A few chosen narrative examples, to uncover forms, inspire the soul and stir the creative spirits.
This ninety minute video is both short stories of experience from a specific art school whilst also creating a hyper-realistic portion of an oil painting. It’s an odd but compelling and complimentary way . Scott’s candor and humility is evident as he navigates the boundaries of truth and compassion to those he’s sharing stories about, as well as his insane talent as he casually build out a portion of his painting.
Full of emotion and measured sentiment, situated in a political arena and specific to a cause, this is immense. It’s a poignantly delivered demonstration of how to both ask for something (health coverage for the first responders of the 9/11 attack) in a way which also illustrates the incredulous system for health care in the US (the bill did finally get passed for the workers to access to the coverage they needed).
A visual illustration of how the electronic duo Daft Punk snips samples from other songs to make up their own tunes. Offered without narration, this is another example of how showing rather than telling works so much better. It will also make you smile at how some of those well known tunes came into being. Clever stuff from Tracklib, an online record store for sampling.
All offered up to inspire, teach and make you smile / think.
A few days ago, on a wonderfully fresh summers morning, I entered the Kunst Museum Winterthur in Northern Switzerland (twenty minutes outside of Zurich) for a private viewing of the Fritz Huf bronze head sculpture of poet Rainer Maria Rilke (see above). On the same day I traveled the two and a half hours into the Swiss Alps and to a tiny municipality called Raron (population nearly two thousand), to visit the grave of Rilke (see below):
Rilke’s grave in Raron.
This story started in November 2018 when I came across this web article featuring the sculpture. It moved me deeply and after some research I found the museum which housed the piece and reached out to inquire as to its status. It was held in the archive and not currently shown.
The wonderful staff there sent me some information on it and also shared it was owned by a small Swiss municipality (on the Italian border), Commune di Collina d’oro (whom I tried to contact to no avail).
Apparently, the artist Huf had met Rilke in 1915 and the next day a portrait session occurred, although he went on to complete the work from memory. And what a sensitive and attentive creation it is. Small but bold, it evokes so much of the character of the subject through the slightly embellished elements of the features: from the gentle amplification of the brow, the plumpness of the round closed eyes, to the withdrawn cheeks to reveal the cheek bones and the fullness of the lips under the sweeping moustache.
So from first discovering this artistic impression of a poet who has spoken to me for so long, here I am, nearly four years later, spending over an hour in its company. It was very hard to leave:
There you are. In repose. Tenderly positioned, offering yourself to the darkness, again. A vulnerable attempt of being. Be careful what you find, please. But thank you for taking the plunge into the depths of the emotional landscape; a journey as an attempt to create connections between the worlds. A dimensional shift in experiencing the slavering potential of the soul. Did it spare your spirit? How enriching to your present state was it? Where did the dangerous adventures finally exact its toll? For such quests of longing and braveness means risking yourself for what: words? Ideas? Metaphor? You will never know the admiration. The gratefulness of others. How impressive you are to us. Then again would you care? It would probably arrest you for the briefest of time until you again hear the call of the black, sweet space between here and the deeper realms. And you would close your eyes, once more, and retreat into your melancholic kingdom.
What followed was an equally arresting afternoon trip and experience of visiting Rilke’s final resting place. Through and into the Swiss Alps via two train stops, just a short walk from the Raron’s train station I found myself at the foot of the rock spur which aloft sits the 16th Century St. Romanus Church and the aforementioned grave. At the foot is also the St. Michael rock church, which was created by carving out 6000 m3 of rock and opened in 1974 with a capacity for 500 people.
To get to the grave is a steep climb upwards and around the hill which whacks the breathe out of you—although what a reward!
Apart from the small but impressive church and the grave of the poet, it’s the view out from where Rilke lays which is heavy in beauty (so much so i nearly missed my connecting train back out of the valley, so lost was I in the present vista):
The view of Raron from Rilke’s grave
Of course you would be buried in such a luscious place like this. Away from us all, elevated, remote, surrounded by splendid scenes to excite and overwhelm. Teaching us still, that at the end of any challenging journey there’s potential for peace.
After reading so much of the mans words over the past twenty years and tweeting far too many of his lines (neatly curated here if you care), this has been an adventure in coming closer to a poet who’s work is soaked in over-thoughts and drenched in metaphor.
