Via Blue Glass Interactive. Marketing infographics. Permalink | Leave a comment »
Selected by michaeleury
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Most Topular Stories
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The content marketing explosion [infographic]
Holy Kaw!9 Feb 2012 | 4:44 am -
Attention Leaders: YOU MATTER! #LeadershipChat 2/7/12
Angela Maiers Educational Services, Inc.6 Feb 2012 | 12:47 pmFor the past year, my Tuesday nights have been filled with insights and inspiration from the worlds top leaders who faithfully gather on Twitter for one of the most powerful and productive chat streams on Twitter: #leadershipchat The chat is co-hosted by author and CEO of C-Level Strategies, Inc, Lisa Petrilli (@LisaPetrilli) and The Connection Agent, Steve Woodruff (@swoodruff) , and each week they challenge and guide us through the questions that challenge us to be the best leaders in our fields and industry. I have learned a lot from this super smart crew, and I am very very… -
My first DE podcast
Ideas and Thoughts3 Feb 2012 | 11:09 amI have a heart for podcasting. Steve Dembo and Bud Hunt captured by attention way back when as they casually recorded themselves as they drove home from work. I loved the raw, authentic, casual nature of those recordings. So Steve and I have talked about doing stuff with Discovery and we both share the philosophy of "just do it". So here's how this podcast was born: As you'll tell from the podcast, this was not rehearsed and it was pretty much uncensored. I hope it can be something where I learn more about the awesomeness of Discovery and you can too. Can… -
You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to...
Steve Kinney4 Feb 2012 | 8:30 amYou can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do. -
Learning Tech 2012 Conference News
eLearning Weekly27 Jan 2012 | 9:53 amConference News! This April, in Chicago, I will be speaking about mlearning design and strategy at Learning Tech 2012. I love Chicago. It’s a city with an energy that makes events especially invigorating. I hope to see you there, April 23-25. For more information, I contacted Courtney Green in New York to ask her about the conference: Courtney, we know I will be at the conference representing eLearning Weekly Magazine, who else will attendees have the chance to meet, and what companies will be represented? We have a great line-up of speakers, including Kevin Munson, Chief Learning…
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Holy Kaw!
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The content marketing explosion [infographic]
9 Feb 2012 | 4:44 amVia Blue Glass Interactive. Marketing infographics. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
8 historical figures who ate disgusting things
8 Feb 2012 | 11:26 pmBefore you read this article, you may have thought your dog had the grossest eating habits ever. But Fido's penchant for poo is nothing compared to some of these sickos highlighted in Cracked. For example, Victorian scientist William Buckland: He didn't just stop at the meat of animals, either. While on a visit to St. Paul's Cathedral, a strange mark was found on the floor. A debate broke out as to what the stain could possibly be, at which point Buckland got on his hands and knees, licked the stain and confidently announced it to be bat piss. But the craziest thing Buckland ever did, at… -
5 explanations of why teenagers act the way the do
8 Feb 2012 | 11:22 pmUnderstanding the teenage mind could be a life's work. For those of you who don't have that kind of time, however, Mental Floss gives five things that could explain the mind of the teenager. For example, parents, have you ever wondered if your teenager is somehow getting dumber? Parents of teens often wonder what happened to the bright child they used to have. How can someone go from getting A’s to getting C’s when they seem to be doing the same amount of work? Once again, changes in the brain are to blame. While the merits of IQ tests are debatable, scientists used to think IQ… -
Surviving the loss of a star employee
8 Feb 2012 | 11:16 pmSome groups have stellar members who carry the team. That's all well and good until that member leaves. Then what? This Smartblog video will help you answer that question: Full story at Smartblog on Leadership. Top news for leaders. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
Disneyland circa 1957 [video]
8 Feb 2012 | 11:14 pmThis video was shot in 1957, less than two years after Disneyland had opened. The footage is newly restored and ready to take you to the happiest place on earth as it was in its early days. Full story at Mental Floss. All the top Internet videos in one place. Permalink | Leave a comment »
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Angela Maiers Educational Services, Inc.
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Attention Leaders: YOU MATTER! #LeadershipChat 2/7/12
6 Feb 2012 | 12:47 pmFor the past year, my Tuesday nights have been filled with insights and inspiration from the worlds top leaders who faithfully gather on Twitter for one of the most powerful and productive chat streams on Twitter: #leadershipchat The chat is co-hosted by author and CEO of C-Level Strategies, Inc, Lisa Petrilli (@LisaPetrilli) and The Connection Agent, Steve Woodruff (@swoodruff) , and each week they challenge and guide us through the questions that challenge us to be the best leaders in our fields and industry. I have learned a lot from this super smart crew, and I am very very… -
The Courage to Teach
31 Jan 2012 | 12:01 pmI am just finishing the final edits on the New Habitudes book (coming very very very soon!) My editor asked me to post some reflections on the chapter of Courage; as it is one of the hardest “Habitudes” to articulate and teach. I am sharing these with you in hopes that you will add to my pepective and understanding. What gives you “your courage to learn and teach?” Here’s how I see it: My Reflections on Courage The heart of education is an education of the heart. The root of the word “courage” is the Latin word “cor,” meaning… -
The 5 C’s of Passion Driven Leadership
25 Jan 2012 | 7:49 pm“Passion is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without passion.” Ralph Waldo Emerson I had the distinguished honor of giving the keynote address this week at the mid winter conference for the Utah Association of Middle and High School Principals. What a pleasure it was to be in the presence of such passionate and dedicated leaders. It was the… -
Passion Driven Leadership and Learning Webinar – Save the Date!
22 Jan 2012 | 9:07 amAs a part of their Leading Innovation-Driving Change Conversation, Mass CUE is hosting a special webinar series prior to their spring conference annual event. I am thrilled to be kicking off the passion driven conversation, and I am inviting you to join me! We know that education and work driven by passion awakens us to new learning and a world bigger than ourselves. Passion makes us curious, compels us to dig deeper, and sustains us as we persevere towards answers to questions that matter most. Explore with us how the principles and practices of a passion-driven work: disciplined study,… -
Project Yesu: Kids CAN Change the World
16 Jan 2012 | 6:05 pmI am thrilled to share this very special guest post from eleven year old Mallory; sixth grader and world-change agent. You will be amazed and inspired as you hear her describe the day she made the decion to change the world. In October 2011 I sat down to write my Christmas list for my parents, I looked around my room and I realized there was nothing I needed, nothing I wanted. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought about the children in Africa, and how they weren’t going to get Christmas presents, and there was a lot of things that they needed. So, I sent my mom an email with…
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Ideas and Thoughts
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My first DE podcast
3 Feb 2012 | 11:09 amI have a heart for podcasting. Steve Dembo and Bud Hunt captured by attention way back when as they casually recorded themselves as they drove home from work. I loved the raw, authentic, casual nature of those recordings. So Steve and I have talked about doing stuff with Discovery and we both share the philosophy of "just do it". So here's how this podcast was born: As you'll tell from the podcast, this was not rehearsed and it was pretty much uncensored. I hope it can be something where I learn more about the awesomeness of Discovery and you can too. Can… -
Understanding the Digital Divide
3 Feb 2012 | 5:35 amI need to be careful. A new job and new learning gives me plenty of excuses not to write. My mind is occupied with all sorts of things that make it challenging to be be reflective sometimes. Writing and blogging has been a critical part of my own growth as an educator and I have no intentions of that changing but I need to force myself to write. This might be one of those occasions. Last week I visited two dramatically different conferences. FETC is one of the larger educational conferences you'll ever attend. While numbers have decreased significantly from the first time I attended… -
A Tweet For Customer Service
22 Jan 2012 | 4:51 pmWhile what I'm about to share is pretty common place, i still find it fascinating largely because so many people and businesses haven't figured this out. Friday I left for Florida. Delta lost my luggage. This is the first time I've ever had my luggage lost. According to stats, airlines are 99.5% effective in getting people their luggage to the intended destination on time. I wasn't too worried. After all, I had my golf clubs which was really most important given I had a tee time the next morning. I knew my luggage was in trouble because it never showed up in… -
Should teachers own their learning?
