SLA Leadership Connections

New Conference Call/Webinar Service Recorded Training Session

If you missed the training session “Using GoToWebinar for your SLA Unit Webinar/Meeting”, conducted by SLA staff members Carolyn Sosnowski and Jeff Leach, a recorded version is now available.  Leaders asked some good questions and those are also posted with answers.

For all details and how to access, visit our Leadership Resource page describing this service provide by SLA for our units' use.

The SLA Leadership & Management Division is our unit sponsor of the GoToMeeting service for SLA units through 2012.

Register Now for Briefing on NEW Conference Call Service

Do you want to find out just how easy it is to set up a conference call for a board meeting?  Conduct a webinar for your unit members?  Then register now for the one-hour webinar, Monday, 4 August, 2-3 p.m. EDT.  It is entitled "Using GoToWebinar For Your SLA Unit Webinar/Meeting" and will be lead by SLA staff members Jeff Leach and Carolyn Sosnowski.

SLA is providing GoToWebinar service to replace Dimdim which will be discontinued 18 August.

Please direct this invitation to all leaders within your unit who may need it to conduct SLA business.  The session will be recorded for those who cannot make it "live".

New Conference Call and Webinar Service for Units

SLA is providing a new, replacement services for your unit conference calls and webinars.  We have transitioned from DimDim to GoToMeetings effective immediately.  The DimDim service is still available until August 18 but we encourage you to begin using this new service now.

For all you will need to know about using this new service, go to our Unit Web Conferencing link from the Leadership Resources section of the Web.

Please forward this announcement to all of your officers and committee chairs who may need to use for conference calls or webininars.

There are two options:  Meetings or Webinars.  Meetings are for interactive conversations for up to 25 people.  Webinars are for online presentations with up to 100 attendees.  All participants except for presenters and moderators are automatically muted in webinars.

Other features include ability to have a combination of phone and VOIP calls; recording and saving to your own site;  polling;  survey questions; and 24/7 technical support.  For any meetings using the computer, each attendee must download an applet.

Jeff Leach has offered to host a webinar on how easy it is to use this system.  Mark your calendar for 4 August, 2-3 p.m. EDT.  We will announce the invitation shortly.

Announcing New Web Hosting for Units

SLA's newest unit service announced at Leadership Summit, code-named Operation Vitality, will cost units $40/year. It will be deducted from the annual dues allotment. In this first year, the early adopters who are operational at allotment disbursement will have the amount deducted from the allotments issued this year. All others will be invoiced at start-up.

For those who did not hear Daniel Lee's presentation at Leadership Summit, read his description at Get Ready for the Future with Operation Vitality.

Invite SLA President to Visit Your Chapter in 2011

President	President-Elect
Cindy Romaine Romainiacs Intelligent Research Beaverton, Oregon, USA	Brent Mai Concordia University Portland, Oregon, USA

Its not too late to see if SLA's president or president-elect can visit your chapter at a special event in 2011.  If you would like to request a visit by either 2011 President Cindy Romaine or President-Elect Brent Mai, complete a chapter visit request form prior to 15 January 2011.  All requests will be reviewed by the Chapter Cabinet Officers in light of the SLA budget and the presidents' schedules.  Please do not contact the presidents directly unless your chapter is seeking to fund the visit totally.

 

New Unit Web Hosting Plan Announced

Today all unit Webmasters received the announcement that SLA will begin offering a new web hosting plan starting in January 2011!

SLA Board of Directors member Daniel Lee has been working with unit Webmasters over the past several months and here is an update:

- SLA has purchased web hosting from award-winning host provider HostGator;
- Wordpress will be promoted as the CMS of choice;
- A professional Wordpress theme has been designed specifically for SLA units and will be included as part of a basic hosting package; and
- The price for the basic package will be $40 per year and will include 24/7 technical support provided by HostGator, email accounts, MySQL databases, FTP Accounts, an easy-to-use and flexible Control Panel, and a 99.9% uptime guarantee.

The plan is to pilot the new service with a select set of units who self-identified as early adopters.  The pilot will run during October, November, and December.  Based on the feedback from the pilot, the service and the Wordpress theme will be adjusted.

At Leadership Summit in January, Daniel will demonstrate the new service, including the new WordPress theme and, at that point, the service will be made available to the entire SLA community.  There is also a group of Wordpress Super Administrators who have volunteered to help guide the units through the process of conversion in 2011.  The goal is to have all SLA units who are currently hosted by SLA converted to the new service by December 2011.

When this project began, Daniel had five objectives in mind:

- Provide a stable and modern hosting service to all chapters, divisions, and caucuses;
- Design a brand standard template for all units to use;
- Make the service affordable;
- Promote a common content management system we can all use, understand and build upon by developing our own tools; and
- Start to build a community for SLA's webmasters.

Webmasters will be providing feedback to Daniel and his Super Administrator team over the next several weeks.  This is a service that you and your Webmasters have asked for.  You will want to be at Leadership Summit when we all see this dream realized. 

 

Dimdim Lessons Learned

Almost sixty leaders of our chapters and divisions participated in our first leadership Dimdim call last Friday.  The technology works well but there were a few lessons learned.  As a novice user, I'll share so that you can benefit when you organize your first conference call, web conference call or webinar using Dimdim.

• When scheduling, make sure that there is not already a conference call scheduled at the same time;  you may use the alternate web conference account if necessary.
• Let all invited participants know that it will be necessary for them to bear the costs of a long distance call;  Dimdim does not provide a toll-free number.  There are several low cost/no cost alternatives such as Skype calls and Google Voice.  Let me know if you know of others.
• Particiants will not need to download anything;  the host and the presenter will.  Allow time through a training session or start your call 15 minutes early with the presenter and put the participants in the waiting room.
• To avoid an echo, ask everyone to put their phone or mute unless they are speaking.
• And, finally, check out the details, procedures and users guide in the Leadership Resource Center.

Thank you for your patience and let's do it again.

 

Leadership Webinar

Sign up today for the upcoming SLA Leadership Webinar introducing Dimdim.

Are You Using the SLA Events Calendar?

Are you using all the avenues available to you to encourage information professionals (and our vendor partners) to attend your meetings and events?  Probably not, unless you are the SLA Illinois Chapter.  There is a master SLA events calendar which could advertise YOUR events and increase participation.  Its easy to get your next meeting(s) listed.  Download the instructions:Download SLACalendarInstruc.  If someone is not familiar with your chapter...or your division...they come to the SLA Web site and this is just another way to find out about your unit.

SLA is so much more than just what the association headquarters may be doing.  Our chapters and divisions are where its happening.  Help show the breadth of SLA by posting your events.

SLA to Provide Units With Conference Call, Web Conferencing Tools

Technology has changed tremendously since we began hosting Click U programming on WebEx in 2006, and we are making two cost-effective changes. 

Effective 1 September, 2010, SLA will change providers for our Click University seminars and certificate courses from WebEx to GoToMeeting for an annual savings of more than $37,000.

Also, SLA headquarters will use Dimdim for our conference call service and for unit web conferencing or conference calls.  This change will provide a significant savings annually for the association and provide units with a service they have been asking for over the past few years.

There will be no charge to any SLA unit; it is yet another service SLA provides to the leaders of SLA to conduct association business.

Watch for the details of how to schedule your next FREE conference call or web conference.  We are working with Dimdim at present but details are not available yet.

Leadership Associate Kim Richter will be your point of contact for this service