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Mundane Series Launch | Positive Products To Amplify Imaginative Minds / Hearts / Souls – PURCHASE NOW!

don't be - animated words - justadandak.com - gif

For creative maximilists looking to encourage dangerously original things!

These offerings was inspired by a real life event (“I don’t do mundane” was my response when someone asked for ‘mundane’ from me). That value destroyed a career path, meant the loss of a healthy dose of money / about a year in time / loads of positive energy, and deeply affected my mental health, because:

“A principle isn’t a principle until it costs you something.”

Bill Bernbach

…so I’m turning that deeply negative experience into a gift of inspiration and designed the following for audacious humans with aligned principles (the posters would be great for offices, workshops, classrooms, meeting rooms, funky shops / cafes, creative and co-working spaces etc. plus the cards to celebrate / encourage someones imaginative approaches):

Mundane series - justadandak.com - Sep 2024 - shop screengrab

Eighteen items from three designs, with two variations on each (colour / no colour) across another three product options of greeting cards, matte posters and / or framed posters.

All designed by me, no AI, via Procreate and Keynote.

And please send me a pic of the purchase in situ as would love to see where they have found a home!

See also MUNDANE | Made Up of Nothing, Devoid of Anything New or Exciting.
Published

#67 August 2024 | Monthly Digital Breadcrumbs

(via Tube map redesigned by University of Essex lecturer goes viral – BBC News)

A bunch of things (which I added to my Tumblr) for your eyes and ears plus brain to spend time on (as no longer on Twitter).

READ

“Creativity is made, not generated. Generative AI is ripping the humanity out of things. Built on a foundation of theft, the technology is steering us toward a barren future. We think machine learning is a compelling technology with a lot of merit, but the path generative AI is on is wrong for us. We’re here for the humans. We’re not chasing a technology that is a moral threat to our greatest jewel: human creativity. In this technological rush, this might make us an exception or seem at risk of being left behind. But we see this road less travelled as the more exciting and fruitful one for our community.”
Creativity is made, not generated — Procreate®

“Our tendency to summon powers we cannot control stems not from individual psychology but from the unique way our species cooperates in large numbers. Humankind gains enormous power by building large networks of cooperation, but the way our networks are built predisposes us to use power unwisely. For most of our networks have been built and maintained by spreading fictions, fantasies and mass delusions – ranging from enchanted broomsticks to financial systems. Our problem, then, is a network problem. Specifically, it is an information problem. For information is the glue that holds networks together, and when people are fed bad information they are likely to make bad decisions, no matter how wise and kind they personally are.”
‘Never summon a power you can’t control’: Yuval Noah Harari on how AI could threaten democracy and divide the world | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian

“In an email reported by the New York Times, Condé Nast’s CEO, Roger Lynch, said that the deal will make up for some of the revenue that technology companies have snagged publishers in recent years. He wrote: “Generative AI is rapidly changing ways audiences are discovering information. It’s crucial that we meet audiences where they are an embrace new technologies while also ensuring proper attribution and compensation for use of our intellectual property.” Other media companies have taken the opposite tack. The New York Times and the Intercept have sued OpenAI for using their articles. The litigation is ongoing.”
OpenAI signs multi-year content partnership with Condé Nast | Technology | The Guardian

“Like designing any immersive experience, a public place captures the imagination of its visitor. It offers a promise. How a place looks (Form) and its practical purpose (Function), should be informed by its “guest promise” (Fulfillment).”
Margaret Kerrison | ex-Imagineer on placemaking | bloolop

“A recently published report by digital collaboration management company Vyopta found a correlation between employee retention and camera enablement during virtual meetings. Workers who left their organization within a year of the study’s sample period (Q1 2022 and Q1 2023) turned their cameras on in just 18.4 percent of small group meetings, while employees who stayed at their organization were on camera in 32.5 percent of such meetings. The report — which involved 450,000 employees and data from 40 million meetings worldwide — shows that companies need to make a concerted effort to establish an effective virtual meeting culture…”
Camera-Off Time in Virtual Meetings Could Be a Bad Sign for Employee Retention, Study Finds | Inc.com

“In a simple experiment, researchers at the University of Chicago sought to find out whether a rat would release a fellow rat from an unpleasantly restrictive cage if it could. The answer was yes. The free rat, occasionally hearing distress calls from its compatriot, learned to open the cage and did so with greater efficiency over time. It would release the other animal even if there wasn’t the payoff of a reunion with it. Astonishingly, if given access to a small hoard of chocolate chips, the free rat would usually save at least one treat for the captive — which is a lot to expect of a rat. The researchers came to the unavoidable conclusion that what they were seeing was empathy — and apparently selfless behavior driven by that mental state.”
A new model of empathy: The rat – The Washington Post

