talks – Page 3 – Hello, I'm DK – creative producer and speaker coach

Sandbox Summit 2015 Closing Keynote | Getting MIT Dancing

As the closing keynote speaker for Sandbox Summit 2015, I wanted to go out on a high.

The above was me taking a chance with the understanding I might not ever get another chance to speak at the prestigious MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston.

What the client thought (although feel free to form your own opinion from the above):

“DK’s closing keynote for Sandbox Summit at MIT had everyone standing on their feet and dancing. As usual, he struck just the right balance of intelligence, imagination, and inspiration.”
Wendy Smolen, Cofounder, Sandbox Summit

An another view of the end:

This is how we end a conference! Thanks @justadandak for rocking MIT. #Sandbox15 pic.twitter.com/33pQzZyage

— Sandbox Summit (@SandboxSummit) March 24, 2015

Please watch some of the other fantastic talks from the Sandbox Summit 2015 conference.

CatalystCreativ Wysdem Talk | Can Wisdom Be Designed?

Exploring a model for systemising wisdom.

In March I got to both attend and speak at Catalyst Creativ Week, Las Vegas, which was founded in 2012 in partnership with Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project.

As you’ll watch, the subject was nothing to do with social media, instead, my long overdue and yet-to-be-launched moonshot project exploring can wisdom be designed, wysdem.com and which I blogged about here.

The official line (although please judge for yourself above and leave any thoughts / guidance / ideas you have in the comments):

“DK was an engaging speaker at CatalystCreativ’s March Catalyst Week Showcase. He drew the audience into his talk with his research on how wisdom plays into systems and held their attention by posing important and thoughtful questions on this discussion. In his talk, he explored how wisdom plays into individual responsibility so that we can better understand how it plays into the systems around us.”
Evelyn Sabino, Communications & Events Manager at CatalystCreativ

Check out the other magnificent talks from the event as well, some gems in here:

What Does It Mean? | The Role Of The Interpreter

A Richard Feynman lesson in cultivating and connecting curiosity.

An interpreter goes beyond translating and connects the relevance for each party with wider contextualising viabilities. The role exists to drive fascination into the heart of the conversation and activity which in turn ignites the potential and awe (thank you Mr Silva) into the possible.

For nearly a decade this is what I’ve been attempting: interpreting the new and emerging technologies and platforms into wonder and relevant context for each audience / client. With the emergence of curation as a skill set, the ability to extend the conversation and apply situational probabilities is becoming a differentiator.

(And loving being reminded how again process is more important than product in the above video.)

Recently I’ve had the good fortune to dive deeper into this role as a conscious interpreter through the following gigs:

Keynote speaker and workshop taker at IntegratED, Portland

“If you are looking for someone to engage your audience with authentic stories, reflection and laughter then DK is your guy! He doesn’t just speak to your participants he immerses himself in your conference, which makes his “social” message grow 10 fold in the hearts and minds of your community.”
Darren Hudgins, Director of Integrated Events, OETC

Digital strategy advisor / facilitator for IBI Group, Portland / San Fransisco

“DK has been helping us think through vital futures for IBI Group. He asks the right questions, guides us towards solutions and most importantly is a deep listener. DK makes it about us, not about him and you couldn’t find a more important quality in a facilitator and consultant.”
Charles Finley, Global Director for Marketing and Communications

Creative consultant / advisor plus speaker in Missoula, Montana

“We had the honor of hosting DK at a series of events in Missoula, Montana (a round table master class, a public presentation for a couple of hundred folks, and a University specific presentation.) Each program was exceptionally tailored for that audience. DK was brilliant, warm and inspiring.”
Elke Govertsen, CEO and Founder of Mamalode Magazine

“DK brings a fresh and powerful perspective on social media that helps you see the big picture and then figure out what it means for you. Working with DK is stimulating, practical and above all fun!”
Paul Gladen, Director, Blackstone LaunchPad, University of Montana

UPDATE: Watch the video of the talk here

Closing keynote speaker at Sandbox Summit, MIT, Boston.

