Margaret

Design Principles, Information design, Presentation skills, Writing

Finding focus

January 6, 2013by Margaret4 Comments

I’m guessing that most of us have spent at least a little bit of time recently deciding what we will focus on, and what skills or interests we want to develop in 2013.

I don’t know about you, but one of my biggest problems is that I am interested in way too many things, to the point where I flit from topic to topic always hungry for new and interesting ideas but not really digesting or absorbing very much. And while this is very entertaining, it results in knowing a little bit about a lot of subjects, but not being an expert on anything in particular. This is not a good thing in the world of business (so they say), which favours those with marketable expertise.

So this year I am going to focus on being more focussed.

This means finishing one book before starting another. (Well maybe I can have one fiction and one non-fiction on the go, but not five at once).

It also means spending more time writing about practical ways that you can craft your material so that your messages are clear.

This doesn’t mean that I’ll only talk about one thing. As far as I am concerned, there are many elements to clarity. Regardless of whether you are writing a report, creating a presentation or designing a website the principles and elements are the same.

You need:

Clear concise writing that makes sense to the reader
Consistent and logical ordering of your content
Plenty of white space so that your text is legible and doesn’t overwhelm people
Graphs, charts and illustrations that help people to understand your message
An understanding of how people learn and how they make sense of information

But above all, you need to KNOW what it is you are trying to say. Working this out is by far the most important thing you need to do and is the place where you should start.

So my plan for the coming year is to focus on writing helpful, inspiring and practical blog posts. What are you going to focus on? Are there skills that you want to develop and can I help you?

New Years Resolutions: 11 ways to increase your productivity in 2013

Blogging

A curious mind is a wonderful thing

December 30, 2012September 20, 2020by Margaret1 Comment

I’m just about to do something really brave (or silly, depending on how you look at it).

I’m transferring my blog from this WordPress.com site to a self-managed host. This shouldn’t affect you and shouldn’t make any difference to how we communicate, but it’s risky because I am quite likely to muck it up and lose all of my subscribers (that’s you) in the process. I sincerely hope this doesn’t happen, but if it does I wanted to thank you for coming along with me on my little journey over the past 12 months or so. It’s been fun and I’ve learnt a lot.

I thought that I would end the year with a few thoughts and some suggestions for next year, but first of all I might explain what I hoped to achieve by starting this blog and why I am moving it.

WHY DID I START THIS BLOG?

About 12 months ago I started running a training course called design basics (focused mainly on helping people to improve their PowerPoint slides) so I had plenty of ideas and content to share. Starting a blog seemed an ideal way to connect with a wider audience as well as providing some ongoing tips and advice for people who had completed the course. I decided that it was better to jump right in, rather than just thinking about it and WordPress.com made this quick and easy. It’s user friendly and it’s free. I recommend this as a way to start if you want to share your ideas or practice your writing.

I’ve covered a number of topics over the year, ranging from tips on clear writing, using colour and some other advice about improving your communication skills. I have a background in teaching communication skills, so communication design is just an extension of my interest in this area. I’ve really enjoyed reading your comments and feedback although at times, I have been at a bit of a loss to know what you might find useful and interesting, so I’ve just posted about stuff I find interesting and hope that it strikes a cord with some of you.

My main aim is to help people communicate clearly, whether this be in a PowerPoint presentation, a written report, a diagram, a graph or an image. I often observe people struggling to deliver information effectively and I really believe that there are some simple ways to achieve this. I think that writing and speaking clearly is important, especially when you are delivering messages that make a difference to people’s health, safety or wellbeing. I guess you could say that I am on a quest for clarity, both in what I do and say and in helping other people to be clear.

WHY AM I MOVING THIS BLOG?

The time has come to play with the grown ups and explore some new pastures. Moving this blog to a self-hosted site will give me more freedom to try new things and will be more of a challenge for me as I’ll need to learn a little bit more about websites, coding and other mysteries that pertain to managing a website. It’s an area I want to explore and I think jumping right in and giving it a go is a wonderful way to learn. It may be a disaster, but I hope not.

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Do you have something exciting planned for 2013? I hope so. There are so many interesting things to do and learn that I can’t imagine how anyone could be bored. I recently discovered a wonderful organisation called Coursera where you can enrol in an online course on just about any topic that interests you. The courses are delivered by leading universities in the USA and are absolutely free. Amazing and wonderful.

