare are both a bit public!