This week’s cool links
13 June 2009This simple idea is so effective, and creative – love it! Thanks to Patti for the link. I’m tempted to make the trip to Wellington just for this Presentation Zen masterclass! Les Posen is a fan of Keynote and audience-centred slideshows (as am I, and that’s where the similarities end!). I aspire to his level…
Doing good without doing harm
13 February 2009My friend Phil is an independent documentary film-maker. A few years ago he inherited a run-down cottage in the bush. He divides his time between his country cottage and his Melbourne home. Like us, he’s well aware of the dangers of living in the bush and can emphasize with the bushfire survivors who are now…
Using word clouds to find the core
29 January 2009I’ve thought of another use for wordle. Geoff Brown and I have developed a training program called Insanely Great Slideshow Presentations. In this training we help people take all the information they want to present in a presentation and prune it to the core messages. For a lot of people this is very difficult. It’s…
Why is the default position a crappy presentation? And why is it OK?
16 September 2008I sit through a LOT of presentations. Not because I want to, usually because they are a part of a workshop I’m facilitating. The people giving these presentations have good things to say, interesting things. They are often passionate about their topic. So why is it OK to give a crappy presentation? Since I discovered…
Evaluation processes
4 June 2008Yesterday I facilitated a workshop about participatory evaluation for some folk working towards healthy communities. Here’s some of the processes I used. Visual Explorer: using photos to elicit people’s thoughts and insights about a particular topic The Story Spine: a story framework to help people tell stories about their experiences Full Circle: an active process…
Inspiration – and story to boot
12 March 2008If the truth be known, I use this blog to capture all those things I find inspirational and that I know I’ll want to use some day. Maybe there’s an easier way but I figure any readers out there might be interested too. I’ve been catching up on a few TED podcasts and this one…
More work to do in the world for women
9 March 2008At an International Women’s Day event I heard an Aboriginal woman talk of her family’s struggle to remain together; of the ignorance of others in declaring, when, as a teenager she took her siblings to the local swimming pool and was told she wasn’t allowed to swim there ‘because they would turn the water black’;…
A few (language) gems
12 January 2008Here’s a few links that are worth a look – all around the theme of language: Johnnie Moore has blogged about language – static versus fluid – with some links to interesting language articles. More on language – this time from the writer’s perspective – Victoria Ward writes I’ve been entirely inspired by Doris Lessing’s…
The Web’s Secrets
9 January 2008This TED talk by Jonathan Harris brings together technology, story, social science, evaluation, art and is entertaining to boot.
Connecting with people + story = winner
3 December 2007The Rudd Labor Government was sworn in today with Kevin Rudd aka Kevin 07 as Australia’s 26th Prime Minister. Not only was the incumbent Liberal Party vanquished but its leader John Howard lost the seat he had held for 33 years. Polls had shown the Labor Party ahead all year leading up to the election…