“Last week, Google backtracked on its long-standing promise to block third-party cookies in Chrome. This is bad for your privacy and good for Google’s business. Third-party cookies are a pervasive tracking technology that allow companies to snoop on your online activity for surveillance and ad-targeting purposes. The consumer harm caused by these cookies has been well-documented for years, prompting Safari and Firefox to block them since 2020. Google knows this—that’s why they pledged to phase out third-party cookies in 2020. By abandoning this plan, Google leaves billions of Chrome users vulnerable to online surveillance.”
Google Breaks Promise to Block Third-Party Cookies | Electronic Frontier Foundation

WATCH

EXPLORE

Automatisch is an Open Source Zapier Alternative.

The Unanswered Oddities playlist is a superb use of AI.

A minimalist town builder with trams to play in your browser.

These wonderful Werner Herzog Inspirationals are posters for our time.

RSS still rules so here are a bunch of tools which will aid defining your own media menu.

Create vector dotted maps with custom options and download them as SVG or PNG files.

All monthly digital breadcrumbs posts.
Published

NEW SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT | Purposeful Storytelling Impact Course

A tailored leadership learning experience aimed at greatly improving storytelling techniques and oratory skills, as well as enhancing the capability to deliver exceptional showcase presentations across diverse fields.

This brand new professional development program was recently delivered for a wonderful international client over 5x 2.5/3hour online sessions with twelve leaders from three continents across four countries—highly participatory in nature and focused on increasing the literacy levels of those involved aligned to specific strategic needs.

Interviews were undertaken with chosen participants to first gain an understanding of levels of literacy as well as current approaches. Desk research regarding language use, industry trends and internal policies was also completed to ensure the course had relevance and direct corporate impact.

Here’s the result:

“We recently had the opportunity to learn from DK as we launched the Better Futures Catalyst program, a facilitated public speaking initiative at Steelcase. This program brought together a cohort of employees from around the world to enhance our presentation skills by focusing on our people and planet efforts. DK created a bespoke hybrid program, guiding us in developing compelling stories and boosting our confidence in public speaking—both in-person and virtually. Our final presentations showcased remarkable growth, with each of us effectively weaving our unique experiences into an engaging narrative. We are so grateful to DK for his authentic approach, for creating a safe space for us to learn together and from each other, and for the number of resources he shared throughout the journey. Highly recommend!”
Kim Koeman, Global Director, Social Innovation at Steelcase

Was lucky enough to deliver a second cohort for Steelcase and currently exploring an ‘advanced’ offering for those who have been through the first ones.

Here’s some of the anonymous participants feedback gathered post-course:

This service is now available to other organisations and companies looking to invest in the professional development of the storytelling abilities of their leaders.

Get in touch to explore further the process, alignment, costs and availability—only running a handful of these a year due to the time it takes to craft and deliver plus other commitments.

I did something similar (albeit in-person) for Sir Peter Jackson’s personal post production studio a few years back and fantastic to now have a couple of case studies of this instructional activity plus impact:

“We contracted DK to run several sessions with members of our leadership team and other staff who are required to present ideas, solutions, explanations and work flow information to clients and audiences. The sessions were so insightful and the feedback was extremely positive, even the most cynical were surprised at what they could achieve and change the way one approaches preparation and off the cuff speaking. A highly productive and useful experience and one we will repeat.”
Vicki Jackways, Head of Marketing, Park Road Post Production

Image credit / IconDuck – tweaked.
Published

750,000 Views | Celebrating As We Go

Marking another milestone.

In a little over eighteen months, my TEDxNelson talk on ‘The Public Speaking Lesson You Never Had’ has reached three quarters of a million views—crazy-mad-bonkers!

And the emails I continue to get from people fills my heart (this is the latest one):

If you’re reading this and watched it, shared it on, and / or liked it / left a comment on the YouTube video, sincerely, thank you!

Now I have the delightful challenge to figure out what to do when it hits one million views…

Related post: 500,000 TEDxNelson Talk Views | Celebrating With A Giveaway.
Published

PEO Course Review | Figuring Out Next Moves

After two years I’m pressing pause on my Presenting Engagingly Online course.

