It's great that faculty, staff, and students will be able to access the videos on a number of technology topics such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Connect, and Google Docs.  It's also useful that when a user selects a topic, he or she will go to a table of contents page with links to smaller subtopic videos only a few minutes each. 

This means I can go what I already know, ignore what I don't need to know, and play exactly what I want.  I can learn at my own pace and replay it as many times as I need until I learn it.

But the benefits for Penn State go beyond the obvious. HelpDesks and IT Trainers have an opportunity to stop re-inventing the wheel.  I've been dying to see us coordinate each other and share resources, but seeing us use Lynda.com resources would be a nice start:

HelpDesks could save time and effort by finding the answers to software-related questions in Lynda.com and linking to them in their knowledge bases.

IT Trainers could include links to Lynda.com resources as references in their training.

All of these would also promote Lynda.com to users and teach them to look to this resource.  Users are looking for resources and if we make coordinated efforts to point them to Lynda.com, we will get the word out!

Still playing around with how best to recut our Technology Updates, which are recorded via MediaSite into smaller chunks and redistribute.  Here's another Dr. Nikki installment, called...

Spam, Spam, Spam, Dr. Nikki & Spam!

(download)

I have been testing Camtasia for pulling segments of our MediaSite Technology Updates into other formats.  For example, Dr. Nikki could be in my blog (below), iTunes, or YouTube with the effort it takes me to extract and edit what I get from MediaSite.

Presentation Facelift

(download)

Email Safety: Avoiding Emotional Injury in the Workplace

(download)

I'm always impressed with when our Dean addresses us, but I was particularly interested to hear about Libraries' partnerships and encouraging efficiency mentioned in Dean Eaton's State of the Libraries' Budget presentation.  While my own projects were not mentioned, I immediately thought about a personal passion of mine: coordinating training and documentation efforts throughout the University.

While working to provide Libraries' staff with training and documentation, I realized that some of the materials we made available may be of use to a much broader audience.  So many of us throughout the University support email, Web browsers, Microsoft Office, and more.  So many of our internal customers are asking the same questions.  So many of us are creating the same resources over and over.  In effect Penn State is paying us to do the same job many, many times over.

I began by sharing this work in our Libraries public Website, but this did not allow departments within the University to comment or edit.   When it was decided that staff training would be moved to our Intranet, I still wanted a mechanism for sharing what belonged to the Penn State community while giving our Libraries staff one-stop training, so I created some cross-linking between the PennState Wikispaces Technology Training wiki and the training Intranet site.

This was not my first attempt at sharing on PennState Wikispaces.  In the past, I'd create a draft of an item and make it public to invite others to comment or edit.  This time, I really wanted to start a grassroots movement among the other training professionals I knew to contribute to a pool of knowledge. We could use tagging and macros to aggregate training across several wikis.  I've been working with some of my contacts in ITS Training Services for advice on how to test this idea.

I used my wiki was a proof of concept.  I used social media to promote it.  The feedback I've gotten from other departments has been great.  I've had many people contact me about the idea, thank me for making this training available, ask for advice on how to carry this project forward in their own units, and more.

But it's not just what we get.  If they contribute, we can receive as well.  Libraries can benefit from their contributions.  Penn State benefits by becoming more efficient.  Our faculty and staff get one-stop shopping for training and documentation.

I know that Wikispaces is technically still in test.  I could have waited for a formal policy or a formal group or process to propose this project.  While we wait for the right people to decide that Wikispaces is officially blessed for this use, we are wasting time.  The time it takes for decisions by committee and for processes to be implemented versus the speed of technology today.  The time that is used by training professionals who want to collaborate and work efficiently.

We are wasting time.  Time is money.  No matter where we are in the hierarchy, I think it's our place to take the intiative to save Penn State money.

December is the perfect month to reflect on the value of playing.  We have a month's worth of work to do and year-end goals (or semester-end) to complete, wrapped up half a month's worth of workdays.  So what do we do?  We play.

This month I have crafted a gingerbread man zombie, planned an Oracle Calendar Tea Party, got my Twitter friends to talk about Zombo as a social network, and participated in karaoke with fellow Penn Staters who are part of a back-channel social group.  Somehow in a month when our workload is larger than usual and our time shorter, we attend holiday parties, special events, and perform team-building activities--and still manage to meet our deadlines. 

Why do we do this to ourselves?  What's the value in these events?  Why is play so important?  If you're looking for an answer, look to the experts at play: children.

For children, play is not just a diversion.  It's how they socialize with their peers. It's how they exercise their imaginations.  It's how they learn.  Are we adults (or those of us merely masquerading as adults at our day jobs) any different?

1. Making gingerbread men with my department as a team-building activity allowed some very busy people to socialize with one another without having to clash over the projects that we make personal.
2. The tea party is a themed training event for University Libraries In-Service Day as a follow-up to last year's migration to Oracle Calendar.  When I need to reach people who need more training on a topic, I try not to repeat the training that was already offered to them.  I also find that making voluntary training fun motivates people to attend and learn.
3. The Zombo tweets, while cheering up a group of moping friends on the last Friday before a holiday, revealed a lot about what people wanted out of social networking applications and what they thought others would want to buy-in.
   
4. My back-channel group is one of the most valuable networks to me.  The playful environment and diversity of the group is important.  By knowing these people first in a social context, I am more likely to take risks and pitch ideas to them.