Before leading my workshop the first afternoon of the Social Media Strategies Summit, I participated in the day's earlier workshops. This is something I try to do whenever I'm speaking at an event. Doing this provides new ideas, reference points, and potentially frees up topics I needn't address as completely because an earlier speaker has covered them.
During these workshops, for whatever reason, I found myself thinking about how I process information shared during conference presentations. I began jotting down the strategic thinking questions (below) I was asking myself. It struck me that these questions tie to integrated listening. Whether the speaker's topic is familiar or unfamiliar, and whether the speaker's perspective agrees or disagrees with my own, I'm looking for what to incorporate from the material to adapt my perspective.
5 Strategic Thinking Questions for Integrated Listening
Within an integrated listening objective, these strategic thinking questions are ones that run through my head during a presentation:
- What of this material agrees with my world view?
- What parts challenge or contradict my world view?
- In what ways does this content enrich my current understanding?
- What should I consider doing differently (whether that's doing something new, stopping something, or altering a current practice) based on this presentation?
- What are the parts of this material I don't understand? If so, why is that?
These questions work, at least for me, to stay open to new information without completely abandoning what I think in favor of too eagerly embracing an expert's point of view during a presentation. – Mike Brown
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