Sneak Peek: Tweak your Resume

One of my favorite parts of teaching visual design is the visual resume project. While my visual resume continues to be a source of frustration for me (I recently ditched the old one completely and started from scratch), I enjoy sharing what I’ve learned about this dynamic form of professional persona building. This afternoon, I will be holding a GoTo Training for my online students as they prepare to submit their visual resumes. In preparation, the students study among other resources, Jesse Dee’s Really Ugly Resumes, Emiland’s How I Landed a Job with Slideshare, and my deck, Visualizing Resumes.

For this session, I want to draw attention to the examples they already have on hand and take this opportunity to rework my original deck on visual resumes. So, I have developed a new set of slides for this mini-workshop that I hope to continue building on and developing. Here is a sneak peek of my new approach to teaching visual resumes, Tweak Your Resume:

 

Update: I’ve made a few changes based on some critique. On my way!

 

What are your thoughts? I am not sold on the color scheme so far, but I am enjoying the process of laying out my type in a different way!

Tweak Your Slides: 2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 25,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 6 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

Tweak Your Teach: The Teaching Portfolio

I am excited to continue working on Tweak Your Teach and the rest of my blog in the new year. I’ve just updated the site to include a teaching porfolio section that I will be adding to and growing over the next few weeks. What exactly is a teaching portfolio and what is its purpose?

According to Rutgers University’s Center for Teaching Advancement & Assessment Research, a teaching portfolio is a “flexible document” that details a teacher’s “teaching responsibilities, philosophy, goals and accomplishments.” This traditionally print document contains the breadth and scope of an educator’s experience and includes three major areas:

1. Teaching Responsibilities (What I do)

2. Teaching Philosophy and Statement of Competency (Why I do it)

3. Evidence of Effective Teaching (Proof that I do what I say)

A strong portfolio is dynamic–it changes constantly and includes both specific goals and measurable data indicating those goals have been met. More than proof of concept, a dynamic teaching portfolio shows an educator what he or she has accomplished and what he or she still needs to grow. There are several excellent print guides as well as examples available. One of the most highly recommended is The Teaching Portfolio: A Practical Guide to Improved Performance and Promotion/Tenure Decisions.

However, several  comprehensive guides to the portfolio process that don’t cost a penny come from reputable educational institutions like Rutgers. Two of my favorites are A Guide to the Teaching Portfolio by the University of New Hampshire and the very comprehensive and useful guide from the Center for Effective Teaching and Learning at the University of Texas at El Paso.

As I begin this process, I have many great examples to draw from, but find the approach to the standard portfolio to be a bit stale. I am working on ways to make it more dynamic and interactive, drawing from my design skills to further enhance how usable this is as a tool  for me and for others. I’ve added a few preliminary elements to the portfolio section, the most recent of which is my teaching philosophy. I’ve truncated this down from two pages to one, but would definitely like to add specific goals to the end. This draft focuses on my self-definition as a “super-teacher.” I began using this term several years ago when I saw a stark difference between those who teach because they cannot do something in their field and those who teach because teaching IS their field. Those are the super-teachers, at least the ones who call teaching their bliss and work towards the betterment of education for all. Check it out in the new teaching portfolio section under “About Me.”

Are you a teacher? What’s your philosophy on teaching? What do you draw inspiration from?

Superteaching: A decade in review, a decade in progress

As part of professional development for the English department, my colleagues and I have been tasked with revamping our CVs, creating a teaching portfolio, or developing a professional online presence. As I’ve worked on creating a portfolio and have a website, I, of course, began revamping the CV right away and am currently working on ways to maintain the traditional purpose and format but still make the document more rich than just 11 pages of fluff. The process of creating an extensive body of work has led to a bit of retrospection.

A Superteacher in reflective mode…where am I going? Where have I been? (Source: JD Hancock)

January marks the end of my tenth year of teaching at the college level. I began as a green composition instructor at the University of Central Florida. My first and only UCF class was overwhelming, nerve-wracking, exciting and ultimately rewarding, but I still wasn’t sold on this as my career. I resisted the common “Oh, are you going to teach with that?” question that often came after I stated my major was English. In my mind, there had to be something else I could do with this degree. I was both right and completely wrong.

Source: gumuz via Flickr

I entered the world of editing, copywriting, and marketing eager to prove myself, to dive into my favorite activities: consulting, editing, revising, and proofing others’ work. I applied for every job I saw on Monster and Career Builder; I bought a suit, a red pen, and waited…and waited….finally, I realized no one would hire me! Why not? Not awesome enough at English? No. No experience with professional writing outside of academia? Yup. That was it. So, to gain some experience, I worked as marketing writer and editor for my step-father’s A/V rental company and did freelance work for a local design firm, Lapiz Design.