10 Jan 2012 | 8:36 pmWhat if school districts and school administrators trusted teachers to let them direct their own PD? What if the ideas of personalized learning and students owning their learning was applied to teachers? These are questions I ask as I wonder about the ways in which schools and districts attempt to support teacher growth. In the same way schools have a hard time empowering students to own their learning, districts struggle with letting teachers own theirs. I'm not aware of any district that truly embraces the notion of personalized learning. Districts all seem to feel the need or… -
1461 and counting
1 Jan 2012 | 8:49 amIt's been nearly 1,500 days in a row that I've been taking a photo a day. I don't think I've missed more than an handful of days over that time. I continue to learn and find it now to be truly be a part of me. I don't ponder whether I'll keep doing it, I have no reason not to. It's not a chore anymore. As I've mentioned often, it's a mindfulness that has taught me a lot of things. Each year I tried to add something to challenge myself. 2008, was my first crack at it so I kept it pretty basic. 2009 I tried to create one word titles for each of my photos…
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Steve Kinney
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You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to...
4 Feb 2012 | 8:30 amYou can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do. -
The Academy for Software Engineering
16 Jan 2012 | 6:47 amOne Sunday morning, shortly before I was born, President Ronald Reagan stormed into the Oval Office with a copy of The Washington Post. “Can someone please explain to me how we have close to 10% unemployment, yet there are ten pages of job openings in the help wanted section? Jobs problem? There is no jobs problem.” His advisors politely informed him that the issue was that there weren’t enough people with the requisite skills for those open positions.1 Sound familiar? Highly-skilled, creative, problem solvers have the luxury of deciding which of their suitors they will work with. The… -
Code Year
2 Jan 2012 | 11:52 amCode Year: Make your New Year’s resolution learning to code. Sign up on Code Year to get a new interactive programming lesson sent to you each week and you’ll be building apps and web sites before you know it. No, seriously. Do it. -
Communication and Efficiency
21 Dec 2011 | 4:45 amIn too many schools, devices are purchased without a plan. Technology integration can’t be bought and doesn’t happen with a wave of the fiscal wand. Too often, expensive computers sit in carts or are used to deliver the same old instruction in a shinier way and that’s dangerous. It’s dangerous because, as a nation, we don’t need students that are learning the same way they did fifty years ago but with a glowing screen instead of a chalkboard. We need students that are trained in entirely new ways of thinking. We need creative and critical thinkers who are able to generate ideas,… -
What is a good age for children to begin learning to program?
20 Dec 2011 | 10:00 amWhat is a good age for children to begin learning to program?: Yours truly on Quora: The thing about learning to program is that it’s a lot like learning to read or do math. We’re not asking second graders to solve quadratic equations or read James Joyce and we shouldn’t ask them to write a content management system in Java either. As more and more of our personal, professional, social, and economic life takes place on a computer—whether it be a desktop or a mobile phone—it’s going to become increasing important that we possess a deep understanding how they work. Even if a child…
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eLearning Weekly
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Learning Tech 2012 Conference News
27 Jan 2012 | 9:53 amConference News! This April, in Chicago, I will be speaking about mlearning design and strategy at Learning Tech 2012. I love Chicago. It’s a city with an energy that makes events especially invigorating. I hope to see you there, April 23-25. For more information, I contacted Courtney Green in New York to ask her about the conference: Courtney, we know I will be at the conference representing eLearning Weekly Magazine, who else will attendees have the chance to meet, and what companies will be represented? We have a great line-up of speakers, including Kevin Munson, Chief Learning… -
Come Read our DevLearn11 Reaction Piece
16 Nov 2011 | 9:50 pmIf DevLearn 2011 at the Aria in Las Vegas did anything, it confirmed one certainty about elearning: elearning is exhilarating. eLearning is esoteric, cutting edge, tumultuous, and sexy. And elearning is an industry. Eric and Shonit Speaking at DevLearn11 Yes, elearning is a thrilling industry that combines esoteric theory like gamification, cutting edge tools like Cloud technologies, tumultuous teetering between HTML5 and Flash, and the inspiringly sexy and sleek iPad — the world’s most seductive learning tool. The eLearning Guild hosted quite a conference. Featured speakers spoke with… -
eLearning Thought Leaders: Mark Lassoff
11 Nov 2011 | 8:46 pmMark Lassoff of LearnToProgram.tv I was very lucky to catch Mark Lassoff in between speaking at DevLearn, working on his forthcoming book from Focal Press, and producing his next training video for the company he founded, LearnToProgram.tv. Mark is an anomoly in the world of elearning these days, because he knows how to code. I’m not just talking about the two big programming languages, HTML and Flash. Mark works with and trains javascript, PERL, XML, CSS, PHP/MySQL, and the new and somewhat talked about HTML5. In a world of rapid elearning tools that eschew code at every turn, I knew I… -
The All New eLearning Weekly
29 Oct 2011 | 7:44 pmWe’ve got DevLearn on our minds right now (Vegas Baby!). Still, we’ve been busy doing a make-over. eLearning Weekly has moved and become eLearning Weekly Magazine. B.J. and Eric will continue writing the same sort of posts that followed the original tagline: “Tips, Tricks and Lessons Learned”. We love to share the nitty-gritty elearning work flows and work-arounds. And we love the sense of community here at eLearning Weekly. The readers have chimed in and added comments that make the posts better for the next readers. Come by and see us at eLWmag.com and keep reading… -
3D Tips for the Part-Time eLearning Freelancer
26 Jul 2011 | 8:11 pmOne of the best pieces of advice my father gave me was, “Discover what you’re good at and then learn how to make money at it.” Just like most obedient young boys, I totally ignored my father’s advice. Even though I’ve been drawing and cartooning my whole life and developing elearning for the past ten years, I never put the two together. I’m a decent artist but most artists are their own worst critics, and even though I was passionate about it, I never once considered earning a living doing it. That is until I got serious and decided to officially freelance while working a day job.
