I recently sent a note out to the participants in my Social Networking class, sharing a bit of a learning curve I found myself on over the past week or so. When I get bitten by the learning bug, I love to encourage others to do the same. I’m sharing this with you because ongoing learning and expansion of our minds creates new brain cells, and heaven knows we could all use some of those.

Here’s what happened:

After talking with Mary Pat Kavanagh (The Queen of Connections) about her social networking class, I decided to change my class from a teleseminar and use a webinar format. I’ve attended webinars, but never actually held one so I spent a few days practicing that. I figured, “How hard can it be?”

Then Maria Reyes McDavis (The Web Success Diva) encouraged me to get Camtasia, the software that records what’s on your computer screen, so I did that and had to spend some time learning that. (Wish I had taken Leesa Barnes class on Camtasia!) Once again, I say to myself, “How hard can it be?
Then my Twitter pal Wendy Y. Bailey encouraged me to use Screencast to host my videos so then I had to learn that.

OK, I admit… I got up at 5am more than once to play with all this but it was exhilarating! Knowing that I had a short turn-around time AND that I’m leaving on vacation in a few days inspired me to put the pedal to the metal. During the learning process (and during my many snags with practically each new system I was learning) I called on social networking contacts for help and they were amazing.

I needed to test GoToWebinar, so I sent out a Tweet asking if anyone could hop on for 10 minutes for a sound check. That message didn’t just go to Twitter, it went all over my social networking sites and I had a bunch of responses in minutes. That was a really cool way to experience the power of Twitter.

So this is the final score:

1. I now have the webinar thing DOWN! I learned so much, what to do, what not to do and can’t wait to do another webinar.

2. I also have a FULL ON PRODUCT out of all this which will be released after Sept 1 2008.

3. I have a short list of people on Twitter and other sites who I can count on when I need help or feedback.

On top of all that, I was able to share this experience with my class participants (and now with you) and it has sparked new conversations on the thrill and adventure of being a lifelong learner.

My challenge to you: learn something new today. Feed your brain, challenge your intellect, work on building up those neural networks in your brain. It’s good for you, and it’s great for your Sizzibility!

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