For those who are a fan if his work and find themselves in this part of Europe I urge you to explore the above locations as I guarantee it will be fuel for the soul which will echo deep within. As the man wrote:
Like someone on the final hill, which one more time shows him his entire valley, who turns, pauses, lingers—and so we live, constantly saying farewell. Rainer Maria Rilke
The deepest of thanks to Angelika for making the bust available to view at the fantastic Kunst Museum Winterthur.
Sometimes, the people are right, it’s just the wrong time and place.
On other occasions, the chances time-out but the people and place still fit.
Then there’s the opportunity syncing with the place, however, those who are around don’t match.
Sometimes, all the elements are there and make total sense, it’s just not what was expected and / or wanted.
The varied pathways which form our possible lives are multitudinous beyond belief due to their ever shifting elemental permutations and fluctuations—it’s amazing how anything ever happens intentionally.
And yet here we are, expending so much energy to make ‘it happen’ (because consciously or not, we know every chance-possibility might be nudged in our favour due to the effort).
Attempting with wild abandon to make things fit (because of previous failings still stinging the spirit into action).
Throwing ourselves in with all our might to align all the jumbled elements available (because it’s our nature).
No wonder we’re exhausted!
I wish for you the right people, at the right time, together, in the right place.
*the above is an actual recent Wordle experience I had which sparked this brain-fart of a blog post.
Interview with senior staff researcher and lecturer in computer science at UC-Berkeley, who’s been studying cryptocurrency for years, Says All Cryptocurrency Should “Die in a Fire” (video of lecture below from same chap is well worth your time).
bloouikit.com is an all in one open source wireframe kit for quick design and prototyping your idea, free for commercial and personal use under CC0 License.
pixabay.com has over 2.6 million+ high quality stock images, videos and music for your creative projects (under CC licenses).
Find purposeful work & community around the Sustainable Development Goals via sdg.careers.
Usually, there’s only one thing I’m doing at 5am in the morning, but on April 18th 2007 I was sending my first ever tweet.
MediaSnackers was the second company I founded and ran for a bunch of time. It existed to skill people up on new media (it was called that before it become social) and emerging technologies (like mobile phones and the internet). It got me speaking and delivering our training courses on five continents plus building out a team and an array of service offerings. During this time I introduced and trained thousands of people to use Twitter and on April 3rd, 2011 I tweeted for the first time via @justadandak.
Over the last 15 years I have tweeted approximately 45,000 times (total from both accounts). That’s 3,000 times a year. 250 times a month. 8 times a day.
I’ve always championed Twitter as a communal space to connect to a wider conversation. And beyond that tweets place a big-fat-juicy-virtual-pin into moments and places. They amplify experiences and tap into our humanness to story-share. Whether you’re live-tweeting a conference and connecting to others on the hashtag or increase your following by adding value into the world on weird / wonderful topics.
Nowadays though it’s a little more subdued as a connecting platform and even though I continue to tweet, the engagement has gone through the floor, probably due to the proliferation of other channels and also the divisive nature these channels are being used for.
That being said, I still think it’s pick of the bunch and my three biggest insights for folks who continue to use it are:
use lists: I have a couple although always jump into the main one which cuts through all the clutter and gets me to the good stuff. There’s another massive reason I use lists but it’s top secret and I never share it publicly, although hit me up via the contact page and I will tell you why;
advanced search: I often search Twitter when looking for a solution to a problem or a product / service question I have. Think of Google as a way of searching the ‘lived’ web which is indexed by algorithms, Twitter is a way of searching the ‘live’ web, shared by humans, right now;
unfollow people: stop following accounts who have a negative effect on your well-being. As a user, you have total control over the stream of content which reaches you (unlike BookFace & *InLinked).
*the latter being unusable as an engagement medium in the past year or so due to the algorithmic biases only allowing the stuff it wants to show you, with no option to just see from those who you are connected to—see this recent example of me scrolling in real time and note how some posts appear more than once plus there are no posts from those in my network, only likes or supports or loves etc of content from those outside my network (oh and I did ask and here’s their non-response proving there’s no way to see posts JUST from those in your network):
Back to the Twittersphere, things have definitely changed: from the early days of ‘follow Friday’ where you would celebrate a bunch of people in your network you wanted to champion to others right through to connecting via event hashtags and having fantastic ‘back-channel’ discussions on what’s going on.
And now Mr Musk could usurp all of this in the coming months and years although I doubt it. And even if he does, there will be another platform I’m sure which will come along and offer the same service.