UPDATE 30.8.24 : check out NEW SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT | Purposeful Storytelling Impact Course.

Launched in 2022 it was 75minutes / 10 video chapters crammed with applicable insights, resources and knowledge, users could take at their own pace. The course made me five figures worth of profit and was accessed by over 200 souls across four continents.

There are several reasons for the pause:

  1. Needs updating: the course was a response to the god awful talks / presentations I was seeing as everyone was switching to online events during Covid. Since then I’ve delivered multiple internal masterclasses on the same subject for a range of clients with 1000s of folks attending and honed my digital skills further. Ergo, got more content, more things to share, more insights to give, more ways to convince people to stop sharing their screen etc.;
  2. Sales have dropped off a cliff: probably because I have no interest in marketing / promotions, just creating, connecting, delivering, learning and adding value (and could have the same issue if I do the below update option);
  3. It costs: it’s $1,228.20USD annually to host through a learning platform plus it’s a little time-heavy to set-up.

UPDATE 25.8.24: I had a poll here with 3 options and asked people to vote. Same thing was also on my LinkedIn and both polls gave the same result of only offering bespoke / webinar versions of the learning experience (instead of redoing the course or leaving it there). Will be updating my about page accordingly:

Results of LI poll.

If there’s an interest for option 2 above please holler in the comments or fire us a message direct to collaborate!

Thanks for playing.

Published

#66 July 2024 | Monthly Digital Breadcrumbs

A bunch of things (which I added to my Tumblr) for your eyes and ears plus brain to spend time on (as no longer on Twitter).

READ

“The proposed treaty, pushed by Russia and shepherded by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, is a proposed agreement between nations purportedly aimed at strengthening cross border investigations and prosecutions of cybercriminals who spread malware, steal data for ransom, and cause data breaches, among other offenses. The problem is, as currently written, the treaty gives governments massive surveillance and data collection powers to go after not just cybercrime, but any offense they define as a serious that involves the use of a computer or communications system. In some countries, that includes criticizing the government in a social media post, expressing support online for LGBTQ+ rights, or publishing news about protests or massacres.”
Why You Should Hate the Proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty | Electronic Frontier Foundation

As it’s described, Media Manager puts the burden on creators to protect their work and fails to address the company’s past legal and ethical transgressions. This overture is like having your valuables stolen from your home and then hearing the thief say, “Don’t worry, I’ll give you a chance to opt out of future burglaries … next year.””
Opinion: As AI is embraced, what happens to the artists whose work was stolen to build it? – Los Angeles Times

“Results showed again that those employees who continued to work with AI (compared to those who did not) had greater desire for connection, and were more lonely, with the corresponding consequences: more helping for those who had greater needs for affiliation, and more alcohol consumption (in one of the studies) and insomnia for those who felt lonelier.”
Research: Using AI at Work Makes Us Lonelier and Less Healthy

“In doing so, scientists have created a genetic goldmine by pinpointing previously unknown genes that are now being used to create hardy varieties with improved yields that could help feed Earth’s swelling population. Strains are now being developed that include wheat which is able to grow in salty soil, while researchers at Punjab Agricultural University are working to improve disease resistance from seeds that they received from the John Innes Centre. Other strains include those that would reduce the need for nitrogen fertilisers, the manufacture of which is a major source of carbon emissions.”
‘Goldmine’ collection of wheat from 100 years ago may help feed the world, scientists say | Agriculture | The Guardian

“In the total darkness of the depths of the Pacific Ocean, scientists have discovered oxygen being produced not by living organisms but by strange potato-shaped metallic lumps that give off almost as much electricity as AA batteries. The surprise finding has many potential implications and could even require rethinking how life first began on Earth, the researchers behind a study said on Monday.”
‘Dark oxygen’ in depths of Pacific Ocean could force rethink about origins of life | Oceans | The Guardian

WATCH

Man defrauds Amazon to fix potholes their dodged taxes should pay for. Uses same tax loophole as them to avoid legal repercussions for the fraud.
byu/Night_Fev3r inDamnthatsinteresting

EXPLORE

An online dice simulator.

A bunch of webcams for the Faroe Islands.

Check out this free Nokia 3310 Cellphone Font Reproduction.

A free online tool to design and then download your own pixel font.

Turn photos into oscillating wave animations via Shape Shimmer – wave animato.

Open source, privacy-first and cross-platform LocalSend: Share files to nearby devices.