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Presentation Zen
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Hans Rosling: The Jedi Master of data visualization
26 Jan 2012 | 11:31 pmDr. Hans Rosling is one of my presentation heroes; he's been featured or mentioned in all my books and several times on presentationzen.com over the years. If there is a Jedi Master of presenting data clearly, visually, and simply, then it is Hans. He proves time and time again, that data are not dull—and when you are trying to change the world, there is no excuse for boring presentations. Most people are aware of Dr. Rosling through his popular TED Talks, but just in case you've never seen him present, below is a nice 5-minute piece he did on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS. At TED.com you'll… -
New: Presentation Zen (2nd Edition)
18 Jan 2012 | 10:36 pmFour years ago my first book Presentation Zen was published by Peachpit Press. Since then I wrote two other presentation books and a sketchbook/storyboard book and a DVD (plus an additional DVD/Book just for Japan). Although a lot of time had passed, I was still happy with the original Presentation Zen. And yet, the original Presentation Zen book could benefit from a little freshening up in the form of a 2nd edition for 2012. This 2nd edition of Presentation Zen has the same look and feel as the original book and I still did all the design and layout myself. The biggest difference is the book… -
10 great books to help you think, create, & communicate better in 2012
10 Jan 2012 | 4:54 amIn the spirit of personal kaizen, I have listed below a few books that I read (or reread) over the past year that you may want to read as part of your own continuous improvement journey. (Clicking on the book's icon takes you to Amazon.com.) (1) Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long. Over the last 10-20 years scientists have made many remarkable discoveries concerning the brain and how it works. David Rock is not a neuroscientist but he is a good "neurotranslator" of the scientific evidence and does a good job of… -
Progress and the intentional selection of less
30 Dec 2011 | 5:26 pmMany people today talk about presentation technology as if it were a panacea for boring lectures and ineffective presentations. Technologies such as our laptops, iPads, and cool software packages are wonderful tools that can, when used well, increase the quality of communication and engagement. This is especially true when we need to engage with people live on the other side of the planet via tools like video conferencing, webinars, Skype, and so on. However, while technology has evolved in dramatic ways over the last generation, our deep human need for visceral connections, and personal… -
Steve Jobs: "People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint"
20 Dec 2011 | 5:12 amOne thing we need to constantly remind ourselves is that slides and other forms of projected visualization—no matter how "cool" they may be—are not appropriate for every context. Multimedia is great for presentations before large groups such as keynote addresses or conference presentations, but in meetings where you want to actively discuss issues or go over details in depth, slides—especially the snooze-inducing bulletpoint variety, which are never a good idea—are almost always counter productive. I stressed early on in the first version of Presentation Zen four years ago—and ad…
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Duarte Blog
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Creative Like a Fox! Dan Roam and I Compare Notes on Creative Process
3 Feb 2012 | 6:15 amDan Roam schools me on creative process. His new book, BLAH BLAH BLAH, offers awesome tips on how to utilize visual and verbal concepts to refine ideas to their most pure state. -
Are You a Fox or a Hummingbird? Dan Roam Explains Your Brain
2 Feb 2012 | 6:27 amDan Roam uses an animalistic metaphor to explain how your brain processes information, and reveals how to help facilitate communication between our verbal and visual minds. That and more in his new book, BLAH BLAH BLAH. -
Grammar Ain’t Just for Words Anymore
1 Feb 2012 | 8:58 amDan Roam used the rules of verbal grammar to build a Visual Grammar Graph that bridges the gap between verbal and visual concepts. Vivid Grammar is featured in his new book, BLAH BLAH BLAH. -
Quit Talking and Start Thinking
31 Jan 2012 | 4:03 pmDan Roam explains why we talk too much, and how we can use our predilection for vision to become better problem solvers. “Vivid Thinking” is one of the many gems in his new book, BLAH BLAH BLAH. -
Obama’s SOTU: What Is, and What Could Have Been
25 Jan 2012 | 3:46 pmLast night President Barack Obama delivered what could be considered the biggest presentation of the year. In outlining his vision for America and his legislative priorities for 2012, the President attempted to persuade a variety of different audiences – including the United States Congress, business leaders and 25 million members of the American public – that he has a plan to continue improving the lives of Americans. So how did he do? Leaving aside the merit of his proposals, did he tell a story compelling enough to convince such a broad audience? Graphic recording of the State of the…
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Ethos3 - A Presentation Design Agency
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Using Flash Fiction in Presentations
8 Feb 2012 | 12:08 pmThere are billions of ways to tell a story and millions of avenues with which to tell it. Storytelling has been around as long as humans have, and for good reason. Storytelling is the most effective way to get a point across. People live for stories. People are passionate about stories. Movies, books, television, magazines– nearly all media– is designed with a story in mind. The story is what hooks the audience; the story is what keeps them reading, listening, wanting more. Of course, as times change, so do stories and the ways we communicate those stories. Technology has revolutionized… -
How to Simplify Your Presentation
7 Feb 2012 | 3:03 pmYou’re staring at a fistful of slides from your upcoming presentation for the hundredth time and it hits you like a ton of bricks: all of this is much too complicated. You suddenly realize that your presentation sounds like every day of high school Calculus when your teacher may as well have been lecturing in Latin. It doesn’t make sense because it’s too complicated. You start having a mild panic attack… Relax. It’s going to be okay. A few small adjustments can save your presentation. First, find the crux of your idea. What are you trying to prove? What point are you trying to… -
How to Boost Creativity
6 Feb 2012 | 9:00 amIn a perfect world, the dreaded Monday after the Super Bowl would be a national holiday. We’d all get to sleep in and sleep off our beer and spinach artichoke dip hangover. Instead, most of us are dutifully sitting at our desks by 9 AM. No rest for the weary. On days like these, creativity is a vague, forgotten notion that most of us will wait to employ until the late afternoon, or maybe… tomorrow. So here are some tips on how to boost your creativity, whether that be on days where your mind is particularly hazy, or when you feel stuck, waiting for the metaphorical lightbulb to go… -
Dance vs. PowerPoint: A Modest Proposal
3 Feb 2012 | 8:45 amJohn Bohannon has a modest proposal. In his TEDxBrussels talk from November 2011, he asserts that “bad PowerPoint presentations are a serious threat to the global economy.” Touché, Mr. Bohannon. You’re speaking our language already. He claims bad PowerPoint presentations drain the global economy of $250 million per day and add up to an annual deficit of $1 billion a year. While we can’t speak to the truthiness of either of those claims, we can empathize with Bohannon. Bad presentations waste time and wasting time wastes money. Bad news all around. Bohannon’s modest proposal is to… -
Hot for Teacher
1 Feb 2012 | 8:13 amWhenever you have to do something, it’s usually preferable to do the sexy version of something. Who wants to change clothes and climb a ladder to clean gutters when you could just as easily change into that razor sharp dress shirt you got for Christmas and walk up the street for an afternoon cocktail? Who wants to sit down to eat your mom’s cheeseburger casserole if there was an option for surf and turf to be had? It seems that for every option life throws us there is a sexy version and an entirely un-sexy one to compare it to. When it comes to presentations, this rule also…
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Speaking about Presenting: Presentation Tips from Olivia Mitchell
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Find a Presentation Designer Here
25 Jan 2012 | 12:22 pmAre you looking for a presentation designer? I’ve been asked so many times if I could recommend a presentation designer that I’ve decided to publish a list of PowerPoint and Keynote slide design companies and freelancers. I asked each presentation designer to talk about their approach to presentation design and to give me an example of a slide that represents their brand. I’ve used a very traditional method to order these presentation designers – it’s alphabetical based on the principal’s last name. You’ll see a tremendous variety in approaches… -
6 Presentation Links Worth Clicking
14 Jan 2012 | 5:33 pmWhen I was in the States last year, I met up with Nancy Duarte… and she interviewed me. She’s now written up the interview on her blog. Find out more about my story and why I’m passionate about helping people be better presenters – and particularly helping people overcome the fear of public speaking. Here’s the link: Nancy Duarte interviews Olivia Mitchell. And here’s five more links to great writing on presentation skills: Even TED speakers get nervous TED is an elite conference where invited speakers give 18 minute talks on the ideas they’re… -
The sobering truth about what an audience remembers
27 Sep 2011 | 8:40 amLast week I spent three awesome days at the Presentation Summit. In this post, I want to explore what audience members remember from a presentation, using the first three keynotes of the conference as my examples. I asked as many people as I could what they remembered from each of these keynotes. This was an informal, non-random, non-scientific survey. Nigel Holmes Photo Credit: Rikk Flohr – www.rikkflohr.com Nigel Holmes is a phenomenal graphic artist who used to be Art Director for Time magazine. His presentation didn’t start well – there were a few technical hitches and it took him… -
The two types of presenter: which are you?
