richardkong

TechMunchies for Staff

One of the things I like most about my work is that there are so many opportunities to both learn and teach. I often find myself gravitating toward responsibilities like planning and teaching classes for the public and colleagues. At SPL, I coordinate the technology classes for the public and I also teach classes regularly, but recently I’ve also been organizing a lunch-time technology training series called “TechMunchies” (props to Deborah, my boss, for coming up with the title!) for our staff.

So far, we’ve had sessions on the best websites of 2008 (or some of them at least), how to make better use of Microsoft Outlook and manage your inbox, blogs, Skype, and digital storage options. It’s been a great success so far and I wanted to share some tips for others who might be thinking of doing something similar.

• Lay a foundation. If possible, start by putting together a learning 2.0 program like the original by Helene Blowers for PLCMC. We adapted that program last year and called it the “10 Things @ SPL.” In my view, this laid the foundation for the “TechMunchies” series because it helped stir in people a willingness, maybe even an eagerness, to explore and learn new technologies. If you’re interested in learning more, check out this article I wrote for NSLS last year on our experience with the 10 Things.
• Find out what people want. Before launching your lunch-time series, conduct a simple survey asking staff if they’d be interested in a tech training series, what days and times would work best for them, and, most importantly, what topics they’d like to see offered. We used Survey Monkey to create our survey and, to be honest, I was surprised by the great response. Many staff members indicated an interest in the series and many took the time to tell us what they want to learn. I’m using these results to make sure we’re covering the most requested topics.
• Keep it casual. We hold our TechMunchies classes in our board room, which has a large oval table with really comfy chairs around it. Our instructors sit at the table with the others and just start talking and demonstrating the technology. We have a laptop and projector, but we don’t focus on huge slide presentations. We focus on having a conversation with the other staff members and answering questions they might have.
• Allow food and drinks. It’s called “TechMunchies” after all! We usually provide some light snacks, but people are welcome to bring in their lunches and eat while they learn. 
• Pay people. Even though we call it a lunch-time series, our staff is compensated for their time, even if they’re eating their lunch. Part-timers get paid extra and full-timers get “plus” time to use later on. 
• Keep registration simple. At first, we asked people to email me and I would email them confirmation of their registration and pass everything along to the instructor. This was okay, but early on I decided to make use of Mobaganda.com to handle registration. It’s super easy to use and it just works!
• Don’t make it all about work-related uses of technology. Sure, it’s nice to tie stuff into what people are doing at work, but I think people really get into technology when they can also use it for personal use and it’s genuinely fun. 
• Don’t overdo it. Since we just started this series, I wanted to make sure it’s not too difficult for me to schedule them and to find instructors and topics. We started with one every other week and it’s worked well for us. There will never be a shortage of topics, obviously, so that’s not the issue. We just wanted to keep it manageable at the start. Who knows? Maybe we ‘ll hold them more often in the future.
• Maximize the impact. We’re trying to offer topics that are also being offered to the public, so the work our instructors put into these extend beyond a single presentation. For example, one of our instructors recently offered a Skype program for the public, so it made sense for her to offer a TechMunchies class as well since people indicated an interest in it on the survey. 

Okay, we’ll hopefully this info helps if you’re considering this for your library or organization. Feel free to contact me if you want to learn more about what we’re doing with our TechMunchies series!

24. February 2009 by Rich
Categories: Libraries, Technology | Tags: Skokie Public Library, Staff training, TechMunchies | 2 comments