In that very short time I far surpassed the recouping of the costs for the learning management service I’m using (which was my first goal) and have received positive comments on its impact from those who have completed the course. As I continue to promote its existence to the world am aiming to build on this great start and turn it into momentum that will sustain.
As a solopreneur there are no partners or other agencies supporting this endeavour, am doing all the course corrections and publicising myself. That being said, the promotional plan has been simple: let the humans in my network whom I think would be interested know about it (mainly via email). To aid interest, for the first month percentage-off-offers were created each week and these were shared in the emails plus through LinkedIn and Twitter every other day.
A big amount of time was spent researching the platform I’m using and it was chosen not least due to its integrated automation (from payment gateways to sequencing of communications to registrants). That being said, tweaks are always needed albeit small ones.
What’s been a surprise is that I’ve been contacted by a few of my friends and colleagues with good arguments about upping the price (some stating I should add an extra “0” to the price tag). I was already considering adding bonus chapters in the coming months as well as yet-to-be-revealed extra opportunities for the membership community to connect further. Was thinking these two developments would create further opportunities to promote the course whilst also increasing the value to both those who have already bought plus those who are considering. Although if I were to take the advice of those who are advocating for a price increase a new path is to be taken (which I’ve already formulated).
So, if you haven’t purchased access to the course yet, please get in now before any changes occur:
In the coming months I will continue to develop two other complimentary courses which will sit alongside and on the Presenting Wisdom platform, rounding out the offer and increasing the learning portfolio available to undertake.
Any questions, hit me up in the comments.
UPDATE 18.5.22 Planning and creating in concert with the next course – shooting soon:
A few chosen narrative examples, to uncover forms, inspire the soul and stir the creative spirits.
Touching. Funny. Poignant. Eulogies are an odd but if you think about it, obvious platforms for stories. I mean if there’s ever a second best time to express emotion and insights for loved ones it’s when others are gathered to pay that respect. David Grohl’s weaves a lovely journey of one mans little impact of his friend Lemmy Kilmister.
*first best time is now.
A classic. High energy and sigh-inducing. A teacher in flow. Illustrating everything he says with the aligned energy and practical demonstrations whilst also literally connecting to the audience with no consideration for usual etiquette. Sublime and an example I come back to often to show exuberant oratory.
It’s really hard to write text to sound flowing and spontaneous. It’s harder still to read a script with the energy and intonation of natural speech. This is a perfect example of both. A highly charged topic delivered with grace and sincerity, humanised through individual experience and gravitas. A peace-making call to arms in a troubled time.
All offered up to inspire, teach and make you smile / think.
Radically increase your online storytelling & presenting skills—20% OFF FOR FIRST WEEK!
It’s a niche offering, only for those who spend any time on virtual platforms such as Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, Jitsi, Livestorm, Blue Button, Skype, WebEx etc. and / or deliver webinars to clients / colleagues and / or been invited to speak at any online engagements.
For only $149NZD approx £90GBP / $120USD / $150CAD / $160AUD (+20% off for this first week), you get:
Since the pandemic kicked in two years ago, half of my professional income was wiped out instantly (producing in-person events for clients and the Creative Leadership NZ conference I founded). The speaker coaching plummeted also but slowly came back as more and more were now going online, so I diversified my offerings to match.
I developed and have been delivering a scaled back version of the above course—positioned as a mini-masterclass—to an array of clients these past 18months.
A few months ago I invested in a ‘learning management system’ (LMS) and devoted a whole heap of time to learn it (will blog about this separately as it’s been a challenging experience). I outlined all the ideas and insights I wanted to convey, mapped the participants journey, chapterised them down, recorded and edited down all the content, designed the branding plus collateral, then put it all together as a virtual learning experience.
Already have two other ideas for aligned courses although for now my energy will be going into promoting and getting the word out about it.
Truly hope you will take up this opportunity and if you could share it through your networks plus to others you know who are presenting online often I would be very grateful, thank you:
A few chosen narrative examples, to uncover forms, inspire the soul and stir the creative spirits.
The closing talk of the 2015 event flaws me every time (was lucky to experience it in real-time at TEDActive). A challenging topic delivered with poise and flowing humility, weaved around a set of lived experience and humanising adventures of those at the end of their life. A gentle approach with surprisingly uplifting insights.