25 Aug 2011 | 3:03 pmThis is a post written by Tony Burns, my partner and co-trainer. There are two types of people in the world – those who divide the world into two types of people, and those who don’t. I’m one of the former. I find models useful – they show distinctions that can help explain and predict behaviors – and they can help us see other opportunities and ways we can grow. One distinction that, as a presenter and presentation trainer, I’ve found useful, is to look at whether a person is “careful” or “carefree” when it comes to creating and delivering presentations. It’s a question… -
The 5-step cure for boring body language
16 Jun 2011 | 2:05 amCould your body language be more expressive? Do you inhibit your natural body language when you’re public speaking because of your self-consciousness? Or maybe you’ve been told (by a well-meaning but misguided person) that you wave your arms around too much? As a result you’ve shut down your natural gestures and become stiff and boring. The secret to curing boring body language in public speaking is to replicate the state you’re in when you’re in an animated one-on-one conversation. When you’re in that state your gestures unconsciously complement what…
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How to Change the World
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Raising Money: What Not to Say and What Not to Believe #OfficeandGuyK
20 Jan 2012 | 10:46 amOver the past two weeks via my partnership with Microsoft and Office Web Apps, I’ve provided templates of models for you to create enchanting PowerPoint pitches, Word business plans, and Excel financial models. They are all available for you to download from my SkyDrive account. I hope these documents and blog posts help you save a boatload of time and increase the quality of your efforts.I leave you with two sets of top ten lies: one of entrepreneurs and one of investors so that you know what not to say and what not to believe. Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs “Our projections are… -
Design a Sam Adams beer
20 Jan 2012 | 8:24 amNow this is a fun project. I’m helping Sam Adams “tap” the knowledge of beer drinkers and crowd source its next brew. Join the party by getting the app and designing your beer: The final brew will be released in Austin in the first week of March. #sponsored -
How to Create an Enchanting Financial Forecast #OfficeandGuyK
17 Jan 2012 | 1:52 pmThis is the third post in my Microsoft partnership, and it’s all about numbers. The topic is crafting your financial forecast to include in your pitch. Bill Reichert, my partner at Garage Technology Ventures, created an Excel model and wrote this blog post. There’s a lesson in this too: Get the best person for the job. His grasp of financial models and how to present them exceeds mine by two orders of magnitude. The Purpose of Financial Projections When it comes to financial projections, there are two types of entrepreneurs: first, the “visionary entrepreneur” who… -
How to Create an Enchanting Business Plan #OfficeandGuyK
12 Jan 2012 | 8:16 amHere is the second post in my series about planning, pitching, and launching a new business venture. In partnership with Microsoft and Office Web Apps, I’ve created a Word document that outlines a good business plan. It’s saved to my SkyDrive folder here. Feel free to download it and use it as inspiration. And if you’re working with a partner, you can use the free Word Web App to stay in sync. I provided the PowerPoint document before the Word document because a good business plan is an elaboration of a good pitch as opposed to a good pitch being a distillation of good business plan. -
How to Create an Enchanting Pitch #OfficeandGuyK
9 Jan 2012 | 8:01 amWelcome to the first in a series of blog posts I’ll be doing as part of a partnership with Microsoft and Office Web Apps. Over the next two weeks, I’ll cover everything a budding entrepreneur needs to turn an idea into an enchanting investment opportunity—from the perfect pitch to a killer business plan to financial forecasts. I’m going to start with a little dissertation on creating effective PowerPoint pitches for your company. I embedded the sample deck for you to click through by using the PowerPoint Web App. When you’re ready to get started, you can download the…
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The Tom Peters Weblog
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Off the Cuff #2
7 Feb 2012 | 8:17 amOur Off the Cuff video series is a direct response from Tom to your questions. This is the second video in the series, which poses the question, "What is the greatest piece of advice you ever received that has made you a better writer or communicator?" It's a terrific question for Tom, and he discusses not only writing influences, but touches on public speaking as well. Don't miss the Dan Pink technique at the end; it may feel excruciating in practice, but there's no denying the improvement gained. -
TLBT Video #73Strategy: Measure Innovation
3 Feb 2012 | 8:46 amWe've posted the latest video in The Little BIG Things series on YouTube. Do you think it's impossible to measure innovation? In this video, Tom offers a brilliantly simple, easy-to-implement method for ensuring that a good portion of your work meets the mark on innovation. You can find the video in the right-hand column of this page or watch it at YouTube (time: 2 minutes 3 seconds). Or, get a PDF transcript of the video's content: Strategy: Measure Innovation. -
MOAP #4
30 Jan 2012 | 7:53 amThe latest installment of Tom's "Mother of All Presentations," or MOAP, is now available at ExcellenceNow.com. You can download the PowerPoint version or a PDF. We'll be releasing a section every other week throughout 2012. Part 4 introduces Tom's conviction that encouraging your people to make friends in other functions of the organization should be a top priority. Tom says you should reward such behavior, make it an agenda item. Download Part 4 of Tom's Mother of All Presentations, and learn how and why cross-functional socialization (read, idea-sharing) is essential to business excellence. -
Race to Nowhere
27 Jan 2012 | 4:51 amTom has said, "We tell our kids to 'be still,' then tell them to 'read history books'—which are replete (100%!) with tales of people ... who never sat still." This is obviously not the ideal way to cultivate a talented workforce. The education system in the United States still seems to be attempting to churn out well-behaved factory workers. With the enormous pressure placed on teachers to produce sufficient test results, the classroom becomes more about test preparation than exploration and discovery. Albert Einstein, long since deceased, had this to say: "It is nothing short of a… -
Advice, For What It's Worth ...