To make ends meet, I also picked up an instructional assistant/writing center consultant position with Valencia College (Valencia Community College at the time). A short time later, I was offered the opportunity to teach English composition. Being the completely broke and desperate post-grad, I took the class, thinking it would serve as a good source of income until my editing ship came in. What I didn’t realize right away (but learned by the end of that summer semester) was that this would be my calling, that the hours I spent creating transparencies of poems, hunting down vinyl recordings of Dylan Thomas, and coming up with ways to engage beyond the assigned textbook for my course, would lay down roots that are now so ingrained in who and what I am that I cannot imagine my life without teaching.

Source: Mr. T in DC via Flickr

I was offered a full-time contract at a smaller campus of Valencia College. My acceptance would mean five wonderful years at the Winter Park Campus of VC. It was here that I really found my way, a mentor in my department chair, and learned important lessons about classroom teaching, curriculum development, and community and college involvement. It was here that I also began a love affair with the community college (RIP) model. I absolutely thrived in an environment committed to learner-based methodologies and initiatives. I also learned the impact faculty, staff, and students can have on the quality of education the entire community receives.

After five years and a poor judgment call, I was adjuncting, teaching 7 classes per semester with little room for growth at a small campus, so I accepted a position at Full Sail University, where I’ve had the pleasure of further expanding my skills as teacher, presenter, course developer, and now presentation designer. Regardless of challenges (teaching for a for-profit university is at times a sharper learning curve than at a community college), I would not trade the most amazing opportunity of my professional career so far, teaching Professional Communication and Presentation. I have developed a love for new subjects, public speaking and presentation design, that infuse every aspect of my professional and personal life. I have become a crusader for beautiful slides and dynamic delivery.

The last ten years have yielded a body of work I am proud of, and a constantly re-stoked fire for learning and responsible, sustainable education that I cannot wait to share with others. In the past decade, I’ve:

• Taught 5,500 students
• Taught 20 different courses or versions of courses
• Developed 11 different courses either independently or in collaboration with amazing teachers
• Have attended 30 final project presentations
• Authored and delivered 17 presentations
• Sponsored three student organizations
• Have been inspired by amazing teachers, among them, Christin Upshaw, Sophia Buggs, and Alex Rister
• Have been mentored by two incredible humans, Kim Murray and Chris Borglum
• Immersed myself in three new subjects, the most current being my absolute bliss and joy

The first ten years have been fruitful and productive, but I have a few more goals to accomplish in the coming decade. Among them:

• Truly bring my blog up to speed
• Work on the balance between mastery and failure in the online environment
• Continue to seek out opportunities that are learner-centered
• Earn an Ed.D. in teaching and curriculum or educational leadership
• Move into instructional design and administration

So, final words/thoughts on my first ten years: I’ve only just found my groove. I am stoked for more!

Source: pwbaker via Flickr

Deck of the Day: The 9 Criteria for Brand Essence

December marks the end of the school year at Full Sail University. I could not be more ready for the three week break, which will be filled with posting back-logged articles I’ve had to start and stop several times due to work projects and a demanding on campus and online course load. I also cannot wait to bring back my yearly Christmas cookie posts, spend time with family, and actually take a small break to read. I. Am. So. Ready!

But, before break begins next week, I have a new round of Slideshare analyses to grade. In my class, Professional Communication and Presentation, we devote some time to the discussion of branding and a presentation’s role in creating or conveying a brand. When we discuss the visual resume project, we come back to the idea of brand by creating what Megan Marrs calls a “brand mantra”, a statement that conveys who you are as a professional and what you have to offer. Recently, Alex Rister discussed the connection between storytelling and brand–brand is the story of a company, service, or individual. Brand can also be equated with Aristotle’s concept of ethos, the appeal that prepares the audience to deem a speaker as either worth listening to or not. Ethos is about perception, as brand is about perception.

Today’s deck speaks to this idea. Kirk Phillips, in “The 9 Criteria for Brand Essence”, defines brand as “a product, service, cause or organization with perceived intangible attributes.” In other words, in order for a strong brand to be successful, it must cause consumers to feel the intangible (hope, fear, love, freedom, exhilaration, self-actualization) through the tangible (product, service, cause, organization). Phillips supports his viewpoint by referencing feelings we associate with major brands (for instance, FedEx inspires a feeling of security; Disney offers a magical experience). He furthermore states that a brand with no intangible attributes or differentiating factors is essentially just commodity.

For Phillips, strong brands begin with strong brand essence, a “single intangible attribute” (or mantra, promise, story, principal, etc.). It is brand essence “that differentiates the brand from competitive brands” (Phillips).

After his explanation of brand, Phillips identifies the nine essentials of a strong brand:

1. Unique (How different is it from the competition?)
2. Intangible (Does it make people feel feelings?)
3. Single-minded (Can it be described in one word?)
4. Experiential (Does the essence match up with the audience’s experience?)
5. Meaningful (Does it matter to the audience?)
6. Consistently delivered (Does it change from user to user, experience to experience?)
7. Authentic (Is it credible?)
8. Sustainable (Does it EVER change? Hint: the answer is no)
9. Scalable (Can the brand grow and expand?)

