Dan Pink on Motivation – but much better!

Came across this video today (courtesy of inspirisimo.com). I love Dan Pink’s TED talk on motivation – but these guys add a whole different level to message with an extraordinary presentation that both captivates you and strengthens the message. Just brilliant and well worth 10 minutes of your time!

Diary of a storyteller – 1st entry

Must learn to be better at story telling!

Why?

Simple:

1. Connects with people
2. People get the idea
3. Memorable and authentic
4. Message is easy to spread
5. Requires creativity and not the usual trollop!

I don’t want to do just to write a novel (although, that would be pretty cool), but I do want to do it so that I can become much better at both communicating and influencing. Stories will help me do that.

So, I have committed to re-learn this old art-form and adapt it to every area of life that I can. This is my diary of lessons learned.

First lesson learned: storytelling is an art-form that can be learned. Great news for me! I can learn this stuff. So, I have done what I always do when I want to learn about something, I buy some books…so I will update the diary of the storyteller as I learn new things.

Some questions:

So what makes a great story? What are some of the most memorable stories that you know?

2 brilliant presentation posts that I just had to share

Today I have been catching up on some blog post reading – and came accross two brilliant posts on presentation that I just have to share with you!

First: Seth Godin‘s Post – iPad Killer app #2: fixing Meetings

I posted about things you can do to improve your meetings a few weeks ago, so I was captivated immediately when I came accross this! Seth suggests an iPad app that people can use during meetings that has an agenda, timer, private messaging between attendees, a big red ‘bored’ button, whiteboard and other ideas. This app has yet to be created – but man alive, I w0uld love it! It would be awesome. I would add the ability to tweet stuff about the meeting (it would be dangerous but keep the meeting accountable).

Has anyone developed it yet? How easy is it to do? This would have a massive impact on how meetings are presented!

(And is it just me that things Seth Godin and Steve Jobs could be brothers?)

Second: Garr Reynolds presentation on Brain Rules

Garr Reynolds is awesome! Anyone that does any kind of PowerPoint (or Keynote) presentation should read and digest his book Presentation Zen. He inspired my How to create a PowerPoint presentation.  Brain Rules is a great book that I read last year – and this presentation really helps with understanding some of the key points.

Story board your life…great presentation idea

I have just finished Gary Vaynerchuck‘s audio book: Crush It!: Why Now is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion. A great book by the way – definitely one to read! In the book he gives a link to his facebook page, so I have just been over there to have a look. Head on over there to www.facebook.com/gary and click on the “Who is Gary” link. I was expecting the usual long text description (I use it like everyone else), but instead saw his story board. What a great idea! I am a big fan of using creative presentation (but have narrowed my focus to PowerPoint), but this is definitely on idea that I will “steal” (in a good Christian way of course).

Have a play yourself. Story board your about me pages…you have to capture the key points of your life, using text and images and display them as a journey. You are left with an instant representation of who you are that people can understand in a matter of seconds…just great!

How to Present Like Steve Jobs

Came across this interesting video today about how to present like Steve Jobs of Apple fame. It gives a quick and useful summary of how Steve Jobs does actually present. Well worth watching.

How to create a PowerPoint presentation

Well, I finally got around to creating a video out of my PowerPoint presentation on how to create a good PowerPoint presentation (bad PowerPoint is a pet hate of mine, and would love to see it used better – especially in the church and boardrooms!).

How to present facts and figures

Did You Know? from Amybeth on Vimeo.

Often, when doing a presentation – you have to present facts and figures, so how do you do that in an interesting way?

Have a look at this video for some inspiration.

My Little Brother Gets Married

Another Animoto creation. I really like that software.

I did all the photos in Lightroom – and thanks to Mr Kevin Kubota, I learned some really cool things about Lightroom. Anyway – all that aside – congrats to John & Jeanette!

Lost Generation ???

I saw a link to this on the Garr Reynolds blog…watched it, and loved it. A great message and great presentation using on narration and text.

Definately worth watching!

Edmundson 2008 Photo Mix

I finally got around to sorting through some of the 2000 photos that I took last year. I have put some of them in a slide show format using Animoto.

Have a look:

If the embedded video isn’t working – check out: http://animoto.com/play/HlbKea4k6879wDAFSBgpgg