Got an important presentation or pitch coming up and struggling to prepare? This will help (or your money back): exploring the three elements which make up a great talk plus a Jedi-mind trick which will reframe those debilitating nerves once and for all.
What a joy to be invited to give a TEDx talk last month in Whakatū Nelson, at their first ever in-person event.
After nearly a decade of developing and delivering the TEDx offerings for Te Whanganui-o-Tara Wellington, was an honour to be stepping on that red rug as just a speaker to share my ‘idea worth spreading.’
As discussed in the talk, scripts are rubbish, and just to prove here’s mine which I prepared my talk from after developing different options via the post-it note medium (if you’re speaking from lived experience this is all you need):
Thanks to all the good people behind the scenes at TEDxNelson for the opportunity to share my story/ies plus the attendees and other speakers for making it a great day.
BUY NOW Speaking With Purpose: A guide to delivering impressive presentations!
For only $10NZD this bundle deal featured an ebook with a juicy 37 chapters, nearly 14,000 words across 89 pages plus a 1hour34mins audiobook version (read by me).
A few chosen narrative examples, to uncover forms, inspire the soul and stir the creative spirits.
FRAGMENTS illustrates superbly how to report back on a research project. My first career was in local government and I remember taking part in ‘community consultations’ which we’d then had to synthesis into written reports for committee meetings. Here’s an example of how to do it properly. Led by ff.studio and Peopletoo, in collaboration with Essex County Council (ECC), plus funded by the DfE.
This is what happens when you ask a Welsh actor of pedigree to improvise what he would say to a Welsh football side ahead of the World Cup to inspire them. Not just does this but so full of ‘hwyl’ (a Welsh word for heart, effort and the life spirit). Read about the backstory here.
Clop: incredible and fast media optimiser for an assortment of purposes.
Maccy (was Clipy): amazing little time-saver, set up to save my last 40 ‘copy’ actions (you can set the number) ready for pasting with shortcut enabled so can bring it up via Option+Command+V.
F.lux: (in terms of colour management for eye stress) warms up your screen and cools it down depending on the time of day. UPDATE: friend told me this is already in the new OS under Displays>NightShift so now uninstalling this app.
FuzzyTime: a way to add a ‘human’ touch to telling the time, now if Apple would allow us to remove the time icon from the menu-bar…
Hidden Bar: such a clever little thing to hide away all your menu bar items (I just have time and battery showing with control center and analogue clock fixed due to OS constraints).
Hidden Me: tidies up your desktop so it looks neat and tidy when presenting.
OBS: open source software for video recording and live streaming to impress folks when I’m teaching them how to present engagingly online.
Stream Deck: the accompanying app to control the hardware for fancy presentations and other funky app related shortcuts.
PAID
Audio Hijack: for recording audio from multiple sources.
ExpressVPN: for securing website traffic and online activities from the marketeers and advertisers.
Obsidian: go to text and notes app with the added bonus of building out my digital Zettlekasten (I’m still learning).
Proton VPN: to keep my browsing private and away from prying eyes / data scalpers.
Reeder: RSS still rocks and I love that I choose my media menu with this one app.
Sync: a more ethical and secure version of Dropbox, now using filen.io as Sync went downhill fast on customer service and doesn’t making everything downloadable for users (have to do it one folder at a time).
1Password: I use version 6 which I bought the license for a few years ago and don’t need the bells and whistles of the newer ones.
I remove everything from the ‘dock’ and have it disappear from use unless I hover over. I open apps from activating the Spotlight search with the shortcut Command+Space.
I set up four ‘spaces‘ (essentially to mimic three screens on one laptop). I also add in the Keyboard shortcut settings utilising Apple+Cursor(right / left) to jump between them (there already is a trackpad action to move between them as standard by using three fingers and swiping left / right but I like this added keyboard functionality also).
Everything else like email, social media, blog writing etc is accessed via a browser to enable a ‘lighter’ memory footprint on my Mac.
Let me know if I’m missing anything obvious, think I should be exploring alternatives or know how to get rid of those unwanted menu bar items.
