The morning of the last day was a hands-on session, and I chose “Developing your Elevator Pecha! Are you Open4Learning?” during which Elena Underhill and Kyle Hunter from BCIT presented the “Elevator Pecha:” a mash-up of Pecha Kucha and the Elevator Pitch which consists of 10 slides, 10 seconds each.

Jo and Samantha (both from Royal Roads University) and I collaborated on an Elevator Pecha. In 25 minutes, this is what we came up with:

In this instance, I added in some words that I used when I gave the presentation, because I thought the photos without the narrative might be inscrutable without context.

This is the real nub: what’s the point of putting slideshows online so people can view them in isolation? Presentations are not about the slides, they are about the presenter.

Alan Levine, the keynote presenter at this ETUG conference, made this point clear by way of example. He spoke without notes, and showed his collected stories in the form of short videos. He also does his keynote justice by presenting all the videos on his blog.

I met Alan three weeks ago at the Online Community Enthusiasts day in Vancouver. There, we got into a discussion about bringing playfulness to events. As it turns out he had written a post last November arguing that people who make presentations really need to learn some improv skills rather than Powerpoint skills.

Hear hear! I had popped in on Alan’s blog before, now I am a subscriber.

I am a half decent public speaker, but my background is in radio broadcasting. I have a fear of speaking off the top of my head, and I have a terrible head for memorization. I need that piece of paper (or more recently my Evernote notes on my iPhone) as a crutch. It’s a shortcoming I’m acutely aware of in my spoken word poetry, but I’ve been lackadaisical about improving on it.

However, my Elevator Pecha went extremely well because it was so focused and concise. I sense a crack in the dam in terms of my performance skills! Elena took video of everyone delivering their Elevator Pechas that day. If she posts them online I’ll share the video, and you can judge for yourself, and see the presentation in context, the way it was meant to be delivered.

• “Too many different tools & systems among gov agencies.” — (We’re facing that within an agency of only 26 people!)
• Kinda stuck on the analytics side. Posting minutes and large docs on wikis os not what the US population asked for with legislation to allow open govt
• We can finally create a living version – collapse arms into joint forces “purple intelligence” — that’s the vision but Chris is stuck getting there
• The official voice matters – a convo on Twitter – how do you verify it as an official entity?
• (We’re finding the same thing with Open Education Resources – people reluctant to use them if they’re not articulated and credentialed…)
• Why can’t social network/wiki stuff be used as the official agency voice against the crowdsourced work flow?
• Records retention system, etc. — Must answer the objections. “Be bold” is getting old, its not structurally redefining our business yet.
• Unless your open gov wiki stuff changes the core way government works you’re going to hit a wall and get stuck like intellipedia did.
• (I relate this to trying to set up a more cohesive Client Management System in my own small organization … it has to be incorporated into the work flow.)
• How long are we going to spin the “change takes time” and “training” cliché??
• Agencies: you’re going to have to give up the outcomes and not control the process end to end. Chris is not seeing indications that agencies want to do that – that’s where they’re stuck.
• We’re now talking about saving money and rationalizing – people’s jobs at stake – can’t achieve enterprise 2.0 success and then get stuck on people worried about turf-saving and job-preserving.
• Love/hate relationships – even people who make lots of changes to Intellipedia have the “Let’s not say things we can’t take back” syndrome.
• This course trajectory might hit any internal environment.
• (Yes Chris, it most certainly does!)

This time, the administrators of the program at the post-secondary institution asked me to give an interview. I prepared my responses and have turned them into a four-part series of blog posts directed at students. The second question they asked was:

What makes a cover letter and a resume really stand out?

———-

So, you’re a student in a communications program looking for a co-op work term placement. How can I tell from your resume you might be a good fit for my organization?

There are three things you must do:

1. Rewrite your cover letter and resume to tailor it to the position.
2. Re-jig your cover letter and resume to showcase your specific skills relevant to the position.
3. Read the job posting carefully and highlight up front your skills and experience that relate directly to the position.

Get the picture? I can’t stress this enough. I posted my last work term position in four post-secondary institutions asking specifically for a writing/communications student. It was a concise posting wherin it was clear I was looking for writing ability and web-based publishing skills.

I received around 75 resumes, many of which were from students in programs other than communications (I didn’t even read those). I would venture to guess many of them didn’t even read the job posting all that carefully.

I imagine they found summer work at one of the many restaurants and tourist attractions on the Island and lower mainland …

I interviewed two (2) students whose resumes, cover letters and web site links stood out.

Two. Out of 75.

Did I say I don’t have all day? I was serious about that, and my organization isn’t nearly as busy as many larger employers. I can think of dozens more managers and directors of communications who are ten times busier than I was this past spring.

Bottom line: if you have what I’m looking for, don’t assume I’ll comb through your resumé to find it. I simply won’t. Government recruiters often must read through and score each and every applications they get – they have my sympathies – and they’ll still score yours lower if you make them work too hard.

