Every year, the folks at the ABA Techshow provide a list a recommended websites for attendees to check out. If you’re looking for something extra to provide your students, a list of sites like this makes a great handout or page on your organization’s intranet. I’m looking forward to seeing what makes the 2011 list.

Whether you are speaking at a conference or delivering a training, asking questions is vital to the success of your presentation. To be a successful litigation support trainer, being a life long learner is also essential. That’s why I like this website so much: www.missiontolearn.com. It’s not industry specific, I’ve never seen an article devoted to e-discovery but it’s a great resource for me as one who loves to learn and share knowledge with others. This post on asking better questions showed up in my RSS feed recently so I thought I’d share it with my fellow litigation support trainers. Let me know what you think…

Asking Better Questions: 3 Decision Points.

An Animated View of Lawyers at a Rule 26f Conference « e-Discovery Team

This video is available via The e-Discovery Team’s blog. I liked it so much that I’ve posted it twice… first on my e-discovery project management blog as a meeting icebreaker for project managers to draw attention to the importance of planning for the discovery conference and again here for litigation support trainers as a fun video to show in your next training class.

Enjoy!

What are your favorite online training resources? Do you use podcasts and videos as part of your litigation technology and/or e-discovery training? What do you find to be the most effective resource(s) available for FREE?

A few of my favorite content resources include:

• The Sedona Conference
• The E-Discovery Institute
• EDD Update
• E-Discovery Team Blog
• Electronic Discovery Reference Model – their charts make great teaching tools
• E-Discovery Application Matrix
• Twitter – follow me @lsptrainer

When I have audio and internet access available in my training room, I like to use videos and podcast recordings to start a discussion on a topic. Videos often can capture in just a few minutes what it would normally take me 20 minutes to explain … and students typically will not ask you to pause the video so that they can ask a question (although that is okay) but will instead write their questions down and ask at the end of the video. If you’ve been a trainer for a year or a week, you know how easily we can get off topic with student questions. So I’ve found that videos allow me to keep things on track and address questions at the appropriate time. This video is currently one of my favorites to show in class where I’m training litigation support professionals to train their case teams on e-discovery. I typically stop the video just before the consultant’s interview to point out that the interview is optional. If you’re the instructor, you are in control of the message… this goes for product demos too.

A few sites to find videos and podcasts to listen to or share with your classes:

• E-Discovery Team Videos
• You Tube (search for “e-discovery”)
• Legal Talk Network
• Litigation Podcasts by the ABA
• ILTA Podcasts (membership may be required to access)

There are many more websites and blogs but I like these because the cover the basics very well for creating a well rounded learning experience for your students.

Wednesday, June 16th – Noon – 1pm @ Sutherland - I will be moderating a panel of industry experts as they discuss the topic: “Cost Containment Strategies & Best Practices in E-Discovery” for the Atlanta ALSP Chapter meeting

To register / RSVP for this event click here

Thursday, June 17th – 11am – 1pm @ SOHO - I will be the guest speaker for ASDFED’s Atlanta Chapter meeting. My topic will be “Developing Standard Operating Procedures for Managing E-Discovery and Digital Forensics“

To register / RSVP for this event click here

• use the automatic transitions feature in Power Point as described here and here.
• lecture for no more than 20 – 30 minutes, then transition to an activity or a break
• “listen” to my remote mouse timer when it buzzes

What do you do to manage time during your training classes? What are some of the obstacles you run into and how do you overcome them?

If you are a litigation support or e-discovery trainer within your organization, trade shows present a wealth of information that can potentially become training content if you use your time at the show wisely and utilize all available resources to assist you with distilling and summarizing information. Big conferences can sometimes be a little overwhelming with so much information and experiences to take in and digest… how does a trainer sum it all up to share when she returns to the office? I think that it helps to know that you’re not the only one trying to summarize what’s going on in a meaningful way.

For training purposes, I would suggest reviewing articles, blogs, and your own notes to create an outline for each topic you wish to develop training for later at your firm. Then I would review the available videos for potential use in class as an opening or closing to drive your point home and/or to provide a link through your intranet as a resource.

If you’re at the ABA Tech Show this week …or even if you wish you were, here are a few tips that have worked for me in the past:

• Follow the conference on Twitter. (search.twitter.com; look for for hashtag #techshow)
• Search for blogs & articles with daily or whole conference summaries
  • Someone always writes an article for Law.com
  • The Posse List and Gabe’s Guide to the e-Discovery Universe always post great conference summaries
  • Alltop.com is a one-stop-shop for blogs and articles on e-discovery (and other topics)
• Check the official conference site and blog for information
  • After the show they will update the annual “60 Sites in 60 Seconds” list, in the meantime, last year’s list is still worth a look
  • The “Best of…” page provides links to educational materials from past conferences
• Check YouTube for video interviews … Watch last year’s videos here (or simply search for “ABA Techshow”)
• Discuss the show and conference with your colleagues (if any) who attend with you. Or with the guy standing next to you in line for coffee during a break.
• Last but not least… Take good notes … take notes on conversations you have, take notes on educational sessions you attend … and compare your interpretation of things to that of those in the blogosphere. Did you agree? disagree?

