Inspired by many memes featuring the same message.
Don’t know who said it first but wish I knew this sooner.
Three Rules | What Love, Trust & Sorry Needs
Category: random
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.
2024 North America Tour & Return To Aotearoa / New Zealand | Fancy A Dance?
Planning the rest of my year and looking for opportunities to (re)connect, play, add value, develop things, have adventures, do things which have never been done, have bold conversations, explore, plus get into creative trouble…
Current draft schedule with emerging dates:
OCTOBER
- Halifax, Nova Scotia / Moncton, New Brunswick | 8-12th
- Montreal | 13-15th
- Toronto | 16-18th
- Grand Rapids, Michigan | 18-19th
- HATCH | 20-25th
- Portland, Oregon | 26-31st
NOVEMBER
- Dallas / Fort Worth | 1st-4th
- Aotearoa / New Zealand | 6th onwards…
Happy to deliver talks, masterclasses, creative consults / roundtables etc. plus explore detours if need be (see my pedigree / read the testimonials / check out past clients) although please do contact me quick as diary is firming up in the next few weeks.
Will be looking for gigs when I touch down in NZ as well so from November let me know if you’re keen…
So who’s around to do non-mundane things…?
Lets boogie!
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:
- 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.;
- 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);
- 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:
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.
#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
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.
#63 April 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 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.”
“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).”
“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”.”
“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.“
“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.
Open Call To Play | Back On The Creative Market
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:
- spent nearly a decade as the pro-bono license-holder / producer of TEDxWellington (known globally and celebrated by ted.com for it’s bold delegate experiences) and a special TEDxWellingtonWomen event (the first ever xWomen event with gender parity globally) & mentored other TEDx’s starting up in NZ (shortlisted as Wellingtonian of the Year 2017 for this work)
- produced 50 episodes of the beautifully unique podcast, Creative Welly, courageous conversations with bold humans (reviewed here)
- authored Speaking With Purpose: A guide to delivering impressive presentations! Ebook & Audiobook Bundle (inspired by my recent TEDxNelson talk) & Zen And The Heart Of Social Media
- founded and delivered three Creative Leadership NZ conferences (every one sold out)
- did a 14month stint as Activation Manager establishing Collider, a city-wide programme (delivering nearly 200 events with over 5000 attendees averaging quality rating of 4.2 and above (out of 5))
- developed a 75mins / 10 chapter video course to radically increase your online storytelling & presenting skills: ‘Presenting Engagingly Online‘
- spoken & contributed at four TEDx’s (Nelson in NZ, York & Cardiff in UK, Amsterdam in Netherlands)
- founded MediaSnackers (a leading social media training and consulting agency from 2006-2011)
- spoken and advised on five continents regarding digital strategies for folks like The Gates Foundation, UNICEF, BBC, Ubisoft, Welsh Assembly, Hasbro, global city developer IBI Group etc
- produced over 200 podcasts (before it was cool) from 2006 & started vodcasting in 2007
- created award-winning The Web Makes Me Feel project
- founded CEO and executive-level mentoring firm, Social Media For Suits (‘paused’ in 2011 along with MediaSnackers)
- four years as a mentor for Culture Hive Marketing Academy
- spent 14 months as a business designer in a design-thinking agency
- been a Social Media Manager for national education organisation, CORE Education
- have been blogging since 2001, audio podcasting since 2006, video podcasting since 2007 plus tweeting since April 2007 (although no longer tweemailing but still curating / laying down digital breadcrumbs)
- worked in various levels of local government and was the UK’s first & only (at that time), Corporate Youth Officer… oooh!
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.
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.
#62 March 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
“Regulators and lawmakers fail to make any changes to proactively protect the public, while allowing crypto firms to advertise and recruit new customers who seem far more likely to wind up as victims of yet another collapse as they are to become the next crypto-millionaires. How many people will have to lose how much money before we stop believing the lies from an industry that has preyed on people’s trust and hopes for financial miracles, only to dash them on the ground in failure after failure?Bankman-Fried is going to prison, but nothing has changed.”
“Use of the arts in healing does not contradict the medical view in bringing emotional, somatic, artistic, and spiritual dimensions to learning. Rather, it complements the biomedical view by focusing on not only sickness and symptoms themselves but the holistic nature of the person.When people are invited to work with creative and artistic processes that affect more than their identity with illness, they are more able to “create congruence between their affective states and their conceptual sense making.” Through creativity and imagination, we find our identity and our reservoir of healing. The more we understand the relationship between creative expression and healing, the more we will discover the healing power of the arts.”
The Connection Between Art, Healing, and Public Health: A Review of Current Literature – PMC
“MSI Reproductive Choices (formerly Marie Stopes International) and the Center for Countering Digital Hate claim the platforms are restricting local abortion providers from advertising, but failing to tackle misinformation that undermines public access to reproductive healthcare. MSI, which provides contraception and abortion services in 37 countries, said its adverts containing information on sexual health, including cancer advice, had been rejected or deleted by the platform.”
“A study published by a team of international researchers last month found that gravity batteries in decommissioned mines could offer a cost-effective, long-term solution for storing energy as the world transitions to renewable power. Scientists from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) found that the world’s abandoned mine shafts could store up to 70TWh of power – roughly the equivalent of global daily electricity consumption.”
“For many, it’s not just about recognizing a global issue but feeling a deep, personal impact on their mental well-being. Especially for those with a strong connection to their environment or homeland, this pervasive anxiety and distress manifests in unique ways. Such feelings can give rise to “solastalgia,” which refers to the dread originating from environmental change. Unlike nostalgia, which is a longing for a place or time in the past that one cannot revisit, solastalgia is the experience of distress from belonging to a home that is undergoing change.”
A Psychologist Offers 3 Tips To Deal With ‘Solastalgia’
“Scholars might call it a philosophical treatise. But it seems familiar to us, and we can’t escape the feeling that the first text we’ve uncovered is a 2000-year-old blog post about how to enjoy life.”
Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the scrolls! | Vesuvius Challenge
WATCH
EXPLORE
Curated list of games no betterverse.be to help you think critically and imaginatively about the future of society, and collectively imagine brighter tomorrows.
Love the way this muzzleapp.com demonstrates the problem it’s going to solve (see notifications examples on the right hand side of the screen).
Starting a couple of new projects soon and always good to get some inspiration from onepagelove.com.
Want to practice your typing? typelit.io does that for free, online, and gets you to type out classic books.
morss.it creates RSS feeds from websites and a whole lot more, check it out.
ambient.garden is an algorithmic audio landscape.