TED Conference 2013: #illustaTED

I am stoked to spend today continuing the PCP reboot with some video editing, audio recording, and deck creation. I’ll also be spending my day following the progress of TED 2013. As I cannot afford to attend, I’ll be living vicariously through some of my favorite folks. One trend I’ll be following on Twitter is #illustraTED from Duarte design. This year, the Duarte team will be illustrating inspiring and amazing talks the whole week long! Check out @duarte and @nancyduarte on Twitter and enjoy this unique take on the TED experience. For more on this year’s conference, visit the TED blog!

I am nerding out to the max over the incredible blend of voices featured this year. I am also excited to see young inventor Richard Turine‘s talk. I’ll leave you with a fresh talk from Bruce Feiler, who believes agile programming can help grow a stronger family.

Which TED talks are you looking forward to most?

Workaholic Update

So, the past few months have been rather insane but amazing. I am gearing up for an Skype chat with Nancy Duarte, and my superteacher partner and I have revamped the entire online version of our course to transition from Duarte’s slide:ology to her second book, Resonate. Now that the online class is finally coming together, I can devote enough attention to revamping the entire on campus class around the Presentation Ecosystem. I am also working on an article for Six Minutes on the acronym C.R.A.P. (Contrast Repetition, Alignment, Proximity). Another project I’ve been working on for months is a new banner for my blog. I’ve scoured and tested a number of JD Hancock images and am ready to beg/pay him to allow me to use Gold from his metal men series.  In the meantime, I am working on a few more visual ideas and revisiting my “Your Speech is Toxic” deck. I am looking forward to a productive August!

Just a little something I cooked up…

A Deck to Admire as I Climb Mount Grade

March has been one of my busiest teaching months. 70 students all submitting major projects for which I record video feedback and thousands of words in discussion posts have definitely kept my focus away from the blog, I am sure to my own detriment. But, I can already see the summit of Mount Grade, and with only 40 students this month, I will be able to devote much more time to further explorations into design and public speaking. I am working on a new deck on visual resumes to debut at our annual spring break faculty development week, and I am stoked to share it very soon. In the meantime, as I graded discussions whose focus is to analyze a slide deck on slideshare that illustrates Nancy Duarte’s principles of design and her new slide ideology, I ran into this gem by Forsythe Technology.

Mobile Devices in the Workplace: 5 Key Security Risks is not only chock full of practical information, illustrating Duarte’s thesis #2: Spread Ideas and Move People, but it also Practices Design and not Decoration; it provides clean and easily identifiable visuals, clearly following the Help them See What You are Saying rule. Finally it’s use of storytelling appeals to a universal audience, and focuses on audience needs–Treating the Audience as King and Cultivating a Healthy Relationship.