“Dork Shorts” at the WHA

This past weekend I attended THATCamp Bay Area, an “unconference” for digitally-minded humanists. Though I’ve attended two other THATCamps, this was the first one that did a “dork shorts” session, where each person that wants to present gets two minutes at the podium (similar to “lightning talks“). I liked the informality of this session and how it gave each presenter just enough to show what was important about their project, and to give a URL for those who wanted to learn more.

I was thinking about the dork shorts this morning as I was contemplating the challenge of teaching a workshop at the WHA conference–where there will be participants who are seasoned digital humanists and those who are just starting their first experiments with technology. Certainly the scope and variety of our projects will mean that we approach digital tools quite differently. So I’m setting aside some time in our workshop for some dork short-style talks to give attendees a brief opportunity to share their digital research successes, so we can all learn from each other.