Good for your ears and brain, listen to Fighting Enshittification | Electronic Frontier Foundation regarding interoperability etc.

This free Cross-Platform Pie Menu called Kando which launches applications, simulate keyboard shortcuts, open files, and much more.

Check out the Documentation for Pipes as a way to mashup and utilise RSS feeds like back in the day with Yahoo Pipes (semi-free and then paid).

All monthly digital breadcrumbs posts.
Published

#63 April 2024 | Monthly Digital Breadcrumbs

remind yourself

A bunch of things (which I added to my Tumblr) for your eyes and ears plus brain to spend time on (as no longer on Twitter).

READ

“The vulnerability, which allows the keystroke data that these apps send to the cloud to be intercepted, has existed for years and could have been exploited by cybercriminals and state surveillance groups, according to researchers at the Citizen Lab, a technology and security research lab affiliated with the University of Toronto.”

Almost every Chinese keyboard app has a security flaw that reveals what users type | MIT Technology Review

“By 2013, Netflix had begun entering into a series of “Facebook Extended API” agreements, including a so-called “Inbox API” agreement that allowed Netflix programmatic access to Facebook’s users’ private message inboxes, in exchange for which Netflix would “provide to FB a written report every two weeks that shows daily counts of recommendation sends and recipient clicks by interface, initiation surface, and/or implementation variant (e.g., Facebook vs. non-Facebook recommendation recipients). … In August 2013, Facebook provided Netflix with access to its so-called “Titan API,” a private API that allowed a whitelisted partner to access, among other things, Facebook users’ “messaging app and non-app friends.””

Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy: Lawsuit | Ars Technica

“In 2001, a poet named Bart Droog began attending the funerals of people who had no one to attend them and honoring the dead with a poem based on whatever was known about their life. A year later, Dutch poet and artist Frank Starik took the idea even further, launching The Lonely Funeral project to ensure that someone who cares consciously acknowledges the life of a person who has died. The idea was to create a network of poets who would find out whatever they could about the person, write a custom poem about their life and read it at their funeral. As of 2018, over 300 “lonely funerals” had been attended by poets in Amsterdam and Antwerp (where Flemish poet Maarten Inghels launched a Lonely Funeral project seven years after Starik’s).”

The beautiful thing that happens in Amsterdam if you die and have no one to attend your funeral – Upworthy

“We find that for 2016–2021: (i) per coin climate damages from BTC were increasing, rather than decreasing with industry maturation; (ii) during certain time periods, BTC climate damages exceed the price of each coin created; (iii) on average, each $1 in BTC market value created was responsible for $0.35 in global climate damages, which as a share of market value is in the range between beef production and crude oil burned as gasoline, and an order-of-magnitude higher than wind and solar power. Taken together, these results represent a set of sustainability red flags. While proponents have offered BTC as representing “digital gold,” from a climate damages perspective it operates more like “digital crude”.”

Economic estimation of Bitcoin mining’s climate damages demonstrates closer resemblance to digital crude than digital gold | Scientific Reports

“Leaked documents show Tory executives discussed exploiting members’ personal data to build a mobile phone app that could track users’ locations and allow big brands to advertise to Conservative supporters. The party would take a cut of sales. The project was considered over several months last year, with the aim of launching the “True Blue” app in time for the party’s conference in October. The idea was developed by the boss of a cryptocurrency firm with a string of failed businesses behind him. Yet senior Conservative officials appeared so captivated by the plan that they prepared to provide the party’s database of members in order to move the proposal forward.

Tories planned to make millions from members’ data with ‘True Blue’ app | Conservatives | The Guardian

“A new tool from OpenAI that can generate a convincing clone of anyone’s voice using just 15 seconds of recorded audio has been deemed too risky for general release, as the AI lab seeks to minimise the threat of damaging misinformation in a global year of elections.”

OpenAI deems its voice cloning tool too risky for general release | OpenAI | The Guardian

WATCH

EXPLORE

Make some melodies for free via MusicalBox.

Eyecandy is an exhaustive visual technique library.

Meow.Camera is a collection of livestreams of automatic feeders for streetcats in Japan.

Convert any web pages into markdown with images via markdowndown.vercel.app

Very clever little free tool to upload an image then add tilt and zoom: blurmatic.com

The ‘Creativity Pioneers (micro – up to €5,000) Fund‘ is from the Moleskine Foundation and is open (deadline is 27th May 2024, 11:00 pm CET).

