Slide Design 101 – Bullets to Beautiful

Keynote & PowerPoint Workshop

With the earliest of apologies to those who attend my workshop, I have been asked to present at The Big Ideas in Higher Education Conference being held at Rutgers University next month. I will be doing my best to help educators understand the importance of having quality supporting materials when they are presenting lessons/lectures/seminars/etc. What it boils down to is training them on the why’s and how’s of using programs like PowerPoint effectively.

I’m honored to have been asked and am looking forward to the session. Feel free to check out the great line-up of speakers they have and get your money ready for the prop-bets to ensue on how badly I flop in comparison to each of them.

If you’re in the education arena and are interested in coming to the conference, I believe there are still some seats available, sign up here.

Related, if you’re in the NYC/NJ area the third week of May and what to connect while I am around, hit me up.

Spring Video 2012 from Need Supply Co. on Vimeo.

via Need Supply

An explanation:

…‘wrapping’ trees with white material to construct a visual relationship between tree, not-tree and the line of horizon according to the camera’s viewpoint.

View the rest: Zander Olsen – Tree, Line.

Here is a piece I did late last Spring on the topic Quality vs Quantity. Instead of doing a straight written piece on the subject, I chose to go a different route and describe my thoughts on quality vs quantity in sketch form. As you can tell, I work with a mouse and a keyboard for a living, not a pencil and paper. I also followed Shawn Blanc by a week on the same subject and by my rough calculations, he was most definitely the winner.

If you’re on the fence about subscribing, I’d encourage you to give it a go. I’m definitely the weakest link in the chain.

Excerpt from Quality vs Quantity

The Movie Test

Nothing says, “I’m ready to settle in for a viewing of The Devil Wears Prada or 29 Dresses,” like a bag of popcorn. My arteries know that quality should win out here but if you think I’m settling for some weak, butter-free, half-bag of kernals, you are sorely mistaken. I’ll take the jumbo-mega-super-large bag with extra butter. It’s the only one that comes with free refills.

Winner: Quantity

Care to read the rest? Quality vs Quantity

Being diagnosed with a condition called Williams Syndrome means that more surgeries are in his future but I have seen proof time and time again that Daven’s not going to let a couple of doctors and/or procedures get him down. A big Texas hug from our crew to D and his encouragingly strong Momma & Daddy!

The bill(s) essentially are going up for discussion and voting once the houses reconvene in a week or two and if you want to have any say in how they are voted upon, you might want to take a moment to call/email your representatives.

Highlight arguments for the bill include the ambitious goal of stopping piracy and copyright infringement on the Internet; a noble goal indeed. The proponents of the bill say that content creators will ultimately make more money since you would have to go directly to the source to buy/obtain whatever material you’re trying to consume.

Opponents against the bill are quick to point out that it’s pretty vague language that fails to drive home the point that they’re willing to shut down sites (along with judicial-related punishment for site owners) like YouTube, Google, Twitter, Facebook and millions of others in attempt to eradicate the small minority of offenders.

Groups like the MPAA, RIAA [read: big money lawyers backed by the movie and music industries], NBC, Ford, NBA and associations like the National Chamber of Commerce are all backers of the bill, and as you can probably guess, have a significant amount of money on their side to push this type of legislature through.

Interested in seeing how much? Mike Ciarlo was too. He put a [very well-done] presentation together of the 25 highest “backed” representatives by proponents of SOPA/PIPA that you might want to check out.

There’s plenty of research out there for you to take some time to form your own opinions off of, as an Internet user, I’d encourage you to at least get informed on your own. If nothing else, take ten minutes to run through this Wiki of SOPA/PIPA and educate yourself a little on this Friday. It may not end up affecting you one way or another but I’d hate for you to be uninformed about such a significant legislature that might just alter the way you consume content on the Internet for the foreseeable future.

After learning the facts, you might just want to do something about it. If you’re an American, lucky you, you have the right to do so.

via Alister Coyne & Colossal

I should probably do some explaining for things like Beiber and Train but I’ll just ask you to hold your judgement until you’ve had a chance to check them out once or twice.

CreepySanta 2011

Track List
1. Landon Smith & The Real Matt Jones – Christmas Anthem
2. Sufjan Stevens – Come On! Let’s Boogey To The Elf Dance!
3. Meaghan Smith – It Snowed
4. The Maine – Ho Ho Hopefully
5. Zee Avi – No Christmas For Me
6. Dave Barnes & Hillary Scott – Christmas Tonight
7. David Dewese – Silent Night
8. Justin Bieber – Mistletoe
9. Coldplay – Christmas Lights
10. She & Him – The Christmas Waltz
11. John Legend – Let It Snow
12. Barenaked Ladies Feat. Micheal Buble – Elf’s Lament
13. Charles Brown – Merry Christmas Baby
14. Train – Shake Up Christmas
15. Zach Williams & The Bellow – Marshmallow World
16. Fiona Apple – Frosty The Snowman
17. Jack Johnson – In The Morning
18. Michael Bublé – I’ll Be Home for Christmas

I gave them no constraints on what to pick but I did make sure to get a couple of ladies in the mix just to get that perspective. Some of the things on the list you could pick up today and some of them you’ll probably have to wait a little longer before acquiring due to budgetary constraints. I had a good time compiling; I think the participants had a good time collecting; and I hope that you’ll have a good time reading through the list.

See anything we missed? Let me know here or on Twitter. Spread the word.

2011 Collab-mas List – A collaborated Christmas list by Christian Ross & Friends

*If you’re an IE user, it’s not that I don’t dislike you, but you’re gonna have to be happy with what you get. It ain’t pretty but I’ve got other things to get done today.