Des Paroz On The Go

Presentation Zen Workshop in Sydney

Last Friday I attended a fantastic event in Sydney, a workshop on Presentation Zen by the initiator of the concept (and author of the book), Garr Reynolds.

I’ve followed Garr’s excellent blog for sometime, and bought the book some time back.  So when I saw a post on his blog that he was coming to Sydney, I thought it would be an excellent and informative way to spend a couple of hours on a Friday afternoon.  Lets face it, no matter how may presentations I give, I reckon theres always room for improvement.

I was pleased to see a very full room with a couple of hundred people in attendance.  Garr’s personable and engaging style gained a quick rapport with the crowd, and he very quickly showed that he really lives this stuff.  His presentations are excellent and engaging, and the slides act as visual support that reinforce the message that he delivers.  By no means are the slides the message, but they are powerful tools for reinforcing the message.

We’ve all sat through “death by PowerPoint” (or death by “KeyNote”) over the years, and Garr’s prescription is one of putting the emphasis back on the presenter to better prepare their message and supporting materials.

Garr also makes a strong point that supporting materials should be in 2 categories - visual support during the presentation, and handouts for takeaway use.  These should not be mixed as their purpose is different, and trying to make a hybrid will only lead to disaster.  The common practice of using printouts of slides as a handout should be avoided, and instead be replaced with the usage of detailed support material.

I very much like Garr’s style of presentation.  Perhaps the “zen” aspect appeals to me due to my own time in Japan and strong affinity with Eastern philosophies and martial arts.  But I suspect its more to do with a desire to improve the experience my audience has in presentations I give.

Check out the presentation Garr made at Google on Youtube for a taste of his presentation style.

Buy Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery from Amazon.com

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In is Empty

In any personal productivity system, a chief tenet is to get all collection devices (in trays, email inboxes, voicemail inboxes, etc) to be empty on a regular cycle.  This is important because it means there is little chance of “landmines” waiting in them - important messages that have been missed.

I’m pretty good at keeping my electronic inboxes (email inboxes and voicemail) empty, ensuring all actions are captured and put in train.  But I must admit that I allow my physical in tray to get chaotic at times.  In honesty, very little of importance comes in by physical mail these days.  Most important stuff comes in by email.  Nonetheless, when you have an overflowing in tray, you don’t know what might be lying in the stack, waiting to explode when you open it.

Today I completely processed, and thus emptied, an overflowing in tray at work.  It looks great, and feels even better.

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TPN :: GDay World » Blog Archive » In Honour Of George Carlin

Thanks to Cameron Reilly for a good post In Honour Of George Carlin, in which he marks the passing of the great American comedian.

I must admit that Carlin had not crossed my stream of consciousness many times, although I had heard some of his comedy, particularly relating to his “7 words”.  More recently I had heard a clip on Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code that gave a very prescient commentary on American society, and who it is being really run by.

I suspect this commentary extends to much of the western world, not just America.

I particularly liked this quote that Cam provided from one of Carlin’s last interviews:

And that pretty sums up how I feel. Humans had a lot of potential and we fucked it all up on mythology and superstition and greed and violence.

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Facebook Adds Comment Functionality: Signal to Noise Ratio Impacted?

Facebook has today released a new function that allows users to comment on any items in a friends mini-feed. According to their blog post, provides the ability to comment on a greater variety of items than ever before.

Now you can easily converse around friends’ statuses, application stories, new friendships, videos, and most other stories you see on their profile. Just click on the comment bubble icon to write a comment or see comments other people have written.

It seems that commenting is becoming the killer app of social networking.  I guess we all like to make our own comments on the things that people say and do.  Whilst I certainly understand (and admit to partaking in “social commentary”), I wonder what the impact will be on the signal to noise ratio?

Commenting can be a good thing - it can lead to greater critiquing of ideas.  Critical thought is an incredible and wonderful thing, and social media sites can add to this so richly.

OTOH, comments can lead to a continuous cycle of criticism without thought, and can actually stifle ideas.  There are many out there who spend their entire existence shooting down others thoughts rather than coming up with something original themself.

Other social media tools (Twitter, Friendfeed, etc) already have commenting functionality - Twitter is by definition a “continuous stream of commentary”.  But I kind of wonder if Facebook is already devolving into a site with a poor signal-to-noise ratio.

I guess now I can at least comment on the Vampire vs. Zombies invitations, and other attention wasting applications that subtract so much potential from Facebook.

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Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

Thanks to Cameron Reilly for pointing out this wonderful email from Bill Gates regarding his experiences back in 2003 of using Windows.

Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don’t you just love that root certificate message?)

When I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.

