HOW DO YOU LEARN NEW THINGS IN TECHNOLOGY?

I was coaching a person the other day about getting on the workshop circuit and becoming a paid professional speaker (see my site http://www.paidpublicspeaker.com for more about this part of my business). I have claimed for a while that I am not that technical a person, but she challenged that. She told me she wanted to learn more about several programs, including PowerPoint, so she could use them more effectively. How do you learn this stuff?, she asked.

The old answer was that I would go to my local bookstore and read one small method out of the PowerPoint guidebook for complete dolts. This made for torturously slow learning, but gradually learned most of what I needed to know.

LEARN ONLINE THROUGH VIDEO TUTORIALS

My new answer is different. I go to Google and search for “tutorials” or “video tutorial” on whatever subject I want to learn. In this way, I found one of my favorite sites for online tutorials, Screencastsonline (A Mac-only tutorial site. Check them out at: http://www.screencastsonline.com/sco/). The host of Screencasts Online, Don, is a great teacher and tutor. He explains everything you need to know to get set up using programs or services on the Mac.

I have become proficient on several programs that I knew nothing about following Don’s clear tutorials. It costs me $35 for six months of numerous great tutorials and it has made me thousands of dollars so far in the ways I have implemented what I learned. By the way, Don was able to quit his job and make a full-time living through this service, started when he converted to Mac and began to convert friends and relatives who then asked for his help in learning how to better use their new Macs.

I bought a new Mac about a year ago that could run Windows from within the Mac perating system. Problem: I have been using computers since the early 1980s, but had never used a Windows machine and had little clue as to how they worked. Solution: I searched Google and found a free tutorial. It took me about two hours to learn the basics of how Windows worked (much of Mac and Windows are the same these days, but there are crucial differences that will stymie you if you don’t know about them).

Another of my favorite sites is www.lynda.com. For $25 a month, you get access to a bunch of tutorials. If you take just one, you could get your money’s worth, but there are literally hundreds of program tutorials on the site.

I find it easier to learn something is someone shows me than if I read it in a book or just hear it. Audio with visual is a powerful combination for effective learning.

USE TECHNOLOGY TO MASTER TECHNOLOGY

My coaching client vowed she would overcome her lack of technical knowledge and her intimidation about certain technical things by using this same strategy and I recommend it to you. Find it for free or pay a small fee and learn online. Don’t let technology defeat you. Use technology to master technology.