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Wednesday, September 26, 2012

The Power of Social Media

Today I took the Bambino north for an excursion to Tuggerah Library (one of Wyong Council's libraries) where I was greeted by the bubbly Reference Librarian, Michelle Goldsmith and work experience student Sharon (who happens to be one of my Twitter pals).   I was there at the library's invitation to present a workshop on Social Media for Family History.

Michelle and Sharon made me feel most welcome and were very helpful as I set up for the gig. I saw a couple of familiar faces from the Family Historian Interest Group in the room  plus a member of the Ku-ring-gai Historical Society where I am on the Committee; I also met a fellow geneablogger, Janelle, so I felt right at home. The venue was airy, comfortable and the computer and projector worked so things augured well for the talk.

Before I got started I put out a couple of messages on Google+ and  Facebook asking my contacts to say g'day to the assembled group. Very few in the group had any experience of social media so they were most impressed when, within a few minutes, we received greetings from the US and Australia. Kylie Willison of South Australia was first off the mark , thanks Kylie.

Thank you to all of you who sent messages - you provided a great practical example of how social media works - this is more powerful than just showing a series of screenshots. See the messagaes below.

Thanks to the folk at Wyong for inviting me along. I may have bamboozled some of the group but I think most of them went away with some understanding of how social media can be used to enhance their genealogy experience. I only noticed one person nodding off so at least I kept most of them awake and that for me is an indicator of success.


From Facebook
From Google+

5 comments:

  1. Sorry I missed it. Looks like you and those attending physically (as well as those online) had fun, and I'm sure they all learnt heaps ;-)

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  2. It was an enjoyable talk and your intro to social media was great. It was wonderful also to meet an `imaginary` friend in person

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  3. I really enjoyed your talk, Jill, and came home with lots of ideas, inspiration, and motivation.
    Speaking with Sharre was also enlightening, as she's helped me forward on my learning journey.
    The handout was excellent.
    Thanks!!

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  4. So glad to hear that it went well!! Thanks for the link Jill. :-)

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  5. Thank you so much Sharre and Janelle for yourcomments. Your positive reinforcement is much appreciated.

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I'd love to hear what you have to say so I encourage you to say G'day in comments on my posts.

Sorry I have turned word verification on but I am just getting too much spam to allow comments without this feature.