Archive for the ‘lucia’s photos’ Category
more tulips
Tuesday, April 24th, 2012
tulips
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small tulip bouquet
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yellow tulip
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pink and yellow
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another pink and yellow
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tulip bouquet
Shot toward the sun - almost day for night
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Spring in Portland
Monday, April 23rd, 2012
yesterday
tulips
felt like summer
yeah!
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Spring is Here in Portland…
Thursday, March 22nd, 2012
Spring in Portalnd
this morning
my yard
spring?
ha!
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What’s Back There?
Sunday, March 11th, 2012
Red Sunflower
I love this picture. I think what makes it so interesting is the out of focus background. Sure the flower is beautiful and it would make a nice photo on it’s own. But it’s that background that changes everything. My eye moves to the yellow spot and makes me wonder “what is it, what’s going on back there”. It opens up my imagination to all kinds of possibilities.
The essence of this picture depicts how to lure your audience in and get them engaged in your presentation or video. Use content that makes them think. Don’t spoon-feed them, let them figure things out for themselves. They’ll enjoy what you have to say much more. Keep them engaged with a sense of mystery.
Posted in digital media, general musings, high-stakes presentations, lucia's photos, presenting, Uncategorized, video | No Comments »
Finding True North
Friday, March 2nd, 2012
Don't stray from the path you've chosen.
I confess that I don’t truly understand the meaning of geodetic north – aka true north – or that I even know how to use a compass, but I do understand that being off by even a few degrees when plotting your course can put you very far off course at the end. It is an important concept to understand as a presenter: find the place where you want to start and end your presentation and the direction in which you want to go to get there or risk ending up in the woods. What may seem to be only a minor deviation at the start will leave you miles from your intended goal at the end.
Take a moment to think about where you want to be at the end of your journey before you begin to reach for your compass. Think deeply about what you want your audience to feel, think or do when you are finished. Now aim for this target with every slide, every point. Think of every deviation from this goal as a point off the path you are charting. Often a veer off course starts a meander that leads you and your audience further from your true north. While it is a presenting cliché that slides are free and to use as many as you need to tell your story, this does not mean that you should start tossing slides into your presentation that aren’t directly on your path.
It is surprisingly difficult to keep to the narrow path especially if you are passionate about your topic. Every aspect of it seems essential to you. If you’re like me, your ideas are like beloved children – hard to leave out. But be respectful of your audience who is trying to follow you. Whether they know it consciously, as they listen, they are trying to understand the logic behind your choices in order to grasp your advice, remember your ideas, feel the way you told them they would. If you’ve told them you are taking them from A to B, why are we now at M? Is it important? Can you see how quickly this will first confuse, then frustrate and finally defeat your audience?
This honing process is not the same as getting rid of the extraneous information, of eliminating the chaff from your presentation. This is different. You must question your choices in a different way to be certain that you’ve kept to your true north. You must ask whether each slide, each point you make in your presentation delivers your audience closer to the outcome you’ve selected. Ask yourself: what does this slide deliver that makes it indispensable, what part of the goal does this deliver, do I make it clear that this an important step along the path?
So what do you think? Do think that finding a true north for your presentations would help you connect with your audience? Do you have a technique for finding your path through a presentation? Do any presentations come to mind where a lack of distinct and clear direction made it difficult to follow the presenter? I’d be grateful to hear your ideas.
Tags: photography, presenting
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Perspective and Your Clients
Friday, February 3rd, 2012
Hey, what's so interesting?
Wow! Now I see. It's beautiful.
These pictures make me think of perspective and how it influences our relationships with our clients. When we first start working with clients we are in what we, at Imagine, call the “golden phase” of the relationship. Other than knowing the key players, we don’t know the office politics, the dynamics, nor much about the corporate culture. This gives us the ability to bring new and unfiltered ideas to the table. We are essentially “on the outside looking in”, seeing them as the world does. We’re careful to understand what we see and to keep an inventory of our observations.
As time goes by we start to learn the inside scoop, so to speak. And this is necessary, because when we’re creating an e-learning course, a high-stakes presentation, or a video we need to become fully aware of the content, as well as the teaching styles of our clients. In fact, it’s so important to us, we learn the subject very well, enough to have Mike at ITI say that Susan could teach one of their courses. And in the process we learn how our clients see themselves. The trick is being able to learn the “inside scoop” well enough to teach it and still keep a clean perspective.
Obviously, our perspective can never be as unfiltered as it was in the beginning of the relationship, but we work at staying “on the outside looking in” as much as possible. We refer back to the “inventory” of our initial observations so we can merge this with the knowledge we gain from the inside to help keep our clients on track. This is a beautiful thing and helps create a long-term relationship with our clients.
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Photography for Presentations
Wednesday, April 6th, 2011
Ruth with her Dog Daisy
Ruth is a tile artist who has worked with Jackie Peterson, author of “Better, Smarter, Richer”. You can see Ruth’s work here: www.ruthfrancesgreenberg.com Lucia took Ruth’s picture to include in Jackie’s presentation which we designed to help Jackie promote her book. You can learn more about Jackie’s book here: www.bettersmarterricher.com.
Tags: photography
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Reminder of Spring on a Winter Night
Monday, December 6th, 2010
deep red iris in the dead of winter
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