Truthiness and pictures

“Truthiness is a quality characterizing a “truth” that a person claims to know intuitively “from the gut” or because it “feels right” without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.” Wikipedia

For those of you who may not know, “truthiness” was coined by American satirist Stephen Colbert in 2005. It is the appeal to emotion rather than reason. What you feel is right rather than what the facts of evidence tell us. Now a student from the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand has been looking into how pictures affect it with a rather cunning experiment.

The conclusion: pictures rock. And if you don’t believe me, here is a picture of Stephen Colbert to convince you.

A puppet giraffe and jackal talk about the meaning of love

What is love? A noun? A verb? A feeling or need? It is the BIG question which has occupied some of our greatest minds from Shakespeare and J-Lo to Haddaway.

Join the American psychologist Marshall Rosenberg and a couple of puppets props to find out…

The best slides in the world (possibly)

After the film stars, producers and beautiful people jump onto their super yachts and sail away from the film festival at the end of May, Cannes goes all creative on us…

If you didn’t already know, the 59th Festival of Creativity, Cannes Lions took place last month. This is where every summer the world’s brightest and most creative minds gather in the south of France to educate and inspire each other. A certain William Clinton even showed up for a chat this year.

It is also a great place to look at some of the world’s most beautiful slides from some of the worlds leading agencies and companies including Facebook, Ogilvy & Mather and Microsoft. If , like me, you were unable to attend (I guess my invitation must have got lost in the post), do not worry. Slideshare blogger Jesse Desjardins has kindly shared his 100 favorites on line for us all to get inspired by.

100 Beautiful Slides from Cannes Lions 2012

Steve Jobs being insulted

I know this is a little bit old, however I just had to get it out of my system and post it here. My favorite Steve Jobs you tube video. And no, it is not the one you are thinking of.  This one has a little more edge to it.

Watch with amazement, as Steve takes the insult caterpillar, allows it to pupate in his head for quite a while, before releasing a radiant butterfly of leadership and common sense. And not once does he get confrontational. He even tells the guy insulting him that he is right. Great stuff.

Measure Your Procrastination Level

„Never put off till tomorrow, what you can do the day after tomorrow“. Mark Twain

One of the challenges I come across with scary regularity with my company presentationgym is procrastination.  (presentationgym is a bit like a normal gym, but it is your communication skills rather than your muscles which get the workout). The problem is this. Just like a normal gym, you need to do the work. You need to go. You need to put the effort in. People REALLY want to find the time to practice and prepare, they understand the benefits of doing so, and even the risks of not doing so, however, they delay things up until the last-minute and use adrenaline to get the job done. Sound familiar?  It should do.  95% of people have a problem with it, with over 15% admitting it to be a very serious problem. That means 1 in 5 people.  Now think. Do you know anyone like that? Is it perhaps you?

I find procrastination fascinating. Primarily because it used to be a problem for me (I was the sort of student who would work through the night in order to meet the morning’s deadline). For that reason, I try to keep on top of the science behind procrastination. Now….

Dr. Piers Steel is one of the world’s foremost researchers and speakers on the science of motivation and procrastination. He is also the author of the best book I have read to date on the subject – The Procrastination Equation. But before you all rush out and buy his book, why not first find out how bad a procrastinator you actually are by taking his survey here……

PROCRASTINATION SURVEY

Warning – This is not a „for entertainment“ survey, but actual science you are contributing to. Therefore there are over 100 multiple questions you need to answer and it took me about 15 mins to complete. As a reward for doing this you will receive a personalised procrastination profile, along with 3 scientifically proven tips for you to put into practice. Cool stuff.

Alternatively of course, you could put it off until tomorrow……….

“Holy presentation nonsense Batman” – The Dr. Fox Lecture

According to Aristotle, you need 3 things to convince people:Ethos – people need to like and respect you; Pathos – you need to appeal to their emotions; and Logos – you need to appeal to their reason.

As it turns out however, Ethos and Pathos might just be enough.

In this 1976 experiment, Batman actor Michael Fox, in the guise of Dr. Myron L. Fox, presents absolute nonsense to a group of experts… and fools them. Fifty-five psychiatrists, psychologists, educators, graduate students, and other professionals all gave him overwhelmingly positive reviews. How did he do it?

I’m not a great fan of anyone speaking nonsense, however the Dr. Fox Effect illustrates just how important Ethos and Pathos are. If you cannot connect with your audience AND appeal to their emotions, your presentation will probably be boring, ignored or forgotten.

 

Brain Rules for Baby

I’m a big fan of Dr. John Medina, developmental molecular biologist and author of the New York Times bestseller Brain Rules.

With his Brain Rule #10 Medina gave us excellent insights into creating presentations which speak directly to our brains (hint: vision trumps all other senses), but he is also a great speaker and puts into practice what he preaches.

With that in mind, check out his recent video Brain Rules for Baby where he exposes many of the myths behind raising children.  Not only can you get some great advice on parenting and how your baby’s brain works, but also on presenting.  Watch how he uses humor, bad examples, passion, enthusiasm and even a quiz to make sure his message sticks in your brain after-wards.

Many people can present, however few people can really get their ideas remembered long after-wards.  It has been a while since I first watched these yet the content is still with me.

Prisoner, Vacationer or Professor – which one are you?

Try to rememer the last workshop or training course you had. Got it? Great. Now try to remember how did you feel about being there.  Were you happy to get some time away from your “normal job”? Or perhaps you would rather have been doing more productive work- catching up on email, making that important call or preparing that report?

In the McKinsey report Getting more from your training programs  the authors cited three types of people who attend training course; prisoners, vacationers and professors. Prisoners would rather be somewhere else yet have been forced to go. Vacationers are effectively “on holiday”. Professors want to show off how bright they are.

In the process of setting up presentationgym, I have had the opportunity to talk with many trainers and coaches, and these generalisations seem to hold true. The one group however which demands the most attention. The prisioners. These are the sales people who would rather be closing deals. The busy people who don’t see the point in being taught stuff they already know (while their in-boxes fill up). The people who have forgotten most of what they learned at the last workshop and have no reason to believe the next one will be any different. Not a great starting point.

Prisoners illustrate clearly the problem of Return on Investment. Not only is the training investment less likely to „stick“ and provide a return, but the company also looses an employee for the course duration. Time when they could have been doing productive work.

This is one of the reasons behind the revolution in learning which is currently going on. Training needs to be relevant, timely, accessbile and whenever possible, fun and challenging.  It is also one of the reasons why we started presentationgym. To give people the tools, support and inspiration to train their communication muscles. Whenever and wherever they are. Whatever their current skill level.

I am fascinated about the process of giving people the discipline and tools to put what they learn into practice. You can check out the report at their site. You may need to log in, however there are worst places to get information than from the McKinsey Quarterly. Personally, I think it is worth signing up.