Recently, I had the opportunity to create a few recorded demonstrations for our Collaborate website.  I must be a true Collaborate geek, because I REALLY enjoyed doing it.  It will not come as a surprise to those who know me, but I tend to be a bit long winded.  I like to talk; I can’t help it. So when I was instructed to make these recorded demos 2 – 4 minutes long I knew it would be a challenge.  Luckily, I have incredibly intelligent colleagues who wrote an effective and concise script that helped me get close to the length.  In my first attempt, I simply loaded the PowerPoint file and did the demo from scratch.  Meaning, I turned on the talk button, record button, launched the desktop share, etc. all manually.  That one was 6 minutes.  In my second attempt I just talked faster and did the same thing – it was still 6 minutes!  What?  Are you kidding me? It was not the content that stretched the recording beyond my time limit, as I said the script was built for a perfect 3 minute recording.  Instead, what was eating away at the clock was the process of building the recording and simply looking around the UI to find the various menus and actions.

Virtual Career Fair is one of my absolute favorite use cases for Blackboard Collaborate’s breakout rooms.  The following is another of my bright ideas and has happened in my imagination only, so far!  Imagine with me, if you will…you’ve been invested financially, emotionally, educationally and personally in obtaining your degree for 4+ years and graduation is rapidly nearing.  The economy…well the economy sucks!  Word around campus is there are a very limited number of jobs for me in my field and they are hugely competitive given the number of unemployed in my geographic area.

As the Product Specialist at Blackboard Collaborate^™, I am passionate about my responsibility of sharing my expert knowledge of Blackboard Collaborate products with customers and prospects.  That passion can be seen daily while I showcase the value of Blackboard Collaborate’s capabilities and by supporting the overall “Everyone Educated” mission.   Since joining in 2006, I have helped establish Blackboard Collaborate in both educational and corporate agencies across the nation and have hosted Community User Conferences across the southeast US.  I proudly hold a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Oklahoma.  Boomer Sooner! Shannon’s Bright Ideas Center grew out of my excitement to help our users be successful by increasing their skills and knowledge, and to learn at their own pace over time.  Shannon’s Bright Ideas Center is archived at LearnCentral and will continue its mission of sharing bright ideas about Blackboard Collaborate capabilities here in the blog site and on Twitter @virtualforte. Some of these bright ideas are my own; others are inspired by colleagues, customers, family, friends and the global community of virtual learners.  You are encouraged to share your own bright ideas as well.  Here is the first of many bright ideas that I will share here and I look forward to hearing yours.