“DK’s closing keynote for Sandbox Summit at MIT had everyone standing on their feet and dancing. As usual, he struck just the right balance of intelligence, imagination, and inspiration.”
Wendy Smolen, Cofounder, Sandbox Summit

Consultant at Hasbro, Providence, Rhode Island

“DK brings a new level of depth and perspective to how social media affects business and business building, how and why it impacts, focusing on core issues, generating tangible and growth strategy solutions.”
Phil Sage, Hasbro

Attendee / speaker at Catalyst Week and Creativ Week, Las Vegas, founded in 2012 in partnership with Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project

UPDATE: WATCH my talk here

“DK was an engaging speaker at CatalystCreativ’s March Catalyst Week Showcase. He drew the audience into his talk with his research on how wisdom plays into systems and held their attention by posing important and thoughtful questions on this discussion. In his talk, he explored how wisdom plays into individual responsibility so that we can better how it plays into the systems around us.”
Evelyn Sabino, Communications & Events Manager at CatalystCreativ

Speaker / advisor at New Canaan Library and Darien Library, Connecticut

“DK’s high energy, intellectually stimulating presentation to our combined teams has really resonated with all of us. Many of my leadership team commented that it was the best professional learning experience that they had attended in many years. Our entire team enjoyed and learned. DK’s presentation has sparked all manner of continuing conversation on how we engage with our community and is impacting on our work programme already.”
Lisa Oldham, Executive Director, New Canaan Library, Connecticut

new canaan library crowd

Brainpickings video hat-tip

Why I Love Public Speaking | Thinking Out Loud

Wellington Young Professionals Image

For some people it’s what they fear most. For me, it’s where some of my best thinking occurs.

Yesterday I spoke to 30 young professionals on social media and personal branding—an attempt to advocate for using social to build pedigree which sustains and moves with them.

My speaking preparation style is counter to most (don’t practise or have a script or write out bullet points) although it works for me and manifests two very important things:

the talk becomes more of a ‘conversation’ not a rehearsed lecture;
forces me to construct improvised value based on the audiences needs with the stories being shared.

In this loose and open approach, new concepts are created and interesting ways of presenting or mashing up old ideas occur. Some, are remembered which then form new blog posts or strategic leads. Others are luckily recorded by the tweets of those in attendance (here are just three of my favourite takeaways from the session):

"Blogs are great for metacognition: even if no one reads them, think of them as training your brain to contribute meaningfully" @justadandak

— Shadoe Stone (@shadoesuzanna) November 18, 2014

Damn, that’s a pearl!

So many folks want popular blogs and a readership which validates their effort although in the beginning the process of finding a true authentic voice is far more important than that.

"The currency of online is attention, not clicks" – I like that. Thanks @justadandak and @WellingtonYP for the social media tips!

— Katie Kenny (@kennykatie) November 18, 2014

I like it also.

So much so I added it to the image above (image credit).

Building credible and deep relationships should be the aim not the figures (see Social Media Is Dead | The Marketeers / Advertisers Are Taking Over).

"We are our own gate keepers, we now choose what media we consume, so we must be our own curators" #WYPseries with @justadandak

— WYP (@WellingtonYP) November 18, 2014

Ah the importance of curation as an emerging skillset as a way to combat the saturation and dilution of the signal.

It’s a shame there’s such a small event and speaking scene here in New Zealand. Although come the end of February I’ll be revisiting North America for several opportunities to get back on that stage to think out loud.

Huge thanks to the Wellington Young Professionals for the opportunity to speak:

A huge thank you to DK for his engaging and thought-provoking workshop yesterday. Not only did he open our minds, challenge our understanding and perceptions of social, and dare us to be digital curators, but we’re all heading out to make moleskin pen holders, and feature them on our new blogs!
Behold the new wave of social media users.
Alexis Trevethan, Vice President, Wellington Young Professionals

Other talks

Social Media Day Presentation | #HootupWLG

Challenging a community to go ‘beyond social media marketing.’

Decided on a different tact for this International Mashable Social Media Day Wellington meet up / hootup presentation (sponsored by Hootsuite).