I’d like wish you all the best for the year ahead and I hope you maintain your curiosity about the world and set yourself some goals that are achievable and fun.

See you next year!

WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org: Which is right for you? (mikehickerson.com)

Learning

Learning from your mistakes

December 19, 2012April 17, 2020by Margaret4 Comments

Yesterday I reblogged an article from a content strategist about how setting your goals too high can lead you to feeling a bit like an under achiever. I think that we all put ourselves under a lot of pressure to be really on our game all the time, to be successful and wonderful and pretty much perfect most of the time. I thought this was an interesting article and that it would be a good thing to share with you all, but I hadn’t looked at the video clip that was embedded in the item. To be honest, I had tried to, but the clip wouldn’t play on my iPad. (What’s that all about???)
Anyway, I had a look at the clip today and was horrified to find it contained the most appalling language. I’m truly sorry if anyone was offended and I’ve removed the post now.
A good lesson learnt on my part though. It won’t happen again.

Moving on

Lots of people say that learning from your mistakes is the best way to learn and I guess this is true, but it’s painful. I wondered if you had any advice about how to recover from those embarassing moments? You know the ones I’m talking about… You’re up on the podium and you completely forget what you are talking about. You’re in a meeting and you’ve been daydreaming and someone asks you a question and you don’t know what on earth they are talking about. You’re due to give a presentation at another location and you go to the wrong place. Need I go on? I’m sure you have your own examples. Any tips for making a fast recovery and moving on?

Creativity

Being creative

December 9, 2012April 17, 2020by Margaret6 Comments

Lilya Brik shown editing film in 1928. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have spent most of my working life doing the same sort of work in different settings. My first real job was as a photographic printer. I worked in a small studio for two groovy commercial photographers who did a range of advertising work. I was not only the printer, but also the delivery girl, receptionist and lunch getter. I may have even done the invoicing. I remember that one of the photographers spent most of his time in between jobs stripping down a rather large motorbike in the middle of the studio. It made a lot of mess.

I was queen of the darkroom on those days. I chose the best shots from a roll of film, developed and printed them and delivered the best of the best to the agency. I was seventeen at the time. Later I worked in London as a colour printer. I had one client who was a big shot in the art world. He took photos of famous art works and my job was to reproduce these as colour prints that matched as closely as possible to the originals. One night we went to a famous private gallery after it had closed so that I could colour match the sample prints to the originals. It was a lot of fun.

My next job was in film editing. At the beginning there was not a lot of creativity or discretion, but as time went on I was able to make decisions about shots that worked and select music that brought things to life.

More recently I have worked as an educator, writer and presentation designer.

I have also done some training and coaching along the way, but despite my background, I persist with the idea that I am not terribly creative. Weird isn’t it? How many people get the chance to write and edit presentations and documents and get paid for it? What exactly does it take for someone to imagine themselves as a creative person?

Every day I hear people telling me that they can’t come up with ideas because they are ‘not creative’. If only they realised that the difference between a creative person and a ‘not very creative’ person is merely self-perception.

I know that my work has not been about coming up with original ideas for new films or books or web designs, but I honestly think that my decisions have been creative in their own small way. I think of myself as a backroom creative rather than one of those ‘out there’ types. More to the point, I think that it’s entirely possible that you are also quite a creative person and you’ve just undersold yourself.

I’ve been doing a little bit of an experiment at work. I’ve been pretending that I’m creative in an effort to see if the idea takes off. And amazingly it is! People have actually starting saying ‘you have lots of good ideas and that’s alright for you, but I’m not really that creative’. I find it hilarious. If only they knew that I’m not really that creative, I’m just pretending. The weird part is that the longer I pretend, the more prone I am to imagining that I am creative in my own little way.

If this strikes a chord with you, consider re-imagining yourself as a creative person. I know that you probably feel a bit shy about commenting but I would really love to hear from you.

Stanford Crash Course on Creativity – Creative Teams – Week 6 (creativityland.ca)

Presentation Design

You Don’t HAVE To Use PowerPoint…

December 7, 2012April 17, 2020by Margaret1 Comment

Here is a nice blog on presentation design that I thought might interest you.
The poster board is a good idea as again, it forces you to clarify your key ideas. As Alex says, its a bit like the projects we used to do at school. Do they still do these or is it all digital these days?

