As everyone seems to know, the lagging technology use in this organization bothers me. This is not to say "all toastmasters" have this problem. Many, maybe even most, do have a problem with technology. One could claim it has something to do with the graying of the organization. One could claim that older members (as in age) are more reluctant to adopt new technology. I say no way Jose. This is a bunch of bull and excuses like that are why we accept things the way they are. It took a while, but 80-somethings adopted technology with gusto. I have two messages for my speeches about technology:
1- we need to adopt more of it if we want to attract younger members
2- you need to practice and play with it to learn it
I am going to focus on the second point today. I can rant until the sun sets about point 1. Point 2 is the one that often goes ignored. Everyone needs to learn technology. The difference between a 20-something and a 50-something is immersion. The future members are immersed in technology and learn new technology quickly because it is something they have a foundation for and are able to practice. The baby boomers (and younger) are not immersed in technology and don't always have the time to sit and learn it.
Here is the secret, aside from a few tools, the average 20-something isn't as tech savy as you would think. They are good at certain things: youtube, searching, myspace/facebook, texting. Working with college students for the past 5 years has taught me that the average 20-something does not read blogs, does not know what an RSS feed is, does not edit Wikipedia (they just use it), can not make a podcast, and only uses what most of their friends use. The reason I push these things for toastmasters is that they are simply about keeping up with technology. Two months ago I would have said most 20-somethings don't know what Twitter is. Today I can tell you that's no longer true. They know what it is and more use it each day. They learn it quickly and that's the key generational divide. These tools are not hard to learn and not difficult to see how they are helpful if you are open minded.
What Toastmasters needs is someone to teach them. We need technology workshops sponsored by districts. You don't need to pay for someone to come in and teach it either. Chances are there are plenty of members in every district who can explain all these tools. Heck, call me and I will come out for the cost of travel.
You don't even need face to face training for some things. Let's take on the issue of club webpages. Zaldy posted a response to my technology rank about the low number of clubs with webpages in his district. I am still shocked by the number of clubs that don't have webpages- especially public clubs. Not only because of the marketing issues, but because it's so easy with FreeToastHost. Bo Bennett understands the issues of technology and marketing. I have my issues as a techie, but for 90% of this organization FreeToastHost is the best thing that ever happened. According to FreeToastHost 6,400 clubs have pages with them. That's 6,400 out of 11,700 clubs- over half. Of those 6,400 clubs, how many use the Members only section of their pages? I have no idea, but I bet it's not all of them. Even those who do use it, how many use the duty roster exclusively to plan meetings? How many have abandoned any other way to sign up for roles? Almost none I would imagine.
Why? My guess would be because not everyone know how to use the duty roster. Not everyone knows how to sign up for roles or change their role. Why should they know? Who has taught them about it? Who has showed them how simple it is? This is where video tutorials come in. I have been making these for work. To teach students how to do things they always ask us about. I decided to see what type of response this gets. I am looking for feedback at this point. What do you think of this video explaining how to use the FreeToastHost duty roster?
Thursday, March 12, 2009
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3 comments:
The Video
Great work. We need more of this sort of training, and we need it to be accessible to our members. Perhaps right on our Free Toast Host club site (!).
In a short video, you show the newbie how to access the Duty Roster, how to claim a meeting role, and how to give the role up. As extra information, you tell how to proceed if the user has forgotten his password.
You do not try to cover too much ground in your video. There is a lot more to know about using the Duty Roster, but you avoid the pitfall of trying to cram in that info.
Technical aspects of the video could be improved. That's all right, because with more people contributing to the effort, these aspects will get fixed. Your work is a great point of departure for further work.
How our club utilizes the Duty Roster
In Orangebelt Toastmasters, we no longer track club meeting roles any other way. Between webmaster me and my assistant (who happens to be club president), the website duty roster is maintained, and the information from the worksheets we bring to the club meeting is used to promptly update the site.
That said, our club members have not all bought in to using the website duty roster. The key person to buy in is the club vice president of education. If she does not, one cannot go further. In our case, the VPE has difficulty using the FTH software, so we webmasters step in to make up the difference.
In our club, use of the website dates back only 8 months or so. Established members are still adopting its use. But new members see the website as normal-normal and buy in right away.
Hi Arthur,
Thanks for the feedback. As technology increases, the need for technology training increases as well. I know the technical aspects are not there, but I think its pretty decent for a first attempt. I would love to see what other people do. I am waiting to hear from Bo Bennett (the owner of freetoasthost) about it.
My club, Twin City TM, uses the duty roster in a very similar way. It is helpful for the CL manual to make sure people fill the roles they still need for their requirements.
Our club still does the roster in Word. We have a freetoasthost site but it seems the diversity of membership makes only an online roster difficult. I dunno. I might try again next year as VPE ;)
If our meeting site had wifi, I'd bring my laptop to meetings and have people sign up that way. I filled in for our VPE last night and brought my cell phone to show the list of what people had signed up for. The text was too small for some. And I had zoomed in even.
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