25 Jan 2012 | 7:20 amI was asked to contribute (a very few words) to a family page offering words of wisdom to a graduating high school senior. That's a serious challenge—and I literally spent days on the task. Here, for better or for worse, is the result: Rules For Living Life to the Hilt Nothing will turn out the way you thought it would. There is no bigger waste of time than making plans. Any success you have will be the byproduct of having thrown yourself headlong and without reserve into what you were most passionate about—and then ridden the wave you created wherever and at whatever speed it…
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chrisbrogan.com
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Throw Away the Maps
6 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amPeople judge us by the path they’ve seen us walk before. They can’t anticipate our future steps. We, ourselves, look to how things have been, what seems to be the lay of the land, without realizing that the maps are not the territory. Want to succeed at work? Then don’t try to do your job. Instead, work towards something larger, more meaningful, and something that blends your convictions internally with your best ability to help others externally. Want to create something new? Then throw away the old, or maybe join two disparate old things together into something new. The… -
The Next Social Networks
5 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amThe rage in social networks right now is Pinterest, partly because it’s probably the first social network that has a much higher adoption rate by females than males, and partly because it’s an interesting concept: somewhere between visual social bookmarking and scrapbooking. What also might not be immediately obvious is that it’s just “easier” to interact there. In that way, Pinterest has something in common with Instagram, which is community around photos. What I’m interested in, though, is Gentlemint, which I keep calling “Pinterest for… -
Learn From Adele – Build Your Platform
3 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amJacq and I just watched Adele Live At The Royal Albert Hall (amazon affiliate link), and though every song was just wonderfully done, I found myself fascinated by what Adele was doing in between each song. Because even though most people would be interested in hearing her belt out her amazing repertoire of hits, what I took away from the performance was Adele’s real magical ability: the ability to resonate with her audience. What Adele Could Teach You About Impact I’m writing something about this right now for my upcoming book with Julien Smith, but I had to share some of the… -
Rob Gokee is a Musical Wizard
2 Feb 2012 | 8:05 amI had such a great experience working with award winning musical composer Rob Gokee. We did some musical work together, and the process was so amazing. Rob helped me create my theme song for Shhh! The Secret Show. So anyhow, he and I sat down to do an interview, and it’s a bit long, but it’s totally worth it. We talk about what collaboration feels like at a distance, what it takes to get music like this made for your own show, and a lot more. Rob’s a hero to me, and has been part of the community for a while. I was so fortunate to have worked with him. Can’t see the… -
Build Your Platform – Start
30 Jan 2012 | 1:30 amThe following is part ONE of a series called Build Your Platform. If you find it interesting, please consider subscribing for free to get the rest of the series. This post is long. You might want to bookmark it for later. The age of social media oversaturation is upon us. People are declaring Twitter bankruptcy to go along with their email bankruptcy. They cite not wanting to start on yet another social network as their reason for not getting more involved with Google+. And just as soon as you start getting into Pinterest, you hear about Path, but wait: there’s Gentlemint, which is…
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Ignite Social Media
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Starburst: Facebook Fan Page Example #14
9 Feb 2012 | 5:47 amThe next stop in our Facebook Fan Page Example series is Starburst. This brand has built a sizable following of about 10.4 million fans but has it taken full advantage of this opportunity to engage them? Let’s take a closer look to find out. Starburst Landing Tab: Wall When users come to the Starburst fan page for the first time, they land on the wall. The numerous fan postings on this tab show the positive sentiment consumers have for the product. However, the wall lacks a call to action and does little to share brand messaging with page visitors. Starburst has long established itself as… -
Disney Parks Prove to be Big on Magic, Short on Social Media
8 Feb 2012 | 5:48 amRecently, my family and I went to Orlando to escape the arctic tundra that is the North Carolina winter and go to the happiest place on Earth. While there, I figured I’d see what kind of social media efforts were present within the Disney parks. As the Disney Corporation is one of the great marketing forces on the planet, I figured it would be a time for me to take notes and learn from the great masters behind the Mouse. However, what I found was quite to the contrary. My first stop was at Epcot (my personal favorite). I whipped out my smartphone and started looking for @Epcot so that I… -
NASA, Reuters, NASCAR, Social Media Project – Topics That Are Igniting
7 Feb 2012 | 10:08 amNASA Releases First Multiplayer Facebook Game NASA recently launched its first online game for the social media age, Space Race Blastoff. Available through NASA’s Facebook page, the multiplayer game challenges players with trivia of NASA history, technology, science, and pop culture. Players who correctly answer questions earn virtual badges depicting astronauts, spacecraft, and astronomical objects. David Weaver, NASA’s associate administrator for communications hopes the game opens up NASA to a wide new audience of people accustomed to using social media. Reuters Debuts… -
Social Media Marketing Examples from Super Bowl XLVI
6 Feb 2012 | 11:54 amLast year, I made a few predictions about this year’s Super Bowl 46. And most of them actually came true. This year we saw the first ever QR code integration into a Super Bowl ad, over 20 ad leaks on YouTube before the big game and a better use of hashtags in commercials. While I still think improvements can be made building more integration into traditional advertisements with social campaigns, here are a few examples from this year: Jumping on the ‘Volkswagen’ Last year, Volkswagen broke ground by releasing their ‘The Force‘ Super Bowl commercial early on YouTube… -
Top 50 Branded Facebook Fan Pages, January 2012: Nokia leaps, Monster slips
2 Feb 2012 | 6:08 amThe latest monthly list of the Top 50 Branded Facebook Fan Pages is now available for January 2012, and several brands made impressive runs to kick off the year. While some brand grew slowly in the way I described recently on Mashable.com, many more brands bucked that trend and grew 5, 10, even 39% percent in one month. Fastest Growing Facebook Pages The fastest growing branded Facebook fan pages of January 2012, by percentage growth, are: Nokia, which grew 39% and broke on the list at #50 Xbox, which grew 19% and moved up 3 spaces to #17 McDonalds, which grew 18% and moved up 1 space to #18…
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Graphic Design Blog - An Ultimate Resource for Graphic Designers
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SocialDon – FREE Comparison of Facebook Analytics!
7 Feb 2012 | 9:33 pmEach day, more and more companies are registering themselves on Facebook to increase their online market presence. This is because Facebook is the most used social media site in the world (Ranked 2nd by Alexa in their global website rankings). Did You Know? –› 43% of the Facebook users Like, or are fans of, at least one brand on Facebook. –› The average U.S. Facebook user “Likes” an average of 14 companies/brands. –› 40% users Like a company’s page to receive discounts and promotions. –› 33% users Like a company’s page to… -
25 Amazing Not-Photoshopped Pictures – See it to believe it!
6 Feb 2012 | 2:42 amPhotoshop manipulation is an art practiced by a lot of artists and designers. It is even used in creating print advertisements for major brands and for designing other promotional props. Every now and then, we witness several pictures on the internet that are altered or manipulated using Adobe Photoshop. But there are some pictures that baffle us into thinking they must be manipulated, even though they are not photoshopped at all. Do you know the real secret involved in these pictures that claim not to be photoshopped? Well the answer is really simple…forced perspective. In the field… -
GDB Comment Contest Results Announced – Congratulations Winners!
3 Feb 2012 | 3:13 amHey guys…the much anticipated results of the comment contest on GDB are finally out. I’m sure you all must be ecstatic to know who the winners are. But before I reveal the name of the 3 lucky winners, let us take a brief recap of the entire event. We started this contest on 24th January 2012 with an aim to increase useful discussions and gain healthy feedback about our blog. The contest ends today on 3rd February 2012. In this short span of time, we received over 200 valuable comments from our loyal readers. The 3 Lucky Winners: It was a close competition as several participants… -
Meeting Graphic Design Clients for the First Time – Prepare Yourself!
31 Jan 2012 | 2:54 amI remember my first client meeting…even though it was quite long time back, but the whole episode is still a distinct memory. Not because it was my very first client meeting, but the anxiety and nervousness that besieged me was unforgettable. Trembling hands, shaky knees and sweaty forehead…altogether it was a nerve-racking experience. I am sure most of the newbie graphic designers face the same situation in their first meet-up with clients. However, this was just a onetime incident for me because with time I grew stronger in confidence after each client meeting. -
25 Tricky Optical Illusion Pictures – Find the Hidden Figures!
27 Jan 2012 | 3:56 amWe all have heard the proverbial phrase “A picture is worth a thousand words”. But what I am about to showcase today needs a new expression…“A picture in worth a thousand pictures.” Yes folks, I’m talking about visual images that show pictures within a picture. Also known as optical illusions, this technique tests the human mind to figure out odd and bizarre things that differ from objective reality. This concept is greatly employed by graphic designers in creating hidden logos and other graphic artworks with hidden concepts. Recall the Apple logo…
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Design Sojourn
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SOPA and PIPA from the Eyes of Design
2 Feb 2012 | 8:13 amAs the wave of SOPA and PIPA protests die down, it’s time to take stock of the implications such legislatures can have on the design community. Please do take my thoughts with a pinch of salt as I do not live in the US, and very likely not have the same cultural background or government system. But I do think that such a Bill could find traction in many other countries should it be passed. So indirectly, I could be affected. The importance of protecting Copyright and Intellectual Property Rights cannot be stressed enough. That is very clear. As designers, this protects the lifeblood of our… -
If this is an Automatic Door, Why do I need to Press to Open?
