Beacons for 2012: my 3 P’s

I used four words to guide my behaviour in 2011.  Although it did not work perfectly I think it’s much better than traditional New Year’s resolutions which I think is generally doomed for failure. I must agree with Chris Brogan who says that “resolutions are often too vague, or too directed towards one goal”. He challenges us to

to dig deeper, to find three words that could be used as lighthouses to guide you through stormy seas, that can be used as flags on the battlefield of your challenges, words that will bolster you and give you a direction that goes beyond the goals you might attach as a result of these words.

Reflecting on 2011

This year I was not particularly active as a blogger. I listed four words that would guide me through 2011. How did it go? How did I do? Hmmm, in true professorial style I’ll quickly have to grade myself.

Do your slides help?

Two weeks ago I did an educational session at my Toastmasters meeting on using presentation aids for effective presentations. I used slides that I originally prepared for a Speechcraft course and provided a handout (get it here). This is a summary of what I said with some further links on the topics.

Writing a barrel full of…

by minwoo via flickr

When I am assessing student’s writing I am (unfortunately) often reminded of Schopenhauer’s Law Of Entropy…

It goes something like this:

Lessons in telling stories

cc image via flick by stephee

Read any book on presentations and the concept of storytelling will be in there somewhere actually more than in there, usually it will be quite prominent. I realize I need to work on this skill and therefore I am constantly looking out for great stories, or more specifically great storytellers. Today after church it dawned on me that any presenter can learn about storytelling from The Greatest Storyteller himself, Jesus.

Nine puzzling presentation insights

In the holidays our family usually spent at least a bit of time building puzzles. It was great fun and I think we can learn some lessons from puzzle building experiences that we can apply to our presentations. What possibly can a puzzle and a presentation hold in common? After thinking about it I came up with nine…