Spent much of the day, laboring on Sliderocket for a major presentation at work. Have to say, I think it blows Powerpoint all to hell in terms of visual quality. I was a private Beta user but now it’s public, so if you do a lot of slides, check it out. Not sure if Sliderocket is compatible yet with Web 2.0 slideware platforms like Slideshare but as this presentation will be proprietary, I do not care.
The venerable Chicago Tribune is crossdressing as some kind tabloid/Britney Spearsish online coloring book? WTF?
What jackass corporate suit thought that the Tribune looking more childish than the Sun-Times was a good move ? You know it’s an embarrassment when the Trib’s own website doesn’t even try to emulate the garish style of the dead tree version.
I find that I have fallen criminally behind on reviewing books in the past six or so months and I’m going to try to make an effort to post on at least some of what I have been reading. Time to begin:
Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter)
Garr Reynolds has done more than write a book about design; he has taken Zen principles and used them to design the book that he wrote. Zen Presentation is an aesthetic pleasure to read, a truly beautiful book where the author walked his talk.
Specifically, Reynolds will show you how you can make your slideware presentations better but Presentation Zen is really more than that; it’s about effective communication. Understanding your own message and then crafting an authentic and persuasive vision. The principles Reynolds articulates while discussing sound design work equally well for the writer, the artist, the salesman or the organizational leader. Here are a few sections particularly worth your time to read:
What makes Messages Stick?
The Art of Working With Restrictions ( all the Boydians out there will grasp this concept immediately)
Two Questions: What’s your Point? Why Does it Matter ?
Kanso, Shizen, Shibumi
Signal to Noise Ratio
The Need for Solitude
Many times, as the text itself is intentionally broken up visually by images and white space, I found myself reflecting at length on the implications of the passage before moving on to the next. Now that’s something that happens with reading certain classics – The Art of War
If messages are meant to “stick” then Presentation Zen is a sticky book.
Was admitted to the beta test version of uber-cool Sliderocket.
About damn time. Unfortunately, it’s too late to start fiddling with some of my old powerpoints. Have to do that this weekend.
Kind of a part “theory”, part “futurism” post as my introduction to CTLab readers:
Visualcy and the Human Terrain
As a result of public education, the rise of mass-media and commercial advertising, Western nations and Japan, some earlier but all by mid-20th century, became relatively homogenized in the processing of information as well as having a dominant vital “consensus” on cultural and political values with postwar Japan probably being the most extreme example. The range between elite and mass opinion naturally narrowed as more citizens shared similar outlooks and the same sources of information, as did the avenues for acceptable dissent. A characteristic of modern society examined at length by thinkers as diverse as Ortega y Gasset, Edward Bernays, Marshall McLuhan and Alvin Toffler.
….Interestingly enough, despite complaints by American conservatives regarding the political bias of news outlets like al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya, these organizations are packaging news in the familiar “Pulitzerian frame” in which mass media have been structuring information for over a century. Effectively, habituating their audience to a Western style (if not content) of thinking and information processing, with all of the advantages and shortcomings in terms of speed and superficiality that we associate with television news broadcasting. This phenomena, along with streaming internet video content like Youtube and – very, very, soon, mass-based Web 2.0 video social networks – will overlay the aforementioned complexity in regard to the range of education and literacy.
Read the whole thing here.
Zenpundit is a blog dedicated to exploring the intersections of foreign policy, history, military theory, national security,strategic thinking, futurism, cognition and a number of other esoteric pursuits.
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