While we’ve specifically referenced the ABA Tech Show this week, hopefully some of my tips will serve you well for any of the major e-discovery / litigation technology conferences. The next big educational conferences are Legal Tech West Coast and ILTA later in the summer. I’ll write another post on how to prepare ahead of a conference to get the most out of it for training your attorneys, paralegals and staff in a few weeks.

And finally, keep in mind that it may take some bloggers a couple of weeks before they post anything about the conference. Give yourself a 30 – 45 day window to research and develop new training content based on what you learned at the conference and how it can be applied to the best practices in place at your firm.

What do you do to prepare for a conference or after a conference to prepare training for your litigation support department or attorneys & paralegals? Do you observe how someone presents information as well as what they present while you’re at a conference?

• Remember, your audience can’t see you or your body language. They will need to hear your smile through your voice. Practice speaking and smiling in front of a mirror — you’ll notice the difference in your tone right away.
• Make your presentation interactive. If your webinar technology has a polling feature, use it. Use it at the beginning of your call the same way you would invite a live classroom audience to raise their hands. Use it at least once during your presentation — gives the audience something to do while you take a sip of water. Use it again at the end as you’re thanking everyone for their attention.
• Make your presentation interactive. Same tip, different point… if your webinar software has an online chat room feature, ask the audience to submit questions there so that you can periodically check to see if there’s something you need to address or if it can wait until the end.
• Make sure your content is interesting and your slides don’t have too much text on them. Try not to force your audience to read AND listen to you at the same time. Don’t read your slides, either…. print some speaker notes and have those handy instead.
• If this is a training, be sure you plan your lesson just like you would for a classroom delivery or e-learning:
  • keep your content simple / easy to follow
  • no more than 6 to 8 lines of text per page (less is more)
  • avoid complex animations & slide transitions (slower connections will miss the asthetic value and think something is wrong instead)
• Record & Critique Yourself. If your webinar software has a recording feature, use it not only to save a copy for on-demand access later… but also play it back for yourself and look for ways you can improve your technique as a trainer
• Be careful showing Your WHOLE desktop. Most webinar technology allows you to isolate a region on select only PowerPoint to show your audience. Use this feature. I recommend shutting down Outlook (resource hog) during your presentation, too.
• Showing / Sharing Other Applications … in addition to PowerPoint during your webinar. Try to use screen shots depending upon what you’re teaching or need to show. This will allow you to zoom in on specific areas of detail and you won’t have to rely on the second application to function like it’s supposed to during your presentation. If you must show another application during your presentation, then practice your transition technique from your slideshow to the application and back. It looks really unprofessional to fumble through this on the call itself.
• Dual Monitor. This is a great configuration to have if you have the resources. Many of us only think of dual monitors when we’re running trial presentation software. It works just as well in a webinar setting for all the same reasons.

Are you brave enough to share an experience that the rest of us might learn from?

As a trainer, I thought about how I present topics and ideas to my students: How much is too much information? In a one-hour webinar or live presentation, how do you tell when you’ve overwhelmed your audience? (I suppose it is easier with a live audience where you can see their eyes glaze over.) That got me thinking about how I avoid content overload with my classes and presentations sometimes by providing “for more information look here” resources.  This allows the student/ attendee to continue learning on their own and at their own pace… greatly increasing the chances of retention. I’ve outlined some of those resources below as a guide to finding the middle ground in your presentations and lessons.

Where to Look for More Information

Whatever the topic, you can probably find a Twitter hashtag or AllTop category related to it… and if not, give your class a list of key words that will help them find what they’re looking for. Additionally, those same key words or topics can become Google Alerts. (I recommend a weekly e-mail for Google Alerts… daily emails quickly become annoying clutter.) You don’t necessarily need a Twitter account to use the microblogging site, although if you’re trying to follow a conversation or topic over time, it is much easier if you do. Suggest to your class that they can learn more about “electronic discovery” by entering the term in the search box on Twitter’s search page. They can also use hash tags. I highly recommend the conference specific hash tags for conferences like ILTA, Legal Tech, The Masters Conference, etc. for presentation notes and trending topics of interest live from attendees at the conference itself.

I like to use Google Reader but there are many others you can use to manage and follow your favorite blogs. At the end of your presentation, you can provide your audience / students with the URLs of a couple of your favorite blogs or the blogs you specifically may have used to research some of your presentation. You are now enabling them to continue the learning on their own and most importantly, at their own pace so that they will hopefully retain more of what you told them and find ways to apply the information.

And finally, our industry has generated a growing library of books on litigation support, litigation technology and e-discovery that you can refer to your students/ attendees.

What do you do to avoid information overload in your training classes or presentations?