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Category Archives: Web sites

Your Next Presentation

There are lots of books and web sites and people who give advice on how to give good presentations.  And if you give presentations (who doesn’t) it’s probably a good idea to learn as much as you can.

But even though there may be timeless principles on presenting a message, I think you’ll find that there are some new ideas that are challenging some of the old ones that have been around a while.

Check out this great post I found recently from Chris Brogan .  It seems to match some of the other concepts I’ve heard from successful presenters lately.

For the interested student, other current masters of presentations are:

 

Learn something different and make your next presentation a smash hit.

Fandom

fansHave you heard about creating fans instead of customers?

I’ve heard that all you need is 1000 true fans and you’re financially set for life.

Here is an excellent  slideshare presentation that talks about the new fan economy.

Wow, the things you learn when you know people (or the right people).  This guy, Bud Caddell, gets paid to sit around and think all day.  He reads about 300 blogs a day. (So I guess he does more than thinking.)

Maybe I’ll give him one more to read.

flickr photo by wvs

Do you trust us with the new tools?

Companies set up systems in order to produce their products, then they put their heads down and produce. tools

“We don’t have time for that new fangled mumbo jumbo, we’re busy doing real work here.”

I wonder when the first company decided that telephones were a good idea to give their workers?

And give a computer to every employee? That’s crazy talk!

I do remember when everyone in our company was given full access to the internet.  That was quite the controversy.  “They’ll just be surfin’ the web all day.”  Maybe, but it seems like each new advance in tools or technology requires a lot of trust.  Mostly because the most powerful tools can be used for good or bad, productivity or wastefulness, innovation or drivel.

Well, here we are in another phase of new tools – Web 2.0.  It seems like companies should be able to learn from the past.  And I think they are, but there is still resistance, and progress is slow.  Again, trust is a factor, plus a lack of understanding of the impact or potential that the new tools can provide.

Here is a great article from a reputable source (McKinsey) on how companies can make the new Web 2.0 tools work for them.  

The info is out there.  Companies really have no excuse for not understanding  and benefitting from new things.

flickr photo by docman

Buzz

Here’s a link that a friend of mine sent to me today.

It talks about the art of generating buzz, or word of mouth marketing which is so powerful.

Do you know how to do it?

TED 2009

If you haven’t heard about it, you should, which is why I’m just another voice spreading ‘ideas worth spreading’.

I don’t know the history or too much of the background, but TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and it is basically a conference of amazing presentations regarding a wide variety of topics, some from famous people, some from everyday people who have a unique story to tell.  The presentations are video recorded and shown on their website for free.

There are two major events, the one in the US just ocurred in Long Beach CA with some interesting stuff from Bill Gates, and the TED Global conference in London in July.

I’m sure they’d be an incredible event to attend, but with all the video, you’re almost there.

You now have a lot of video to watch.  (Don’t worry, many presentations are short.  Just start with a quick one.)

Creative on Accident

I’m sure there are a lot of creative type web sites out there, but someone pointed me to this one.  And to me, anybody that does a podcast with Seth Godin must be pretty cool.

If you scroll down to the bottom of their site, the whiteboard session is really good too.

It’s called the Accidental Creative.

Judging a Solution

There are 6 criteria for judging whether an improvement solution will be effective. (As explained by Eli Goldratt in his Webcast Series)

A solution must:

  1. Produce results and excellent benefits
  2. Be a win/win/win for all who’s collaboration is needed
  3. Have small risk relative to the benefits
  4. Be simpler than what we do now
  5. Have a sequence that enables people to get on board because the first actions deliver significant, immediate results
  6. Be one that does not self-destruct, or is blind to the dangers of success.

 

Of course, Goldratt has outlined a method with strategies and tactics that meets all criteria in the realm of Project Management.  It is amazingly simple, but would require significant behavior changes and difficult decisions by top leaders in a large company.  Still, many companies are being successful at applying his method.

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