If all of us really missed the point about practice and experience–and it appears we dd–it was only because you gave us so much to chew on in your original article. Having jus finished Gladwell’s “Outliers,” I’ve find myself looking even more at the importance of practice and experience–something that was never far from my mind anyway and looking for ways to make sure those critically important elements are not ignored in everything I do. I can assure you, since Lori Reed and I are doing CLENE’s ALA morning preconference workshop in Chicago this summer, that attendees are not going to be listening to nonstop lectures; we’re working on exercises to engage everyone, to give them fun and thought-provoking experiences they can apply in their workplace, and to leave them with ideas of what they can do next to continue improving their presentation skills. And, as always happens in communities of trainer-teacher-learners, we suspect we’re going to learn more than a few things along the way while having a good time.

I recently served on a conference program committee of an annual teaching and learning with technology conference most likely sponsored by the “national information technology association” you mentioned. I have presented at several different conferences hosted by this national information technology association and each time I received feedback not only from audience members about my presentation (invaluable!) but also feedback on my proposal (invaluable too!).

As a conference program committee member I actually had access to the speaker audience feedback and it weighed into decisions to accept presentations (it was one of many criteria). We only used the speaker audience feedback to look for red flags. As a committee we talked a lot about how we might help people with their presenting skills, but nothing has been decided.

As someone who read a whole lot of conference proposals, it was clear to me that some folks need help with presenting their ideas in writing as well. The conference program chair (who also happened to be high up in the administration of the organization) even allowed folks to submit their proposals to her for feedback before the final submission. She viewed this as professional development. Most people who took advantage of this option were non-native English speakers.

I would highly advocate for presenter feedback at both the presenting and proposal writing levels. After all, participating in conferences in professional development and we should help each other grow in that capacity.

This conference I assisted with was much smaller than ALA or ACRL, but it still seems that there could be ways to provide various levels of feedback.