What I was expecting: The four of us standing in front of our poster awkwardly and getting no questions from anyone.
What happened: Once we began the session, our colleagues showed up. Once they began talking to us about our poster, more people started approaching us and asking questions. We fielded them as a group, explaining each of the stories that we had on our poster and why we chose to tell them.
We had some very interesting questions that had nothing to do with our poster. A person came up and asked me about storytelling software and if I had any suggestions for a good one. I told her that it was a different kind of storytelling that we were doing in the information literacy classroom, but then suggested that she look at other programs who were doing storytelling projects that may have a better idea of what to use. She then asked questions about the storytelling in the informational classroom which rounded it out nicely.
Everyone who approached loved the look of our poster with the bright green and the avatars. They liked the creativity that went into it and I believe it made the poster more inviting.
It’s amazing the shape that conversations take during a poster session- because of the informal presentation format, attendees have the opportunity to really ask questions about your project, your work, and ultimately engage you on a much deeper level because they have real access to you. Presenting to a room of people in a more formal setting is a great way to get a lot of really organized information out quickly, but poster sessions are probably my favorite mode of presenting because of the spontaneous conversations. I’m so glad you enjoyed it!