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Words or Pictures
You either say this (word), or you show this (picture), but you don’t (show both word and picture), because this is treating your audience like a moron, and they deserve better. – Chip Kidd In his TED talk, Chip Kidd shows us how fascinating designing a book cover really is. A book’s cover is important…
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Idiosyncratic
Ever since going through Marcus Buckingham’s StrengthsFinder assessment and materials, I’ve appreciated his take on personalities and how teams work together. In contrast to some other personality tests out there, his angle acknowledged the fact that no person could be fit strictly into one specific box or explained by 4 letters. It won me over,…
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Say it With Symbols, O}
I was checking out some spoken word poetry this morning and came across this short poem, the one Helvetica Man wishes he’d been a part of…
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Love You, {Helvetica} Man
I love simple symbols and icons for their ability to communicate clearly and recognizably across language and cultural barriers. I guess this is why The Noun Project, with its growing library of icons, has become one of my new favourite resource sites. I did a bit of digging recently to find out a bit more…
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The Words You Use, They Matter
A few years back I was put in the uncomfortable position of explaining the Christian term “spiritual warfare” to a rabbi. I was explaining the training program I was leading at the time (the word was embedded in the title) when he kindly asked me to clarify. Was this some kind of warfare tactic, where…
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The Evil Villain of Communication
We’ve all fallen prey to it before. Your text message says, “See you there at 8”, and they showed up in the morning instead of evening. Or the Help instructions say, “Select the brush icon from the toolbox”, to which you respond, “Where the heck is the toolbox in the first place???” You’ve just been…
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iPads, Autism, and the Story You’ll Tell
The other day I watched two brilliant stories. They contrast the amazing diversity of stories being told these days, and got me really excited for the opportunities we all have to tell stories of our own. The first is a short TED talk by Joe Sabia. With faster iPad fingers than you’ll ever see on…
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The Art of Asking Amazing Questions
I’m terrible at asking questions. Even when it comes to talking with people that I admire or want to understand more, I find it difficult to ask questions that unlock people. But I was inspired to ask great questions by Marc Prachter’s 2008 TED talk. Prachter shares about a series of interviews, or “living portraits”…
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The Magic of Spoken Word
Nine years ago I stood up in front of 50 Chilean and realized that I had something to say. For the first time I felt like myself in front of a group, without shaky knees, and realized that I could make a connection with people, make them laugh (at my own expense, maybe), feel and…
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Authenticity (or, Deep Thoughts from Sesame Street)
Olivia’s been into watching Sesame Street videos on youTube lately. So into it, in fact, that she’ll walk up to our closed laptop, point to it and start singing “Elmo’s Song”. So her parents have also been watching a lot of Sesame Street videos lately too :). But there’s one video that I’ve found myself…