Include a summary at the top stating your relevant skills as they related to the job posting. Re-iterate those same skills in your cover letter. Make it brief. I’m busy.

But Friday afternoon, two weeks into my new job, raring to go, with 3 tasks left on my Top 5 for the day (including assembling, printing and mailing my expense forms), I still had not managed to get my new printer working after two hours of frustration.

Flummoxed. Laid flat. Humbled. Defeated.

I mourned the lost hours I could have spent writing the strategic communications plan, a job description for the co-op student I want to hire, or mapping out a schedule of internal and external blog posts.

I sent a pleading email to my new boss in Vancouver: “do we have any tech support at all?”

Answer: no, not really. We have software engineers and geeky techie people coming out the yin-yang at BCcampus – we’re all supposed to be highly computer literate. Maybe somebody in Victoria can help you, he said, and if you’re really stuck yes we can bring in someone to look at your system (and if you’ve figured out email for iPhone let me know, he added sheepishly.)

At first I was aghast: all the hours I’ve “wasted” when I could have been doing My Very Important Job – does it make sense to leave my computer workings to me alone? Why can’t I just call someone and have them deal with it?

Later that day I met up at the pub with some of my old colleagues from government. “How’s your new job going?” they asked.

“Great!” I said, “I’m writing the comms plan and there are so many cool, innovative things I get to put in place: linking the strategic plan within the very fabric of the internal and external web site, real-time measurement, interactive calendars, blogging functions, a stakeholder survey — all the stuff I couldn’t do when I was with government!”

Then it hit me: the reason I was so frustrated with my computer and printer issues. I had been domesticated.

For over four years (in contrast to my career before that – a blog post for another day) I was never my own systems administrator. My computer, blackberry, software, printer and LAN connections were provided to me within the strict confines of Policy. I couldn’t download the tools I like best: Skype, Evernote, Scrivener, Skitch, Tweetie, etc. At one point, for a brief time, even shortened URLs were blocked.

Don’t get me wrong: because of the people I worked with (including my incredible boss) I was able to do some of my best work while at government, and I was able to innovate, to a point. I implemented the very first Facebook group from the BC government three years ago; and in the process contributed in a concrete way to the discussion about whether to block – or use – social networking sites within the public service.

But still – I had been coddled and grain fed and confined to my cubicle and the Help Desk line for so long I forgot what it means to be self-reliant.

Now I’ve come fill circle. I’m back in a small organization with no Shared Services or Help Desk to come to my rescue. When I came on board I was asked what hardware and software I needed in order to do my job, and I eagerly took the iPhone, MacBook Pro and HP printer. I installed Office and got it working (after 2 tries); I configured my work email and calendar and sync’d to my iPhone.

I am NOT alone, not really. My new coworkers are ready to help – I need only ask. Besides, it’s early days and I’m still getting my feet under me in my new role. It’s OK for me to relax and get settled comfortably, to let the process happen and not feel like I have to Perform, Right now!

More importantly: I have a measure of autonomy I longed for but did not have in my previous job. I had forgotten – with freedom comes responsibility.

If having freedom to work creatively means being more self-sufficient, then I gladly embrace the trade-off.

Photo by Kodomut (licensed under Creative Commons)

I have not used this blog to write about my work as a communications professional; primarily because the past four years have been spent writing communications advice, speeches and news releases for the provincial government (I was in the Public Affairs Bureau). I enjoyed the work, learned a great deal and made some great friendships and connections with very talented PR professionals, but I was also somewhat disconnected from the fruits of my labour.

In short, I was putting words in someone else’s mouth and providing advice on how to defend policies or decisions with which, at times, I disagreed. Even when I did support the programmes about which I was writing (which was, happily, most of the time), confidentiality and political sensitivities prevented me from even talking about what I was working on.

That’s about to change. BCcampus is an innovative organization that connects 25 post-secondary institutions across the province using web-based technologies. Collaboration and therefore transparency are the operational imperatives. I’m delving into online learning, educational technology, web-based business applications I could only have dreamed about when I was a grad student fifteen years ago.

This job will feed the geek and the academic within me. I’m looking forward to sharing more of my professional life here.

I started working for the government of B.C. four years ago. My first assignment was preparing for media coverage for the 2006 Games. Now, I am leaving government for another position, and one of my last assignments is preparing for media coverage during the 2010 Games.

One door closes, and another one opens. Sometimes it’s the same door …

One thing I’ve found over the years is that many of the folks I train with (and race against) are for the most part as devoted to their jobs (if not more) as they are to running or cycling or triathlon. Unlike participation in say, golf or softball or basketball – no offense to club/league sports – the type of determination, discipline and emotional focus that comes with training day in, day out for extremely challenging endurance events (often by yourself) tends to bleed over into people’s 9-5’s.

As I sit here drinking my coffee, nursing a blister (no it wasn’t from running, it was from hiking along the beach yesterday in very old, ill-fitting hikers) that I noticed after my 6 am run, I realize — o crap, I gotta get to work!