26 Jan 2012 | 2:50 amWhy indeed? Or perhaps, wanting it open is a manual activity, while the physical movement of the opening door is an automatic activity. Regardless, more design consideration is required to make this a much better and more intuitive user experience. -
Design Thinking in Manufacturing, A Workshop Series
25 Jan 2012 | 9:11 amI’m really excited to finally be able to announce an exciting project that we have been passionately working on since August last year (2011)! Design Sojourn was commissioned by Design Singapore, the national agency leading the initiative to establish Singapore as a global city for design in Asia, to develop a curriculum for an intensive 9-day design thinking workshop (starting from 6 February 2012) for their Design Thinking and Innovation Academy. The Design Thinking & Innovation Academy (DTIA) was established in 2010, to infuse design thinking and develop design-driven innovation… -
8 New Year Resolutions All Designers Should Have
15 Jan 2012 | 8:08 amWe are two weeks deep into the New Year and I am sure all of you have already hit the ground running. If you are anything like me, then you probably either forgotten to make a New Year’s resolution or could not think of one. Therefore I’ve decided to save everyone the trouble and compiled a quick list of 8 New Year resolutions I think designers should have. Just pick one and enjoy! Network More Make your online and off-line presence felt. Plan to meet more people in the real world, go to that party you keep pushing off, or even attend that design forum. Going online, dabble in social… -
Frog Design’s Tech Trends of 2012
11 Jan 2012 | 12:32 amJanuary is often abuzz with 3 things: New Year resolutions, trends and forecasts for the year, and CES. I’ll leave CES to the CES PR engines, because as designers, if you just focus on CES you will be a year too late. So if you want to consider something more interesting and forward looking, check out this compilation of technology trends for 2012 from the global team at Frog Design. It looks like a number of interesting predictions from some familiar names. Biomimicry is probably my favorite prediction of the lot. This design and innovation strategy is a long time coming as it is an…
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information aesthetics
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Deluge: How 300.000 Norwegians Move House in a Year
7 Feb 2012 | 1:33 pmThe short animation titled "Deluge" [bengler.no] by Even Westvang reveals how public data can be analyzed to reveal potentially interesting patterns. In particular, this movie demonstrates the patterns of 300.000 Norwegians moving house, by cross-referencing the tax records of about 4 million individual Norwegians from 2006 and 2007. In the movie, the data is filtered by paramaters like yearly income or age, and a distinction is made between 'incoming' (red) and 'outgoing' (blue) citizens. As a result, one can perceive that elderly people generally move over relatively short distances, while… -
Super Chatter: Analyzing Conversations about the Super Bowl on Twitter
6 Feb 2012 | 11:47 amThe online dashboard Super Chatter [collemcvoy.com] designed by advertising agency Colle+McVoy acts as a visual overview of the true impact of the Super Bowl event in contemporary social media, and Twitter in particular. An interactive timeline not only highlights some of the most important sports scoring events, but aligns them next to all the advertisements that were shown on television. A line graph then maps the rate of tweets-per-minute of those 641,094 tweets that mentioned one of more than 250 specific terms resembling "Super Bowl" (the official hash tag was only used in 4% of all… -
Revealing the Impact of Super Bowl Advertising on Social Media
3 Feb 2012 | 10:28 amThe interactive dashboard at Brandwatch Super Bowl [brandwatch.com] shows the true impact of the highly expensive advertising that is shown during the Super Bowl, in particular on social online media. Each so-called 'worm' represents a unique sponsor (including brands like Pepsi, Mars, Walt Disney or H&M). The accompanying number stands for the number of tweets that were made about that brand or their products over the last 28 days (and, yes, the 'worm' who has possession of the ball is winning). The additional display on the right reveals the complete ranking of all tracked brands, complete… -
Revealing the Energy Consumption of Each Building in New York
2 Feb 2012 | 11:16 amThe remarkably detailed map [columbia.edu] developed by the Modi Research Group of the Earth Institute at Columbia University reveals the total annual building energy consumption of New York, at both the block and 'taxlot' level (which is nearly at building level). The map was built using MapBox. The total energy consumption is expressed in kilowatt hours (kWh) per square meter of land area. The data actually was not retrieved from utility companies, but calculated via an elaborate statistical model that is based on current large-scale estimates (e.g. the average energy use by ZIP code) in… -
Comparing the Fundraising Performance of the US Presidential Candidates
2 Feb 2012 | 7:17 amThe NYTimes released a competitive dashboard of sorts, titled "The 2012 Money Race: Compare the Candidates" [nytimes.com]. Basically, the interactive graphic allows readers to contrast the various performance parameters in terms of fundraising from 2 presidential candidates next to each other. Another recent graphic [nytimes.com] lists the hundreds of organizations and people that fund the so-called Super PACs that are officially not controlled by those very candidates. As also explained in the accompanying press article, both infographics reveal how President Obama continues to outraise all…
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FlowingData
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Why I want to quit cable
9 Feb 2012 | 12:24 amGrowing up, most of my friends had cable television, but whenever I brought it up, my parents would always say that I watched enough TV already (which was true). So it was always a treat when we went somewhere like a hotel, where there were more than five channels. I didn't know what any of the shows were, but it sure was fun pressing buttons on the remote. Today, I still don't know what most of the shows are, but the novelty is gone. Nowadays, I have different choices (and priorities). I can entertain myself online, and services like Netflix and Hulu make that easier. When I do turn on the… -
Taxi migration in Manhattan
8 Feb 2012 | 9:45 amWhile we're on the topic of things moving on a map of changing camera angles, class project Taxi, by Tom McKeogh, Eliza Montgomery and Juan Saldarriaga, shows the movements of said vehicles in Manhattan, over 24 hours. Geographic location data for the origin and destination of each ride is combined with waypoint data collected from the Google Maps API in order to generate a geographically accurate representation of the trip. We used data from taxi rides originating or ending in the neighborhoods of Lincoln center or Bryant Park. The visualization recreates a 'breathing' map of Manhattan based… -
Animation shows national migration patterns
8 Feb 2012 | 12:24 amEven Westvang uses tax return data to visualize migration patterns of 300,000 Norwegians. When running at full speed the visualization is clearly lacking in terms of salient features, yet I find it interesting. Then again, I like looking at Pachinko machines and waterfalls — processes comfortably stuck between the random and the ordered. When slowing the animation down and filtering for certain demographies it becomes more useful. At its best laymen, like myself, can visually perceive facets of the natioal Norwegian migratory process that before were only available through the… -
Weave for visualization development
7 Feb 2012 | 2:39 amWeb-based Analysis and Visualization Environment, or Weave for short, is open source software intended for flexible visualization. Weave (BETA 1.0) is a new web-based visualization platform designed to enable visualization of any available data by anyone for any purpose. Weave is an application development platform supporting multiple levels of user proficiency — novice to advanced — as well as the ability to integrate, disseminate and visualize data at "nested" levels of geography. It looks like everything is done through a click interface, and you can piece together modules and… -
Members Only: How to Make a Contour Map
7 Feb 2012 | 1:32 amFilled contour plots are useful for looking at density across two dimensions and are often used to visualize geographic data. It's straightforward to make them in R — once you get your data in the right format, that is.
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design mind - business. technology. design.
