"Community Development: New Leaders, New Tools"
In the fall of 2010, I was asked by the Government of Prince Edward Island to give three separate lunch-hour presentations on community economic development to three different groups in different parts of the Island. The presentations were spread over a period of about a week.
It made no sense environmentally, financially or in terms of time management to make three round trips in such a short time, and after some cogitating and brainstorming the clients, the speakers' bureau and I decided to try doing the three talks by Skype. I would talk to the audiences in PEI online from my office in Halifax.
Once we all got used to it, the system seemed to work very well – but at the second event we had a poor connection, and the audience didn't get the experience we wanted to provide. So, for the third event, we recorded the presentation on a video camera set up to shoot just over the lid of my laptop, capturing my presentation on HD video while I was also transmitting it online. And then we posted the video here, where all the members of all three audiences can check in to see it.
An unusual solution to a novel problem – but it seemed to work just fine. I'm grateful to Kim Klein and Alan Buchanan for their receptiveness to the idea, and for their effectiveness in making it work.