Seems like my accent is still creating some happy accidents though:

Thanks to Katherine, Kalista, Jo, Vanisa, HootsuiteAPAC , BizDojo for inviting me to speak and for making the evening happening—humbled reference / respect also to my fellow speakers: Pete, Jo and Matty.

Thoughts?

YouTube version

Two Gigs, One University | Massey

Two speaking gigs testimonials from last month:

DK was invited to speak at Massey University’s College of Creative Arts fourth year Creative Futures class about the power of digital social interactions. The course explores social and business enterprise, starting a business, ideas for non-profit organisations and developing a strategic positioning proposal. The students enjoyed DK’s presentation, which generated a number of interesting discussions and provided much food for through around what ‘socialising’ can do for start-ups.

Anna Brown, Director at Open Lab, College of Creative Arts

DK spoke to a group of PR and communication students at Massey University and he blew their minds. It’s not often that a speaker can resonate with an audience who already think they know all about the subject, but DK’s experience, coupled with a killer presentation, demonstrated to them that social media is more than just Facebook.

I have already recommended DK to people who need better insight and direction with their social strategies. The man knows his stuff!

Kane Hopkins, Lecturer at School of Communication, Journalism & Marketing

What an honour to speak to students—want to do more and explore opportunities to do project work with these hungry minds. If anyone thinks I can offer value in this area please get in touch.

The Future Of Now | Designing Social

dowa session

“Let’s just forget about the future, And get on with the past” ↬ Sting

Imagine designing a classroom. A place for learning and the cultivation of curiosity.

Four walls. Ceiling and a floor. Some windows and a door. Other elements like power sockets, furniture, projector, whiteboards, light switches. Focus on that light switch. It could be a dimmer or maybe a couple of configurations laid out as buttons in a vertical line. It’s usually just on or off.

Replace it with a camera. Now with existing gestural technology and software the users of the room have the potential to wave their hand or hold up a certain amount of fingers to make it work.

What if the camera was ‘broken’. Left open for the students to decide how it will function and better still to learn how to programme to make it work. Maybe they replace it with a microphone as they want voice commands (and it changes to recognise different languages for what is being taught that day in class). Or the camera recognises colour which in turn light the room the same way.

Now, not only is the classroom designed as a place to learn but also a space to learn how to use.

‘The Future Of Now’ was the title of a talk / workshop developed and delivered to the wonderful souls at DOWA-IBI Group Architects, Portland, Oregon (during my stateside trip in July).

The above was a response I gave when one of the architects asked for a very specific application to some of the social media / technologies in their future designs.

The official line:

DK was engaging, informative and thoughtful. He challenged us to think differently. The take away was: what is has already become what was and we should consider what will be with the opportunities available today.

For a firm like us we welcome that challenge.
John Weekes, Co-Founder, DOWA-IBI Group Architects

Crossing The Chasm | Small Numbers Matter

Diffusion_of_ideas

How the diffusion of ideas can be used in creating socially literate University departments.

The above idea originally was developed regarding how technology is adopted into a culture through consumerism. Within the graph there exists a ‘chasm that needs to be crossed‘ between the innovators / early adopters and the early majority (Simon Sinek does a great job at dissecting and detailing this). Knowing and focussing on this tipping point ensures a piece of technology (and subsequently, an idea) could take hold and become part of the global consciousness.

I recently used this model with the client below regarding creating an internal culture (rather strategy) of social media use.

Ensuring the innovators / early adopters become joined by the early majority sometimes means literally a handful of people rather than the larger department as a whole. Inspiring three or four souls can shift groups into a transitional point and simply thinking about it in this way (a few rather than a whole) makes the task immediately more achievable.

I have had 9 separate emails, 4 passer-by comments, and 5 texts this evening from people who attended the ‘general’ session. All comments were thanking, and praising of you, your talents, your gifts and your style.

You absolutely and undeniably rocked our world today…!!! In Maori we would say:

E kore e mimiti te puna mihi ki a koe e te tautohito, e te pou whirinaki!

(a metaphorical spring of acknowledgement and tribute that would never diminish / dry up… i.e. forever grateful for your expertise….you as a pillar of support (dependable, reliant) and adept / experienced and skilled).