A stunning mash-up of words from Rilke, real-life footage and animation, over-layed with wonderful sound design to form a mix which entices and arrests. A revealing vignette of our current climate state with also a poetic call to action for involvement along with creating a poignant sense of hope. Marvelous.
Captivating. Hilarious. An emotional ride of a story. Delivered with an array of pacing and continued narrative arcs. Even though our storyteller is a puppet, recognise and track range of feelings which heightens the rhetorical journey. What an end as well where we’re all challenged by our roles as story-listeners to consider some big questions of validity, superb!
From moving between the different domains of my clients disciplines to some explorations of my personal creative agency, storytelling has been the thread between all the activities, along with the desire to add value to the world through collaboration. It’s been a year of internal revelations and a renewed hunger to try new things in a future which is starting to glisten with potential.
CLIENTS
To enable me to pay the rent, services were delivered to the following superb array of entities:
…plus individual speaker coaching sessions took the total to 35 clients for 2021—an honourable haul in current climes and very much appreciate deeply each and every opportunity.
In terms of what services were delivered, it comes out something like this (‘speaking’ includes talks as well as my ‘purposeful storytelling’ beginners and advanced full-and-half-day masterclasses for leadership groups):
How that equates to monies earned:
A couple of the choice highlights have been:
MC’ing the monthly online Teulo Talks whereby I get to interact plus learn from internationally renowned architectural and construction industry talent. Hearing how these leaders are exploring new computational approaches plus putting the climate crisis at the heart of their designs is wonderfully hope inducing.
Producing a three-day ‘purposeful storytelling’ learning experience with the good librarians of the Christchurch Libraries was a joy. Spending a repeated amount of time with clients is rare so it’s very much cherished when it occurs. And hearing after about the positive impact of aiding those to embrace their stories with the skills to share them makes me soul sing.
And here’s what a few folks said about me in other realms of my delivery (which makes me shift in my seat and feel odd although am trying to get better at celebrating myself more):
“I recently had DK run the ‘presenting engagingly online’ session at a virtual conference I was managing for our organization. We had many great speakers, but based on the feedback (and my opinion too!) DK’s was the highlight. The session included tangible take aways that I use daily while presenting and was fun and energetic. Coordinating the session with DK was a breeze (even with the time difference), and he tailored his approach to fit the group I was working with. Could not recommend enough!” June Kinloch, Lead, Digital Products, The HIVE at IBI Group
“When in lockdown, at Pharmac we asked DK to deliver a zoom presentation on ‘presenting engagingly online.’ Our objective was to give staff an opportunity to connect virtually after we had all shifted to working from home and we had few opportunities for a shared experience. We used DK’s prepared session to shift from presenting in this new medium (zoom) to how we adapt generally, with shifting mediums as a metaphor for the broader pressure on all of us to adapt and change in response to our external environment. The latter part was progressed via a moderated Q&A session. Staff really enjoyed the session – both parts – and I consider DK’s role as catalyst to have been really helpful.” Mark Woodard, Director of Corporate Services/CFO, PHARMAC NZ
“I have had the great pleasure of inviting DK to work with our team for 2 enjoyable and valuable sessions so far: an in-person (those were the days!) public speaking and storytelling workshop; and a virtual Presenting Engagingly Online session. These were both very highly rated by our team and we’re looking forward to having DK come and share more magic with us to help us continue to hone our skills and confidence. On top of that, DK is one of the kindest, most compassionate and generous people I know. He builds an environment of trust, confidence and care, role modelling respectful feedback and gently supporting people to build confidence and strength with public speaking, storytelling and presenting. I cannot recommend DK highly enough.” Kimberley Gilmour, People & Culture | Health & Wellbeing, Uneeq
The above was my first pass at the ‘delegate experience’ which was a result of a few sessions with the interactions team which I was leading this year. My aim was to inspire and guide the group to craft a creative experience for the 2,000 attendees which surprised and delighted whilst tapping into the subjects explored by the speakers and also literally recording plus increasing the nature of the chosen theme of the event, which was ‘hope’ (the speakers were already chosen by this stage as well as the theme, and after the event was cancelled were ‘gifted’ over to a new license and event TEDxPipitea to continue with).
