think – Page 41 – Hello, I'm DK – creative producer and speaker coach

Piano Grades | Transitioning Out Of Social Media

Time to pivot.

“I was surprised, as always, by how easy the act of leaving was, and how good it felt. The world was suddenly rich with possibility.”
Jack Kerouac, On The Road

18th October 2012 is my final day as social media manager with current employers CORE Education.

After 6/7 years serving the social media space the following metaphor has developed:

Imagine learning to play the piano. Putting in the years to hone your skills / knowledge which enables you to reach grade 6.

You’re then asked to share your insights with those who are at a lower grade, which you do willingly (it’s a wonderful feeling to assist and inspire others).

After a while of playing the same tunes, answering the same questions, giving the same answers, the urge returns to explore further levels and challenges.

This is not a criticism or a statement of arrogance, it’s a description which outlines where I am with social (media, or, just, the web).

The coming months will be the last devoted to delivering specific social media services and talks. Will always be happy to share my thoughts / experience / knowledge with others, it’s just that now my interest is in the next set of questions around:

creativity
innovation
ideas
excellence
humanisation
simplification
effectiveness
action
wisdom
exclusivity
play

There is a hunger to converse and surround myself with folks who want to challenge, explore, build, create waves. Whose purpose is to delight, astonish, create poignancy. Who are not afraid to try new things, create the space / time needed to cultivate the imagination, mash traditional and new models together, and most importantly, push at the edge of what’s possible.

If anyone has a role they think I could kick ass in which includes the above then please do get in touch. Maybe you’re tired of the whole ‘social’ scene as well—your comments / thoughts / ideas / responses are welcomed below.

Image credit

Announcing TEDxTeAro | Steering A Very Important Ship

Cool ideas from the coolest little capital in the world…

Am chuffed to announce the launch of the TEDxTeAro event website which I’m honoured to hold the license for (many thanks to Catalyst90 and CORE Education for partnering in the application).

It’s an opportunity to do a few things:

give back to this inspiring TED community which has stretched all our brains / hearts
a chance to help others share their own stories (which I’ve been lucky to do in the past, here and here)
to offer my time and service to this fabulous city I now call home

This is Wellington’s first ‘grownup’ TEDx event (it held a youth event over two years ago).

Going to be one hell of an adventure.

Full launch press release available here.

Design & Thinking | Wellington Screening

Miss it, miss out.

If you’re free on 14th September 2012 at 4pm get yourself to The Film Archive to catch the first Wellington, NZ screening:

Design Thinking was applied as a term and methodology by a design firm in 2008. It was received as a tool to solve every problem, from daily life decisions to business challenges to world hunger problems. Attention and debates followed; some insisted on design education in all K-12 schools, some declared it is just marketing tool for that firm, some hoped it would turn his company into Apple. Some said it’s nothing new, just a new packaging of how creative people do things.

Design & Thinking, the movie is bought to these shores by the funky, clever folks from Empathy—not many tickets left, book now.

Tweriod | When Your Audience Is Online For Engagement

Guiding and aiding engagement through data.

Tweriod is a neat little free service which offers an insight into when your Twitter audience are online and therefore what times to post content into the stream to gain maximum reach and response (see above).

As you can see from the graph below, the data offered also illustrates your optimum reply window (love that there’s an increase in responses around lunchtime):

Now, there’s an obvious danger of tweeting out during a short period of time and clogging up your networks stream with your stuff. However, managed correctly, will take the information above and do a little testing around focussing my tweets during these certain times to see if more engagement occurs.

Tweriod also offers an ‘Influence Graph’ which links in the Klout—bah, here’s my opinion.

I also dropped the $5 for the one-off pdf report but it’s not really worth it (as it’s basically the stats in presented in a daily graph—nothing else). If you know how to screengrab just don’t bother and save your money.

How do you decide when to tweet? What do you make of the above service? Would it influence you to tweet differently?

UPDATE Just came across this infographic by Fusework Studios:

UX For Good – NOLA 2012 | Building Teams Around Causes

20mins of good stuff.

The model is simple:

“We lure the smartest, most creative, most influential people out of boardrooms and darkened auditoriums to get them engaged in designing a better world.”