This got me thinking about how I can reinforce the importance of strong personal brand for students (and soon faculty, as I took on the task of showing my department how to create a CV using WordPress)–to be successful, you must create those moments when your audience perceives the intangible, when your audience feels you have a place in their hearts and minds. Phillips furthermore connects presentations to brand via the use of touchpoints, places in which the brand interacts with the consumer. Considering how little time we devote to presentations, is it really surprising when our audiences aren’t moved by our ideas?

The deck is well-designed and cleanly organized, illustrating strong unity through color and type. I am not a fan of the company name on every slide, but this is a minor detriment. Most of the deck was easy to process, and the slides implemented the 3-second glance media rule and picture superiority effect. The deck gets noisier as it goes along and once the 9 criteria are introduced, there’s more reliance on text alone to convey ideas. So, at times, I felt the information could have been broken up over more slides, but considering the importance of contrasting strong brand vs. commodity and method of delivery (this is more of a pdf asset to digest carefully), it makes sense that the information was presented in this way.

Take a moment to check out today’s deck below.

What is your brand mantra? What is your intangible attribute? Does it truly differentiate you from others?

November’s Outstanding Visual Resume

In an effort to promote the benefits of the visual resume as a worthy project for professionals in any field to take on (remember, this doesn’t and shouldn’t replace an actual resume), I am going to showcase a super student visual resume example each month. This month’s selection comes from Nick Weymouth, a student in this month’s Professional Communication and Presentation course. Nick does an impeccable job of designing this deck, and he conveys his story and unique point of view as a professional.

As I work to refine this project in the course, which began as a self-reflection project on the student’s month-long journey into public speaking, I look to find ways to adapt the approach to different professions. I am cooking up a survey to help me answer some core questions about the practical usability and adaptability of the project. So far, a few questions to consider are:

What has the response to your visual resume been so far? Do you feel the project represents you? What is the best means of delivering a visual resume? How much is too much in a visual resume? Is a movie stronger than a deck of slides?

I leave you with Visualizing Resumes 2.0, a work in progress deck I use in a visual resume workshop for teachers.

Do you have a visual resume? If not, what would your visual resume include?

Visualizing Resumes 2.0

In between writing irate blog posts about the nature of inspiration vs. imitation in visual design, grading, attending workshops, attending final project, and attempting a few hours of exercise and life, I’ve found the time to update my deck on Visual Resumes. I am very proud of this new draft, having added stronger typefaces, cleaner overall unity, and integration of quoted material. This deck also features examples from two former superstudents, Crysta Timmerman and Spencer House. Give them a bit of love and check out their awesome takes on the visual resume approach.

 

Love the Visual Resume–Seriously!

Today’s deck comes from my favorite superteacher, Alex Rister. The visual resume began as a fun side project for me and then became a mission–help my students create a more dynamic picture of their qualities as professionals online. In teaching the visual resume, I draw inspiration from the success of others, namely David Crandall and Alex Rister. Both of these individuals have successful visual resumes.

1. She uses story to convey her unique perspective

Alex tells audiences the story of how she found her calling as communications guru and public speaking teacher. Instead of just starting with “I was born…” she begins with a bigger idea–innovation, and then illustrates how she is part of this new age of innovation.

2. She designs unified visuals

Alex uses color, type, shape, and alignment to create something that is uniquely hers. Alex’s use of pink against the vintage images is classy yet whimsical. Her choice of Komika Axis speaks to her personality–this is Alex’s signature typeface.

3. Her visual resume does more than what any traditional resume can do

Alex uses this medium to highlight not only her extensive leadership and teaching experience and professional work as an educator, but also as a means of sharing her ideas on communication, work, and the world at large.

Check out Alex Rister’s visual resume, as well as her other amazing deck (which is a required reading in our Professional Communication and Presentation course), Seven Deadly Sins of Visual Design.

A tale of two banners

So, my students know I love Flickr user, JD Hancock. His hundreds of images of superheroes, stormtroopers, doodads, and tiny people are mostly Creative Commons licensed, they are fantastically shot, and often convey a rich story. When it came time to design a new banner for my site (oh, I started this about…hmm…three months ago), I knew I wanted to use one of his images. So, after much work, I narrowed it down to two. The first, and my absolute favorite, features superhero Gold of the Metal Men. I really love the color and I think his expression speaks to my crusade to end mediocre visual aids.

The second sort of developed out of my frustration with getting the Gold banner to fit my header size. It’s much less specific but it features lovely colors.

I am at a bit of a loss. I love them both, but only one can live. Which do you like?

My next read: Rock Star Branding

I ran across this excellent deck by Slides That Rock on the book Brand Like a Rockstar by Steve Jones. Can’t wait to Amazon this read!