Dee Reid, Te Toi Tupu – Kaihautu (Programme Leader), Institute of Professional Learning, The University of Waikato

In this session we focussed on how we can inspire a small number of people to curate content of interest, celebrate success, acknowledge their growing ambassadorial role, as well as mentoring champions coming through. Remember, we’re only talking three or four people here to create this bigger change.

How are you crossing the chasm?

National Digital Forum (NDF) 2012 | Beyond Social

Time to ask some different questions—here’s the programme description:

If social (media) is no longer the new shiny set of tools that everyone gasps at then what are the next set of questions? In this fast-paced session, DK will balance his presentation with overarching cross-sector ‘big picture’ strategies right through to platform-specific tools and techniques which deliver.

Here’s the critical question in my piece:

If I asked how many of you [in the audience] have a social media strategy or are developing one, then half would probably raise their hands. If I asked how many has a social media culture [in their organisations] then I would wager there would be very few?

Have a think about this for you and your organisation / company…

Client testimonial:

“It’s all about the intersections” pretty much turned into the unofficial tagline for NDF2012 after DK’s spell-binding talk in the opening morning’s plenary session. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people talk about his presentation and the idea that collectively we need to stop thinking about our collections, websites and work as destinations and start seeing them as intersections—places that our audience find new ways to move between all our stuff. It was a wake up call—one we needed and are heeding. Truly inspiring stuff, thanks DK!
Matthew Oliver, NDF2012 Conference Organiser

Thanks to the National Digital Forum for giving me permission to put up online this screen recording and remix (originally recorded November 20, 2012—they are still waiting for the folks who did the filming to send them the raw video files).

If you have the time, check out the other sessions from this really good conference.

WATCH (like 1million+ others, my TEDx talk, now on ted.com), the public speaking lesson you never had, and BUY the companion Speaking With Purpose e/audiobook.

Sandbox Summit 2015 Closing Keynote | Getting MIT Dancing

As the closing keynote speaker for Sandbox Summit 2015, I wanted to go out on a high.

Related post: What Does It Mean? | The Role Of The Interpreter / see other talks

CatalystCreativ Wysdem Talk | Can Wisdom Be Designed?

Exploring a model for systemising wisdom.

Related post:What Does It Mean? | The Role Of The Interpreter & DIKUW Content Model | Big Wisdom

What Does It Mean? | The Role Of The Interpreter

A Richard Feynman lesson in cultivating and connecting curiosity.

Brainpickings video hat-tip

Why I Love Public Speaking | Thinking Out Loud

For some people it’s what they fear most. For me, it’s where some of my best thinking occurs.

Other talks

Two Gigs, One University | Massey

Two speaking gigs testimonials from last month:

The Future Of Now | Designing Social

“Let’s just forget about the future, And get on with the past” ↬ Sting

Crossing The Chasm | Small Numbers Matter

How the diffusion of ideas can be used in creating socially literate University departments.

National Digital Forum (NDF) 2012 | Beyond Social

Time to ask some different questions—here’s the programme description:

Related post: Strategies vs Culture | Influencing Excellence

YouTube version

WATCH (like 1million+ others, my TEDx talk, now on ted.com), the public speaking lesson you never had, and BUY the companion Speaking With Purpose e/audiobook.

As the closing keynote speaker for Sandbox Summit 2015, I wanted to go out on a high.

Related post: What Does It Mean? | The Role Of The Interpreter / see other talks

Exploring a model for systemising wisdom.

Related post:What Does It Mean? | The Role Of The Interpreter & DIKUW Content Model | Big Wisdom

A Richard Feynman lesson in cultivating and connecting curiosity.

For some people it’s what they fear most. For me, it’s where some of my best thinking occurs.

Challenging a community to go ‘beyond social media marketing.’

Two speaking gigs testimonials from last month:

“Let’s just forget about the future, And get on with the past” ↬ Sting

How the diffusion of ideas can be used in creating socially literate University departments.

Had the recent honour of collaborating with Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa—those lovely folks at Social Media Club Wellington invited me to share.

Time to ask some different questions—here’s the programme description:

Related post: Strategies vs Culture | Influencing Excellence