The above will rarely succeed at most organisation / companies due to limited or little time and (head and / or physical) space.

Check out The Insights Labs for inspiration (and what I want to do when we all grow up).

Isn’t this the perfect model for innovation?

Remixing Copyright | Creating / Curating Public Works

copyrightcreate

©

There’s this website where, at the beginning of each week, it displays works which are now in the public domain due to their copyright terms expiring.

You can subscribe by email or RSS, and even choose specific fields in which to be notified about (whether that be music, graphics, poetry, design etc.).

Then there’s this social layer in which, after creating an account, you can upload back into the community remixed works from ones which inspired them. This new content forms an interconnected ‘network of influence’ which is graphically illustrated for users to navigate around.

As a member, you also get access to tutorials, interviews and options to participate in group tasks and creative challenges set by the worlds leading artists and thinkers.

Sounds great, doesn’t it…?

The above doesn’t exist. Want to work with me on it?

Mahi Papaho Conference | National Association Media Educators (NZ) 2012 Keynote

Social media killed mass Media (how social changed everything & nothing).

When we (the conference organisers) heard DK’s presentation on social media at a CORE Breakfast last year, we knew we wanted him to come and talk at the conference, and we were really excited about the eye-popping possibilities of social media in a classroom that he would introduce. We thought; we smiled. Thanks, DK!
Diane Henjyoji, Conference Organiser

The title of the above keynote I delivered for the National Association of Media Educators (NZ) and TRCC, Mahi Papaho Conference in Wellington, NZ, 6th July 2012.

It was a great opportunity to revisit some of the topics I studied during my degree days and it was delivered as part of my role as Social Media Manager for CORE Education.

Special thanks to the organisers for both filming and allowing me to share. As stated in the talk, would love to be involved with the curriculum development specific to this subject—anyone out there listening / watching from NZQA? Please get in touch.

YouTube version

What I Have To Offer | What You Have To Offer

A delicious challenge to us all.

Seventy minutes concentrated into five (from the mind and mouth of Charlie Kaufman).

Here’s the whole talk for the soul:

https://soundcloud.com/bafta/charlie-kaufman-screenwriting-lecture (no longer live but here’s the transcript)

Via The Scout Mag

Hearing Aids (Understanding) | Can You Hear Me Now?

eartestresults

From a speaker who can’t hear.

Above are my results from a recent hearing assessment (an audiogram—please note the grey areas in the four graphs as they indicate the ‘normal’ range!

The ‘bad’ left ear (one which has a history of operations) is only functioning at 25% and at 40db (bottom left graph), the volume most people speak at.

The ‘good’ right ear is also under-performing (bottom right graph)—just 50% at speaking volume—therefore, I’m basically picking up maybe half of what people are saying at best…

The specialist discussing my results last year stated I’ve probably become very good at figuring out what people are saying rather than totally understanding their words (this is not a compliment).

There are two options:

hearing aids—for an instant fix to raise my hearing to within normal range;
(potential) surgery—first on my ‘bad’ ear to raise the level of hearing before doing anything with the ‘good’ ear (as the latter has a retracted ear drum which could require surgery at some point before it causes further problems)

All of the above left me gutted at the end of last year and after recently gaining a second opinion it’s time to face reality and make some decisions.

You have to understand that most of my childhood is littered with memories and issues relating to my ear problems. The constant poor hearing, ongoing visits to speech therapists from about age six (as my deficient hearing meant I couldn’t hear sounds properly to form them—how ironic that part of my living now is made by public speaking: irony or awesome…?). Then the teenage years, living with constant ear infections and three big surgeries which ate up months of my life with long hospital stays and even longer recovery times.

There are three parts to the decision of accepting and exploring hearing aids as part of my future:

Fun—to embrace this with a smile and surround it in joy. There’s simply nothing to get upset about. It is what it is and who knows what I’ll learn and discover about myself during the opportunity I’ve been given to go on this journey;
Sign—it’s always been on my to do list but now it’s more relevant to learn sign language to supplement my hearing impairment;
Hack—to explore the hearing aid hacker scene (inspired by the news of the tuning being done already to existing devices: