Wednesday 22 July 2009

Beautiful Simple Images combined with Powerful Words

This is a great example of a mid-week pick-me-up.
What's not to like?

* Beautiful, simple, high quality photographs of gorgeous scenery that echo and enhance the phrases
* Touching, inspirational words that really connect with all our lives - who hasn't ever felt like quitting and needed support to keep going?

In just two minutes, without rushing, this presentation speaks to us personally (notice the prevalence of the word "you" in the poem).

Please post your comments below - what would you improve?


Monday 20 July 2009

What Does Your Typeface Say About You?

I am a big fan of fonts - from my earliest days tracing over letters and fonts from a hardcopy catalogue, I still love to explore and experiment.

I choose fonts that appeal to my own personality - quirky perhaps, avoiding the predictable. Although in presentations it pays to use something like Arial or the words take on a life of their own when you play it back (been there!)

This is a great video about typefaces, looking at how different restaurants might use typefaces in their signage and menus to represent the food style.

The presentation uses a great combination of strong visual elements, music, matched words and the big daddy of them all - repetition, repetition, repetition.


Wednesday 15 July 2009

Present Material to Suit the Way Our Brains Work

This presentation by Garr Reynolds (of Presentation Zen fame) shows how Dr. John Medina' rules on how the brain works should drive our preparation of presentations and workshops.

Rule #1 - Exercise boosts brain power.
So why do we tend to present to people who are sitting down in one of the most passive physical conditions in the world?

Rule #4 - We don't pay attention to boring things. So why do people still design presentations that are slide after slide of bullet points?

Rule #10: Vision triumphs all other senses. And a PowerPoint slide full of words or text doesn't really count here!

I was so inspired by this presentation and the lessons I can learn as a presenter, I bought the book...!

Wednesday 8 July 2009

Learning Through Play

This is a great talk about the creativity, the ingenuity, the inherent desire to create new things and try new things within children. To my mind, we need Tinkering Schools for adults - with no set agenda, with plenty of raw materials and allow ourselves to just play and learn as we go.

We need to give ourselves space to let our imaginations fly, without the rigid rules or expectations we frequently place on ourselves.

How can you use this?
Do you have space in your workshops to give people time to tinker?
Do you have too many rules about what a workshop is or is not?
Could you invite people to a workshop where everyone present teaches in small bursts the very best of what they know? Where there is no set agenda, no learning journey laid out in advance?