Honoured to be invited to participate in a hosted by Groov (a mental health and well-being platform for the workplace plus past client).
Drawing from my varied time and experience across multiple domains, plus doing my best to be honest and vulnerable, the webinar starts with a very personal narrative exploring why I do what I do (and why it means so much to me). You’ll also hear me advocate for the creative process being one of ‘not knowing’ and playful discovery, concepts which aren’t new although I rarely see / hear when exploring this in organisations / company settings.
Hope you get something from the watch and thanks to Kim, Simone and Fiona for each being part of making this happen.
Hit us up in the comments or via the contact form if you have any further thoughts / ideas / questions.
Captured in one of the many churches explored in Brussels.
“Eang yw’r byd i bawb.” / “The world is wide to everyone.”
A few days ago I came back from a 10 week trip in Europe. It was my first international travel in 3 years and the main aim was to reconnect with family, friends, the fatherland plus reignite my wanderlust which has been dormant since Covid and other confidence-damaging events.
I didn’t have a return flight booked but had a couple of gigs already booked in beginning of November to provide a backstop.
I spent the majority of time in the valleys of Wales as well as side trips / escapades to Scotland (Glasgow and all over Isle of Skye), Ireland (Dublin and Tramore), England (London), Germany (Munich), Switzerland (Winterthur—see Time With Rilke | A Rhapsodic Swiss Side Quest—Raron, and Basel), France (Lille and Basel), plus Belgium (Brussels, Antwerp, and Bruges):
When you’re away for 2.5 months things change. Buildings and roadways which were once familiar are different. Vistas which are known have a fresh look. My flat seems bigger. The world feels smaller.
I’m brimming with gratitude, energy and hope from the experience.
For my lovely ongoing client of Teulo got to MC the August monthly event (took a break for September) as well as a couple of sessions for a group of speakers they are sponsoring for the upcoming ArchiPro event in Auckland next month.
As mentioned, delivered two masterclasses for Accenture global R&D department at The Dock. Also delivered an in-person ‘Purposeful Storytelling’ talk for the start-ups of FinTech Wales and spent two afternoon consults / ideation sessions with friends businesses.
There’s a great essay by Alan Moore on the creation of “V for Vendetta” where towards the end, he outlines the preciousness of true collaboration:
“V is something that happens at the point where my warped personality meets David’s warped personality, and it is something that neither of us could do either by ourselves or working with another artist or writer. Despite the way that some of the series’ admirers choose to view it, it isn’t “Alan Moore’s V” or “David Lloyd’s V.” It’s a joint effort in every sense of the word, because after trying the alternatives, that is the only way that comics can ever work. There is absolutely no sense in a writer trying to bludgeon his artist to death with vast and over-written captions, any more than an artist should try to bury his writer within a huge and impressive gallery of pretty pictures. What’s called for is teamwork, in the grand tradition of Hope and Crosby, Tate and Lyle, Pinky and Perky, or The Two Ronnies. Hopefully, that’s what we’ve got.”
Am hungry to COLLABORATE with good humans & BUILD audacious things – and looking for opportunities which have a DK-shaped-opportunity in their current operations.
I excel at:
making the complicated simple (see my ‘creative producing’ work)
aiding people to find their voice (see my ‘speaker coaching’ stuff)
achieving creative excellence (see my TEDxWellington & Creative Welly offerings)!
I craft actionable strategies in the intersecting creative arenas plus spend my time delivering upon them as well (not just directing).
Have worked on five continents, been in the tech space, worked at senior level of local government, delivered for central government clients, done events at scale with 6 figure budgets and thousands of people plus also at cost at the 1-2-1 level.
Am also open to this being in any part of the world with large or small entities who share the values of creativity, kindness and aiming to make the world a better place.
Asking here where the community should already know me, what I’m capable of and also have an idea of what I should be doing with my life when I grow up :-)
Can you help / tag someone in / like or share the post (as then more people see it) / hit me up in DM’s to explore further, please?
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.