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New Digital Economics Silicon Valley
8 Feb 2012 | 5:41 pm -
What Professional Designers Can Learn from the DIY Crowd
7 Feb 2012 | 2:11 pmIt used to work something like this: when you had a design problem, you called in the pros. Let's say you sought the ultimate ergonomic office chair, or a device that redefined portable audio. You called in the industry elite to create an innovative product for you. For decades, we've approached design as the province of experts. But in recent years, there has been an explosion of user-generated design. Talented people are going it alone and bringing their designs directly to market. What changed? In short: the Internet. The web has provided budding entrepreneurs with easy access to the… -
发现颠覆性商机的四种途径
5 Feb 2012 | 11:57 pm人们常常说：“苹果公司根本就不需要作消费者调研。”这句话通常会被作为反驳各种“需要作市场调研”观点的开场白。而事实上，苹果公司的设计人员也会进行相关的市场调研，只不过他们所做的这种市场调研不是你能够从消费者行为学的教材中找到的那些传统的调研方式。苹果公司所做的市场调研是对其产品被使用时的一种非正式的、即兴的敏锐观察。是否具有深刻的洞察力与天赋无关，关键在于意识。… -
共同期待下次Love What You Make急速面试
5 Feb 2012 | 9:22 pmfrog上海工作室近期成功举办了Love What You Make急速面试活动。本次活动邀请了16名从事设计相关行业的学生朋友们参与其中，他们与12名来自frog的团队菁英分享了其精彩作品并获取到来自青蛙们独到的意见、建议、经验与灵感。 活动中frog资深交互设计师Ryan介绍了本次活动的概念，亚太区市场总监Emily向参加活动的朋友们介绍了frog的前世今生，使得他们对frog有了更深入直观的了解。急速面试活动基于”speed… -
Davos Debrief: Data, Power, Happiness – It’s Getting Personal
5 Feb 2012 | 8:37 pmFollowing a year in which “people power” was the rallying cry from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street, the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting 2012 in Davos, which ended last Sunday, might seem like an elitist anachronism, but it is worth noting how the WEF over the past few years has tried in earnest to include voices from civil society as well as younger generations – from new, very active communities within the WEF such as the Young Global Leaders and the Global Shapers to – this year – even Occupy Davos. The result: As a “platform for…
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elearnspace
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Social networked learning in complex information environments
1 Feb 2012 | 12:45 pmIn mid-January I spent a wonderful day at American University learning about (and presenting on) the changing educational landscape, technology, and the practices and activities of learners. The slides from my presentation are below: Social Networked Learning -
I need some help
27 Jan 2012 | 12:40 pmOn February 8, I’ll be delivering a talk at TEDxEdmonton’s event Rethinking Open Source Culture. In 2003 I posted a few articles online on open source movements and learning: Open source p.I, Open Source p.II, and Why we should share learning material. I have benefitted enormously from open learning. Open online courses in particular have been among the most significant learning experiences in my life. I’m not a programmer. But I benefit daily from open source software – my blogs are wordpress, the server that hosts my sites runs LAMP, at work I use ELGG (the Landing),… -
“I can’t teach at Stanford again”
23 Jan 2012 | 9:50 amOpen online courses really mess things up. The force educators/funders/learners to question the value point of traditional education. Over the past four years, many different open online courses have been offered – some through formal universities (U of Manitoba – Stephen Downes and I, BYU – David Wiley, U of Regina – Alec Couros, Stanford – Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig, U of Illinois -Ray Schroeder). I have a long running question that influences my vision of education: If we were to design education today, without the legacy baggage of the existing system,… -
Online University Education in Canada
21 Jan 2012 | 8:50 amThere is more activity in online learning (or, at minimum blended learning) in higher education than most universities realize. When I was at University of Manitoba, we tried to get a sense of what faculty were doing with technology in their courses, particularly with what was then called web 2.0 (doesn’t that almost feel like I’m referencing a trend in the 70′s? you know, like bell bottoms?). First, we looked at the formal university reports – annual reports of department activity. We found very little. We asked Deans to forward an email to their faculty asking about… -
Lots of free learnin’ going on
11 Jan 2012 | 1:16 pm2012 is shaping up to be a good year for open online learning experiences (Sanford is actively promoting open courses, David Wiley is running an openness in education course, Alec Couros will likely be doing his EC&I831 again, etc.). I’m involved in several open online learning projects this year: 1. Ongoing from 2011: Change MOOC 2. Learning Analytics Open Course (sign up here) – Starts January 23. 3. Stephen Downes and I will be offering Connectivism and Connective Knowledge 2012 starting January 23. More info soon on sign up 4. I’m helping to organize an online…
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Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?
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Academic Alignment
18 Jan 2012 | 4:20 pm“Academic alignment” is a phrase that I’ve been using with increasing frequency to describe our efforts to maximize our use of instructional time at my school. Ira is someone whom I’ve admired for some time and whose work always engages and excites me and, while I’m not quite ready to rip the clocks off the wall, his recent post on undoing academic time hit my Twitter feed at exactly the right time. This year we have allocated larger blocks of time to 4 longer blocks; each is about 90 minutes long. In the past, the school operated on a 6-period day with… -
PhocuseD 2: I’ve been accepted to a PhD program. Now what?
17 Jan 2012 | 4:09 pmThe first thing you really have to do is start taking some classes and get familiar with the faculty. I had the good fortune to have had a good relationship with one of the Associate Professors on the educational leadership faculty. This helped immensely when I was getting started. The best advice he gave me was to identify a focus area as early in your program as you can and make sure that you tailor as much of your research as possible around this area1. I’m [obviously] interested in technology leadership. One of the “rite of passage” classes I was required to take focused… -
PhocuseD 1: What is this PhD thing really about?
10 Jan 2012 | 5:00 pmHere’s a confession: For the first year or two of my studies at CSU, I had no real idea what completing a PhD entailed. No one told me. It’s sort of like an exclusive club where no one really tells you the rules before you join. Let me give you the quick and dirty on what my program (and I believe many others in the US) looked like. The degree is 90 semester hours. That sounds intimidating until you learn that 30 hours usually come from your masters program and 15 hours are dissertation credits. That leaves you with about 45 semester hours of coursework to tackle. No small feat,… -
PhocuseD: A Preface
9 Jan 2012 | 8:25 pmAs of last August, I am officially a PhD Candidate1. The bulk of my (non-work) time since I presented my prelim to my committee2 in August has been spent working on what grad school folks refer to as the dissertation proposal.3 I completed this last month and am set to defend4 it in a few weeks. In the meantime, since I can’t actually start working on my research until my proposal is approved AND I receive approval from the IRB5, I figured I’d try to squeeze out a few blog posts. Since this PhD thing is what’s been consuming a significant amount of my time, that seems like… -
Back in Action
29 Aug 2011 | 5:51 amI can’t believe the amount of time that has elapsed since my last post in April. Here’s a quick recap of what’s been going on in my life over the last four months (four months!?!)… May saw some significant layoffs due to a RIF in my district. Not a lot of fun for a first-year principal who spent the entire year building culture. June was a great month for me as it was the second summer that I was fortunate to teach “Leadership & Ethics in Public Education” in the principal licensure cohort at CSU. July started with an amazing family road trip to see my…
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The Thinking Stick
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Flipping History
6 Feb 2012 | 8:11 amBy Stefan When most people think of the flipped classroom model or reverse instruction, which ever term you like best, they automatically think videos, screencasts, and when you get down to it lecture based instruction.But that doesn’t have to be the case. In fact every time I have helped a teacher flip their classroom in the high school it has never involved videos. Instead it involves students actively finding information, making sense of it, and then coming to class ready to discuss with the teacher what they have learned, what questions they have and, what it is they still don’t… -
Why I still want MS and HS to have a Laptop
30 Jan 2012 | 5:02 pmI received a tweet a couple days ago asking why I still believed laptops, in this case MacBooks, are the right choice for middle school and high school students. @jutecht Why did you select iPads for the primary and MacBook Pros for Middle and Hi? I'd love to hear your strategy! @cindybrock — Bradford G. Saron (@bradfordgs) January 26, 2012 Now before I begin, let me state that I firmly believe a 1:1 (one computer per student) program no matter what the connected device (device connected to the Internet) is better than no 1:1 program at all. If a school can only afford an iPad for ever… -
Too Many Projects Not Enough Time
26 Jan 2012 | 4:34 pmI can't believe how time is flying by this 2nd Semester. It's our last 6 months in Thailand and of course when you want time to slow down so you can fit everything in it does just the oposite. No excuses, I haven't made the time to blog lately and find myself sitting here at 6am in the van on the way to school with a moment to reflect. What I've been up to: School: All of a sudden the last two weeks have been packed! Our school is hosting the regional basketball tournament and this year we're going to try and live stream the games as well as have… -
Fully Online COETAIL Program Begins Feb. 5th
12 Jan 2012 | 5:49 amI am proud to announce that working with Buffalo State-SUNY we are now offering a fully online Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy (COETAIL) Program to International Educators. This is a special program that only International Educators (Educators working at recognized International Schools) can apply for. I can't believe it's been four years since we started this program at ISB and three years since Kim Cofino and I took it on and expanded it to other International Schools. At the moment we have 5 Cohorts running (a total of about 100 educators)… -
Tanzania, Kilimanjaro and Obama?