TEDxWellington was so aligned to my purpose and I gave nearly a decade of pro bono time to it. Even though it nearly broke me a few times and constricted my ability to explore paid work, what an amazing 9 years selling out every event, giving many an opportunity to speak on a TEDx stage to catapult their stories into the world and a chance for many more to volunteer on a world-class initiative (many of which have leveraged in their own personal / professional journeys). I feel blessed to have had the experience which included:
Have been taking the time to go inwards and explore spirit versus ego, values and character, trauma and healing. It’s been long overdue and I know will never be a completed exercise as my ‘bastard brain‘ still pops up and does its usual thing. But there’s an emergence state occurring as a wider range of literacy regarding my emotions are being accessed.
There remains a deep reverberating ache for companionship, and that’s okay. I have a high level of trust in this longing which sparks an odd but familiar hopefulness in me. I have bared my calon and the outcome was the opposite of what was hoped for but I am proud of me for making the it known:
CURATED / CREATED
As evident in the 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36 digital breadcrumbs offerings—the good stuff I tweet collected into cohesive and more snackable monthly blog posts—my curiosity is still sharp and I delight in having a wide view on the world. Between those and a modest blogging offering this year I will continue to seek out a wide-ranging media diet and delight in the brilliant intersections I see in most things:
This year I continued my Creative Welly activities along with my collaboration partners, and produced fourteen episodes featuring 28 bold humans (read the end of year review here). It continues to be a unique visual approach to the medium and keen to build off the wholly independently produced venture as still have a big list of people to get to.
Earlier in the year I got to making—have designed and developed a working prototype focused on amplifying human connection (born out of a failed attempt at an ebook on the same topic which I’m revisiting for the new year in a different form).
After lots of cardboard cutting and glue gun fun, a friend helped with the final ‘cut file’ to get it fabricated, and over a thousand bucks later I had the chance to fit it all together and… it works!
Have pitched the concept to a couple of agencies for use in the New Year (fingers crossed).
LESSONS LEARNED
Extrapolating from the types of services plus financials more speaking opportunities will be sort along with consulting, however, I’ll be dropping the in-person MC offerings (as actually know better practitioners out there I can pass on my inquiries to).
The self-care and self-awareness values have been ignited after being in dormancy which has sparked so many cognitive and emotional reactions in me that I know it’s important. Tenderness, kindness and grace have become often cited and lens by which to navigate this crazy life.
2022 ACTION STRATEGY / THE NEXT 8,760 HOURS
We’re all grown-ups and know that planning is guessing, shallow attempts to manifest best intentions, action is key.
Throw in a layer of doing things which serve my spirit and purpose, plus creative collaborations with other impressive people, then that’s an action list I want to chase down.
My purpose remains the same:
“I’m driven to enable people find and have voice.”
Beyond continuing to offer my current speaking / coaching services, my desire is to give attention to projects which raise eyebrows, both individually and in collaboration with others (centered around the above purpose statement). This will manifest in the following actions (no particular order):
as described above regarding the prototype, been researching for about 9 months and developing out a product around augmenting gathering experiences, so intending to go live in the first quarter with a few paid service offerings and one free informational offer;
also in the first quarter, will launch a series of online course offerings relating to presenting online (a deeper dive from what I’ve been delivering this past year or so to many clients);
Creative Leadership NZ (which ran in 2017, 2018, 2019 then paused due to the pandemic) will make a return at the end of 2022 to “connect visionary humans and creatives into a community to solve contemporary challenges” and is already in development mode (venues, curating speakers, exploring partnerships);
Creative Welly will continue to be my pro bono project and more episodes will follow soon enough (as an aside, the “Welly” in this title does not stand for “Wellington” as most assume, read about it on the about page);
artistic expressions through sound, artifacts and visuals (not NFTs because they are mainly a ponzi scheme which hurts the world);
and finally, have an audacious moonshot documentary project brewing which is titillating the senses and aiming to close the deal this year.
Also want to throw a big hope and that is to visit the family back in Wales and then other friends in other countries during the trip. With the current state of the virus who knows, am doing my best not to miss people / places and recognise in gratitude where I am and what I have also.
As for the more personal side of things, am keen to craft a ‘theme’ for the coming year and have settled on:
Radical creativity responsibility.
Towards the end of the year I unfollowed a bunch of people and entities on Twitter / Linkedin which were constantly creating a negative response in me and it triggered the realisation that it is up to me to define my state (or at least do my best to react to the world in the positive). Integrating traumatic experiences and sad-inducing moments I will take personally and treat them like adventures to be grateful for.
So, how was your year and what guesses / actions do you have for 2022?
