What I learned by rickrolling my audience.

Erin Mikail Staples — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 16:24:32 +0000

I was invited to the How to Web conference to give a talk on proactive community moderation, but I left with more than just having done that — I also explored a glorious part of the world and made a bunch of new friends. Comrades and collaborators who all understood the value of the web and how it can help us collaborate.

By no means was this my first talk I've given, but it was one of the talks I'm most proud of having given.

This talk stood out for a few different reasons:

First IRL international talk under my belt! 🎉
I received great feedback from the conference organizers and attendees of my talk.
My talk was described as a "fun, insightful look in the world of online community." (Yes, I immediately added that Twitter DM I received after my talk to the 'wins' folder).
I rickrolled the audience in the name of education. 😉

Now, I'm all for fun, games, and a laugh or two — I am, after all, a standup comedian by night. But sometimes, we sacrifice learning and insights when we lean into fun and games.

I struggled earlier on in my career to find the right balance between "fun" and "educational" and ended up more like a bad take of the One Semester of Spanish Lovesong.

Here are some tips I've learned to effectively marry the content divide between fun and functional in the content arena.

Understand the point you want to make — how does your commentary move the narrative of that point forward?
If you have to "force" the plot forward because you're making a joke — it's not worth it. Your audience will be confused and struggle to draw a connection. Remember, your audience doesn't know the topic as much as you do; you're the expert in the room. Make it easy for them to understand what they should take away from this conversation.

Know the stage you're on.
Different stages have different tolerance levels for comedy. Given I was at a very online, very tech-savvy audience, I understood internet humor would perform well. This was a primarily international audience. English Many folks spoke English as a second language. Satire, sarcasm, or other points of humor may not have landed as well as the rickroll because of the amount of nuance, context clues, and other subtleties that were to take shape. This doesn't mean it wouldn't be possible, but is it fun to make your audience work to understand your humor? Keep it simple.

Tie it together.
IMHO, nothing is worse than when you read a book and an author gets overly carried away in a side tangent or plot detour that doesn't matter or add value. Sure the joke could offer terrific prose and descriptive powers — but it also could open up confusion and frustration if not done well. How can you tie your humor or jokes into other parts of your talk?
In my case, I could connect the dots to show how the glorious Rick Astley has become a more harmless form of internet trolling on the larger spectrum of all internet trolls.

If you're not having fun, neither is your audience.
At the end of the day, if you're not having fun, neither is your audience. Take the stage with purpose and for a reason; entertain, delight, and inform with your words, mannerisms, and habits. Your audience came to see you and the content you're delivering. In the words of John Mulaney, canceling plans is as addictive as heroin. If you're fortunate to be a plan that someone isn't planning on canceling, make it worth their while. 😉

How do you have fun in what you do?
What are your tips for having fun and incorporating humor in the talks or educational content you create? How do you surprise and delight your audience on a stage or video screen?
Let me know! I'm always looking to level up my repertoire!

🏄🏼‍♀️ Catch you online.

Erin

This post was originally posted on erinmikailstaples.com

My pet peeves on internship programs (as a college professor helping students pick internships)

Erin Mikail Staples — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 00:25:23 +0000

It's Summer Internship Season...

... and that means I'm seeing some questionably ethical internships.

I'm a current adjunct professor in a Graduate Program, often working with 10-15 students to help them find internships, craft resumes, build portfolios, and navigate the ups (and downs) of your early career woes.

Before instructing at the graduate level, I built internship programs at Agencies, and helped students find their first internships + learn professional skills at the undergraduate level as well.

The biggest mistake most internship programs make is forgetting that students are students.

You're not hiring a seasoned professional. You're not hiring someone who's going to be a new member of your team. You're not hiring someone who is an expert in this field. You're hiring a student who has a desire to learn, and try something new, possibly even for the first time.

That doesn't mean that this student is inexperienced, lacks professional etiquette or expertise, or even can't help you learn a few tricks as well. What it does mean is that you must be patient and provide space and mentorship for a student to learn a skill.

Internship programs must come with clear learning objectives

If you can’t explicitly provide learning objectives and time to review learning objectives, you should not be hiring an intern.

Questions I often ask folks looking for an intern

What will someone learn through this internship?
How are you holding whomever is managing this intern accountable for what they will learn?
How is the interns success measured?
What is the end goal of the internship?

One thing to note — none of the above questions are focused around the employer themselves, they're focused around the student, as an internship should be.

Interns are legally entitled to being the primary beneficiary of an internship — meaning, they’re likely to slow you down a bit as part of their learning process. That's normal and expected.

(Sorry all, the days of interns fetching coffee are no more).

What I love to see in internship programs!

I know that I've been a bit of a downer on internship programs, but there are a few things I love to see as well. Clear learning objectives and students getting their hands-on real world work is great! Learning how it works in an office, including attending meetings, systems and workflows, and making connections in different places in the workplace is awesome to see.

Furthermore, I love hearing stories of not only when students were hired and it worked out great — but also stories when students were able to try something new for the first time and realize it's not for them.

Remember, internships are learning experiences, and sometimes that learning experience is for someone to learn what you don't want to be when you grow up in a fairly uncommitted way.

I want to help students, but I don't have a budget or system in place for a true internship program.

I love to hear this — and to be realistic when it's not going to work out! Work with students in more of a mentor/mentee role, offer to review resumes, recommend to peers and colleagues, etc.

Even just giving feedback on projects or helping to meet for a coffee over "what it's like a day in my shoes" is always a good learning experience as well.

These experiences can be still mutually rewarding and a good experience for both the mentee and mentor.

Are you running an internship program? Have you had a particularly memorable internship?

I'd love to hear more about what worked (and what didn't).

Let me know by dropping a comment below or getting ahold of me on Twitter or Email.

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