My good friend Michele Perras invited me to live blog for Interactive Ontario’s Interactive Content Exchange, a fabulous digital media conference she helped organize. I must say I was intrigued, after all I had never live blogged before. I was assigned four sessions (see the details in the previous posts) that lasted about an hour each. I typed furiously, and tried to keep up with the fascinating dialogue and learned a few lessons along the way I thought I would pass along.
1) Preparation is key! Save your self the anxiety and stress of having to set the context for your post. I prepared drafts before hand outlining the panel description (from the site) and linking to each of the participants. This saved me loads of time as I was ready to go right away.
2) Do your homework. Since you’re going to the trouble of preparing beforehand, take a few minutes and poke around the sites you’re linking to. They can give you a good idea of why the panelists were invited up there, and could help frame the discussion if you’re not familiar with subject matter.
3) Don’t Transcribe. You’re not a stenographer in a courtroom! I always listen to what people are saying and then try to capture the essence of their idea. When I post, especially a discussion, I always make sure to state that I am paraphrasing. This way you won’t be caught up in taking dictation and can concentrate on the flow of ideas.
4)Find your own style. Find your own groove, be it just capturing a few ideas that defined the session, discussion style or a mix of the two, the important thing is to communicate the key take aways of the session to your readers. Check my MaRS posts of the Emerging Tech for a style comparison.