6 Jan 2012 | 1:16 amJust over 24 hours off the plane from the most amazing trip to Tanzania. As my wife and I prepare to transition back to life in America in June, we figured one last fantastic trip to Africa was in the cards....so off to Tanzania we went. Climbing Kilimanjaro Jumping at the Summit I'm proud to say that all four of us in our group made it to the summit some 5,895 meters (19,340 feet) above mean sea level. It was one of the most mentally challenging things I have ever done. Physically it wasn't that hard of a 5 day hike to the summit, but the mental aspect on summit day of walking for 6…
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Sticky Slides
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Pick your battles when pitching
8 Feb 2012 | 7:30 pmArguing until the bitter end about small facts, when the VC thinks she right because she has a reliable source (in her opinion) is not a good idea. You might be right, BUT you will not convince her, you will do no good to your credibility, and you raise doubts about how the future CEO-Board Member relationship is going to pan out. Better focus that energy in disagreements that are really worth arguing about. Pick your battles. -
Write notes after the meeting
7 Feb 2012 | 7:30 pmIf you are reviewing your presentation with your boss, here is a thought. Write down your notes immediately after the meeting. It makes for a better 2-way conversation as you are not scribbling all the time looking down on a piece of paper, and strangely it makes you remember things better. This article in Wired explains how your brain is refreshing the memory that is only slightly faded, that process makes future recollection stronger: Along these lines, Bjork also recommends taking notes just after class, rather than during — forcing yourself to recall a lecture’s information is more… -
Video summary in stills
6 Feb 2012 | 7:30 pmEmbedding video in presentations has its drawbacks. It adds another technical risk factor when setting up the presentation outside your office environment. File sizes become so big that it is hard to email a document. And a PDF version of the presentation does not show the video. As a solution, you can put in a video summary in your presentation consisting of a few key still images taken from the video. Our brain is powerful enough to make up most of what happens in between, and might even imagine the Star Wars sound track in the background when looking at last year’s Volkswagen Super Bowl… -
No need to show that monitor
5 Feb 2012 | 7:30 pmIn technical pitch presentations, you often have to show the application through screen shots. While a picture of the application inside a monitor frame might look nice, it is a poor way to get your audience to see the content of the screen. I would cut the monitor, cut the window bars above and below your application, and even zoom in to parts of the screen to highlight what is important. Cover everything that is not relevant (ads for example) with white boxes to keep things clean. Having said that, there might be 2 uses for the monitor shot. One for a very quick 5-second slide that enables… -
Not reality, not a cartoon
2 Feb 2012 | 7:30 pmHave a look at these great images (on Fubiz) in the series “Enlightened Souls” by French photographer Fabrice Wittner. He uses images of people with a stencil-like effect and puts them on a background of a real photo. This effect might be very useful in presentation design. It is very hard to a series of images with a consistent look and feel on either stock photo sites, or Flickr. Moreover, I find that using images with real people not working very well in slides. It is too personal. This slight distortion of the characters might just solve these 2 problems in one go.
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Les Posen's Presentation Magic
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Two thoughts on the Apple’s Education Event in NYC: Its presentation software, Keynote is alive and well and expected to prosper, and Android-based tablets are dead in the water in the K-12 education domain.
20 Jan 2012 | 5:41 amThis morning I woke early early to attend the Channel 7 Melbourne studios for an interview on its morning program, Sunrise. The topic was the virtual site, Second Life, which had apparently been mentioned in the midst of some controversy in a Sydney-based morning radio show. As so often happens, television picked up on it and I was rung by a producer to offer comments as a media psychologist. You can read something about what happened at this link here from the Metaverse Journal website. A video of my interview is below: After that breakfast, a brutal workshop with a personal trainer (2012… -
Was it Steve Jobs’ literally dying wish to upend another lazy industry – science and academic publishing? We’ll know more this Thursday
16 Jan 2012 | 11:08 pmWith Macworld just around the corner, I am tweaking my workshop presentation for January 25. By that time, we will know more about Apple’s publishing keynote to be held this Thursday and whether yet another industry – publishing, especially academic and scholarly – will be disrupted by Apple technologies. Some time back I wrote about this possibility here on this blog: Click on the screenshot to go to the blog entry Notice, will you, the date of this entry: January 7, 2010. The iPad 1 keynote was held on January 27, almost three weeks later, so at the time of writing we were… -
Effects I showed the Keynote engineering team in the hope they would be incorporated into the next version: Can you work out how I used Keynote 5 to achieve them?
5 Jan 2012 | 7:01 amStimulated by the interested shown in the solving of the Final Cut Pro X sneak peek keynote build effect, I’ve raced ahead and included two more Keynote files, this time of my own making. In the first, I feature something I spend some time on in Presentation Magic workshops, especially for scientists and academics, and that is the use of data visualization or good old graphs and charts. (I cite Edward Tufte and Stephen Few’s work richly, as well as Florence Nightingale. Huh? You’ll have to attend to understand why!) Keynote is very rich in ways to graphically illustrate… -
A new build feature discovered in Keynote 12 or just some really smart Keynote authors working at Apple?
3 Jan 2012 | 11:13 amWelcome to the first blog post of 2012! In the lead up to my two presentations at Macworld in a few weeks time, I’m creating some Keynote effects which I hope will tantalise and enchant my intended audience. Since there will be more people reading this blog than will attend, I thought I’d use you as a guinea pig to beta test some of my ideas. I’m going to put up some Keynote effects over the course of the next few weeks until I depart for San Francisco. The challenge will be if you can work out how I did it – and whether you think they are effects worth demonstrating… -
The vacuum left in presenting on things technology now that Steve Jobs has gone. Can All Things Digital’s Kara Swisher fill the gap? Um, er, No.
21 Dec 2011 | 9:05 pmMy preparations for Macworld 2012 are well and truly underway with flights booked, special guests invited, prizes being organised for attendees and reviewing my syllabus. One of the things I’ve been doing in Presentation Magic workshops in 2011 is showing presentations by others and asking attendees to offer up a critical analysis of what they’re witnessing, based on the presentation principles so far addressed. One of the primary sources for high quality presentations across a variety of styles and subjects has been the official TED website. Here, we’ve seen an increasing…