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Apple Announces TV Shows on iTunes Store for Australia

As reported yesterday, television shows are now available on iTunes Store Australia.  According to the official Apple press release:

Television shows are priced at A$2.99 per episode on the iTunes Store in Australia. Television shows now available are:

• Disney-owned production company ABC Studios programs airing on Seven Network including “Desperate Housewives,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Lost” and “Scrubs;”
• Australian Broadcasting Corporation programs “Summer Heights High,” “We Can Be Heroes,” “Double the Fist,” “Foreign Correspondent Postcards,” “Sleek Geeks” and “Surfing the Menu;”
• Disney Channel’s kid and tween sensation “Hannah Montana,” “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody” and “Cory in the House;”
• Nine Network programs “Canal Road,” “McLeod’s Daughters,” “Sea Patrol” and “Urban Magic;” and
  MTV Networks’ “Blue’s Clues,” “The Hills,” “Laguna Beach,” “My Super Sweet Sixteen,” “South Park” and “Pimp My Ride.”

According to a post on the iPod News Network, a key difference to iTunes Stores in other locations is that all TV shows will have consistent pricing (A$2.99), although there don’t appear to be “season passes” for shows, meaning that downloading an entire season could cost more than the equivalent DVD set.
Award-Winning Television Programming Now Available on the iTunes Store in Australia

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iTunes Music Store in Oz Now Doing TV Shows

Long time readers of this blog will remember that it took a long time for the iTunes Music Store to be launched in Australia, but since it was launched back in October 2005 it has become a popular form of distribution for music and music video.  However, even though downloads of TV shows have been available in the US and other parts of the world for some time, we’ve not had that pleasure downunder.

I saw a snippet somewhere today that mentioned that TV shows have been quietly launched, and on checking the iTunes Store out this evening, that is certainly the case.

At this stage it seems to have a fairly limited range of shows available, but I am pleased that Lost is among them, having missed the finale.  Others include Scubs, Sea Patrol, Foreign Correspondent, Desperate Housewives, The Hills, etc.  Theres not many that will get me coming along regularly, yet, but as with anything, the first step is the hardest.  Now that the service is launched, I hope a wider range of shows will be available.

We don’t watch much telly at all, but there are a handful of shows that we will gladly pay a reasonable amount for if we can’t catch an episode when it airs.

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New Facebook Groups for Aussie Twitter Users Who Want a Local Number for SMS Tweeting

Talk about the rule of Social Networking.  This is a blog post about a new Facebook Group that has been setup for Australians requesting that Twitter give us a local number so that we can tweet our updates via SMS at local rates, not International ones.

At the moment, SMS tweeting costs $0.50 per tweet or more.

If you’re a Twitter User and you want to support this, please join the group setup by josh909.

BTW, follow me on Twitter as desparoz.

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Facebook to Launch Inbox Search

It seems that Facebook is set to launch a new Inbox Search capability.

Starting this week, Inbox search is available to a few networks, but soon everyone will see a search box at the top of their Inbox enabling them to search through all past messages.

Facebook is becoming a ubiquitous communications platform, and I know that there are friends that I communicate with almost exclusively within Facebook.  A Gmail like search function is something I’ve been missing, and that holds me back from fully embracing Facebook as a full scale communications tool. I’ve all but dumped traditional mail clients (Thunderbird, Outlook, etc) for non-corporate email, anduse Gmail exclusively for everything else!  Search, archiving and threaded conversations are the driving features for me!

At this time, I will use Facebook for informal stuff, but as soon as anything becomes more formal (business like), I’ll move the conversation out to email.

As Facebook introduces this new feature, I admit I’ll give it more consideration.  But as a part owner of the conversation (along with the other parties in it, and NOT Facebook), until and unless they give me the function to easily export the data I partially own, I’ll keep everything in email.

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Proposed Digital Copyright Laws Truely Scary

Interesting article in today’s Sydney Morning Herald by tech columnist Graeme Philipson discussing draft copyright legislation being posed by authorities in the US for worldwide implementation.

The ACTA draft is a scary document. If a treaty based on its provisions were adopted, it would enable any border guard, in any treaty country, to check any electronic device for any content that they suspect infringes copyright laws. They need no proof, only suspicion.

As Philipson says, these laws would be nothing short of draconian, and are clearly an attempt by interested parties to maintain control over industries.  The trouble is, these interested parties are neither the primary producers or consumers in those industries, and are in a place where they are protecting (or trying to protect) their roles as middlemen.

I have no problem with companies being intermediaries - in many cases this is a very necessary role.  Intermediaries can bring together consumer and producer.

But with many digital media (including music, software, video, etc) some consumers and some producers don’t require intermediation, and in fact intermediation adds cost and complexity.

It seems to me that these proposed laws are seeking to serve the intermediaries by effectively forcing intermediation even when its not needed.

Digital copyright: it’s all wrong - Perspectives - Opinion - Technology

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