Currently, this site boasts that they’ve “analysed 5667 AI Tools and identified their capabilities with OpenAI GPT-4, to bring you a list of 30257 tasks of what AI can do today.”

If you’re getting your head around automating AI and other platforms to craft / distribute content then check out this LinkedIn video.

Tim Berners-Lee gives predictions for future:
– Prediction 1: Everyone will have a personal AI assistant
– Prediction 2: We’ll take true ownership of our data across all platforms — including VR
– Prediction 3: A Big Tech company could get broken up

All monthly digital breadcrumbs posts.

Published

Open Call To Play | Back On The Creative Market

Via the astonishing bleuje.com

The role I moved from NZ to the UK for wasn’t for me so am looking for new adventures—am a creative nomad hungry to add value in the world and I don’t do MUNDANE!

Here’s what I can do as a:

  • Speaker Coach : tutor leaders (1-2-1 & teams) in honing powerful spoken stories (in-person and online) via masterclasses in ‘purposeful storytelling’ (foundation and advanced learning experiences available, either half-days or full-days)
  • Creative Producer : consult and / or craft and deliver delicious learning experiences on a scale of 10 to 1,000 attendees with 5,000 people watching online plus do in-studio content creations like this
  • Speaker-for-hire : about the stuff I’ve done and am doing.

I’m driven to enable people find and have voice.

A fan of reaching beyond my grasp and taking others on that journey. About being bold and ambitious, shying away from business-as-usual and not being held back by fear or risk aversion (see Defining ROI | Exploring New Definitions).

Huge fan of working with people who know more than me and crafting space for them to excel. Collaboration is about combining skills in open spaces for people to shine and not dulling them because you have a lack (see People Are Awesome | The Hope Generator That Is TEDx).

When trying something new I look for those with pedigree and / or aligned successful processes, then either enable that person and get out of the way, or learn rapidly, to adapt / adopt via the evidence on show. Once experience is gained you can then iterate (see Crafting Creative Collisions | 100 Starts).

I spend a lot of time developing killer taste, curating tasty things and not being interested in good but in great. Maximising to excellence and surround myself with others who strive to ask / answer better questions (see CLNZ19 Talks Are All Live | Watch, Learn, Share).

I cherish difference. If that means you prefer drawing or moving as an expression of communication rather than just writing then I’ll do my best to protect that. Being inclusive means mentoring, celebrating, managing by doing, creating conditions for others to be them, defending your team members if you have the authority to do so, knowing that bringing opposites together for wonderful intersectional creations is what moves us all forward (see Wrapping Up Creative Welly | A Study In Human Intimacy).

One of the precious things I’ve learned in the last decade is that of self-respect. To challenge (always with kindness and politely) those who make you feel small and defend others without agency. If you don’t, toxic / muted environments bloom and those in “power” blame others for what they created (see Authority Doesn’t Come From Titles | Brave Leadership Summit 2023 Review blog post).

To illustrate, here are some highlights:

Check out the testimonials on the front page for a flavour of what people think about me.

So if anything sparks from above just holler at me via the contact page.

Published

The Subtle Art of Public Speaking | Stage, Page & Screen Podcast

Back in September of last year I had the wonderful honour of virtually chatting with Josh Shipp and Jesse Rice for the above podcast.

I’ve slept since then so had forgotten what we chatted about but boy did I love experiencing this conversation again as a listener.

There’s lots of insights here from my lived experience as a speaker coach and speaker myself plus how to present online effectively. I also got to ask some questions also of Josh and got some advice / insights from his brain. Here are the time-stamps:

00:00:00 // Tomfoolery and banter
00:02:10 // Introducing DK
00:07:02 // Helpful tips on how to best use slides in your presentation
00:26:52 // The critical thing DK learned by “faking” his way through a TEDx talk
00:32:26 // An unconventional approach to crafting your speech
01:00:55 // Pro tips on developing and presenting your content virtually
01:25:37 // What your responsibility is toward your audience

I featured Josh in a MediaSnackers podcast back in 2009, met up with him a couple of times during the following years and kept in touch ever since. He’s one of my favourite speakers and humans on the planet. A mentor. Author. MTV advice star. TV personality. Now business leader / youth speaker agency founder. An exemplar of the practice of oratory.

Thank you Josh and Jesse (cohost / producer of the podcast) for their time, questions and wonderful (listen to their wonderful back catalogue of podcasts here).

Have a listen and let me know what you took away in the comments below.

Check out some other podcasts I’ve been on.
Published