Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

*Beyond* Beyond Bullet Points

Recently, I shared my enthusiasm for the book Beyond Bullet Points, and the presentation method it's helped me learn. Since then, I found out about a Beyond Bullet Points PowerPoint add-in that's made it even easier for me to create high-impact presentations. This add-in was co-developed by Cliff Atkinson, the author of the book, and NetCentrics. I've been a loyal customer of NetCentrics' Getting Things Done Add-In for Outlook for a couple of years now, and they've done a phenomenal job on this add-in, as well.

This product adds a number of toolbar options into PowerPoint, providing easy-to-use guidance that helps you achieve the results described in Cliff's book. One of these options is a "Create New Story" button, which brings up a story creation toolkit that guides you through establishing the main elements of the story you'll be presenting. Following the various screens in the Create New Story process made it very easy to work with. The process felt a bit like creating a screenplay (or so I imagine - I'm not a screenwriter, but I watch a lot of TV). Click the screenshot to get an idea what this new toolkit looks like.

The add-in also puts in some tools to help you manage different color palettes, fills, and other actions that help you create a uniform color scheme throughout your presentation without having to constantly use PowerPoint's (somewhat clunky) color selection dialogs.

One of the key activities in creating a Beyond Bullet Points presentation is use of the slide sorter to create the storyboard, and use of lots of graphics to tell your story. This add-in provides tools to help there, as well. You'll find shortcuts on the button bar to change views, add speaker notes, turn the slide thumbnail view on and off, and a number of other things. Yes, you can do most of that within PowerPoint, but having them right there within easy reach saves some time and hunting.

The bottom line? I am still an enthusiastic advocate of the Beyond Bullet Points method and I urge you to read the book and give this technique a whirl. I also recommend you download the trial version of this add-in to help you create your first Beyond Bullet Points presentation. Once you do, I'm confident you'll find it as impressive as I have.

Note to Wine Company: Compete with Starbucks Not Microsoft

"Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together." -- Woodrow Wilson My circle of friends is changing in ways I'd never imagined. Earlier this year, Rosa Say found out I was going to London and introduced me to Adrian Trenhom, another friend of hers who lives near London. Though we know her quite well, neither Adrian nor I have ever met Rosa face-to-face (she lives in Hawaii, so you can imagine we'd love to go visit her).




Anyway, Adrian and I got together at St. John's Bread and Wine this summer, and we each brought a friend. I brought along my colleague, Christopher Morgan, as I was traveling around with him that day. Adrian brought James Governor, who happens to be an industry analyst in the industry Chris and I work in. As previously reported, we got along very well, and decided it was something we wanted to repeat.



November_2005_hatfield_014_new This week, I visited London again. Chris, James, Adrian, and I all decided to get together at St. John's for a bit more wine and friendly talk. This time, James added a couple more people to the session - Neil Hare-Brown and Babur Mirza, who work for an information security company in London. James assumed (rightly so) that Chris and I would have compatible business interests with Neil and Babur (we met bright and early the next morning for breakfast to discuss this - very cool).



Click on the small version of the photo here to open a Flickr page that has annotations with a few bits of trivia about each of us. And, you can find out what kind of wine we voted "best" for the night.



This meet-up is a great example of how online relationships can turn into terrific off-line relationships.



And it all started with Rosa, my favorite connector.



Succeed or die

Are you facing a daunting task, a difficult challenge, or a project where you really want to (or have to) achieve wild success? If so, here's a technique that may help you achieve the kind of breakthough thinking you'll need to succeed.

In the past, I've written about the technique of "trying on beliefs" (see related posts below). With this technique, you pretend that something is true and act as though it is true. If you go with the spirit of the technique, you'll find you'll make different decisions, interact with people in different ways, etc. This approach can have a powerful influence on the outcomes you achieve.

With that in mind, try on the following belief about your project:

You will die if your project is not successful in 6 months.

  • What will you do to ensure your don't die?

  • What things are you doing that put your project at risk? What are you going to do to stop those things?

  • What actions will you take to increase the odds that you'll be around in 6 months?

  • Who will you ask for help to increase the chance you'll make it?

Adjust the time frame above to fit your needs, but the concept holds no matter what. Basically, this approach is a good way to help you think about what you'd do if your life depended on it.

Try it on - you might like it. It works for me.

[Updated] Mind Hacks

Ever wonder...

  • why does your mind play tricks on you?
  • why can you read the same sentence with the missing word about 5 times but not see it?
  • why do visualization and "mind games" work?
  • do we really use only 10% of our brains?
  • why hearing someone talking on a cell phone is more annoying than hearing two people talking near you in exactly the same environment?

Well, you can stop wondering. I've just finished "Mind Hacks" by Tom Stafford and Matt Webb, and the answers to these and about a Brazillian other things are addressed within. This is a really fun book, and I bought it on impulse while I was on Amazon the other day subscribing to Make, and read it on a long flight today.

There are 100 "Hacks" in the book, each of which explains a different aspect of the things your brain does to make the world seem smooth and familiar to you. For example, Hack #62 explains the Broken Escalator Phenomon:

"One such phenomenon can be felt when you walk onto a broken escalator. You know it's broken, but your brain's autopilot takes over regardless, inappropriately adjusting your posture and gait as if the escalator were moving. This has been dubbed the broken escalator phenomenon."

I liked this one because I had a similar "my body is not my own" experience when I was walking on a broken "moving sidewalk" in the Las Vegas airport last week. I knew the thing was broken, but I still felt my body trying to adjust for a non-existent change in speed as I stepped on and off of the moving sidewalk.

For each Hack, the book goes on to explain how the Hack works, why it works and, in many cases, provides a fun "Hack the Hack" exercise you can try to test it out. There are a lot of references to cool things on the web like one on how to build your own "Motor/Sensory Homounculus." Yeah...that one is explained in the book, too.

Cool stuff, and lots of fun. Get it for yourself or as a gift for that special someone.

Update: Here's another sample (no pun intended) to whet your appetite.  Here's Hack #48:

"A sample of Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" has been hidden in the sound file on our book web site [link].  The sound file is 30 seconds long and is mostly noise, so you will have to listen carefully to detect when the song starts.  The song will start either in the first, second, or third 10 seconds and will be very faint, so pay close attention."

To find out about the results, pick up the book and read Hack #48: Detect Sounds on the Margins of Certainty

Read More

Tired of talking to yourself? Come talk to us.

In case you haven't found it yet, why not drop by and check out the Never Work Alone blog?  As I mentioned before, this is a joint project started by me, Bren, and Skip.  However, we're just renting the hall - it you that makes it a party worth coming to.

The short story is that we've got a discussion group on Google where you can post about management and work-related issues that are bugging you.  Periodically, we summarize the group's discussions on the Never Work Alone blog.  The latest summary just hit the blog, dealing with  how IT people and non-IT people can get along better.

You'll then find that there is a very smart, caring group of people ready and willing to help out and, of course, we'd love to have you hang around and help other people with their issues. 

Grab a name tag, hang your coat over there in the hall, and come on in!

Read More