Communication

What we have here is a failure to communicate

December 4, 2012April 17, 2020by MargaretLeave a Comment

Early in my career as a teacher someone once told me that if my students didn’t understand what I was telling them then I should accept some of the responsibility for this. I have never forgotten this advice, even though it doesn’t stop me from being frustrated when I can’t seem to get my point across.

It’s easy enough to blame other people for their failure to understand what you are saying, it’s much harder to stop and reflect on what is causing the problem. Maybe it’s you?

I know that sometimes I am not very clear. Without wanting to make excuses, there are a lot of reasons that this can happen. Here are a few:

1. You’re not really clear what your point is. (I know I have talked about this before, but honestly it is a really common cause of miscommunication). It’s not so much that you are confused, it may be because you haven’t had a chance to really think through your point of view so you’re not really sure where you stand on the issue. If this happens, consider asking people to come back later when you have had a chance to think. This is actually quite flattering to the other person. Giving yourself a chance to think before you talk will give them a more considered and thoughtful response, and it will certainly stop you from sounding garbled.

2. Wrong time and place. Choosing your moment carefully. If you have something really important to say then you need to make sure that the person receiving the information is in a receptive frame of mind. Try to reduce distractions so that you have as much of their attention as you can.

3. Avoid jargon and buzzwords. There is a lot of evidence to say that if you use jargon and buzzwords, people just switch off. You might as well be talking to a brick wall.

4. Try and make your message relevant to the other person. People are basically interested in themselves so if you can frame your message in a way that relates to their interests and experiences they will be more engaged and more likely to listen to what you have to say.

5. Lay out the context and relay your information in an orderly fashion. I had an experience with this yesterday. I went to a meeting with a colleague who had an idea to sell me. He launched into the details without giving me any context or background for his ideas. He was well and truly up to speed with his proposal, but he didn’t bother to convey this to me and I was soon lost and confused. Eventually I just stopped listening. Spending a few minutes at the beginning of the meeting explaining the content and background (briefly) ensures that everyone in the room is at the same point and can move forward together. Try to avoid leaving people behind or you will lose them.

These are just some simple ideas that are worth are try. Next time you are trying to explain something important or complex or both, try to control the time and place that the conversation is going to happen. Be as well prepared as possible and reduce the number of external distractions for your audience. Give your audience a brief overview of the issue and the context so that know what you are talking about and above all, use simple clear language.

Let me know if you have any successes (or failures). I’d love to hear from you.

Everyone wants to be engaging (room435.wordpress.com)

Design Principles

How to win friends and influence people

November 25, 2012November 25, 2012by Margaret1 Comment

Yesterday was the birthday of Dale Carnegie who was born in Missouri in 1888. He came from a very poor family but became famous as a writer and lecturer, motivational speaker and marketing guru. I guess you could say he was the father of public speaking (if you don’t count Aristotle of course). Let’s just say that he was the first person to have the idea that salesmen (and I use that term deliberately) needed to have more than a product to sell in order to make a sale. They need to be able to convince people that they couldn’t do without the product they were selling. They needed to be influential.

His best known book was “How to win friends and influence people”. It was first published in 1936 and is still in print. Carnegie’s ideas probably seem very commonplace today but his ideas were radical in the early 20th century. One of his key ideas is that it is possible to change people’s behaviour towards you, by changing the way you react to them. He thought that you could influence people by getting them to like you. The more they like you, the more likely they are to respond to you in a positive way and this in turn will lead to them being more likely to buy what you are selling or agree with what you are saying.

To be honest, I have always found these ideas to be a little creepy. I always believed that people should be genuinely likeable and not just for the purpose of influencing me, or selling me something. But it’s true that I am more likely to listen to the ideas of someone I like. It puts me in a more open frame of mind.

If you are writing presentations, reports or even just emails to your colleagues you probably want people to do something, or feel something, otherwise why would you be taking the trouble to write anything? And if you want people to do or feel something, then it helps if you are likeable.

So can you make yourself more likeable and still retain your integrity? Yes, I think so.

One easy thing you can do is to adopt a positive attitude about life. People quite like to be around positive people. I don’t mean that you should pretend to be happy if you are feeling really down, but adopting a positive attitude not only makes people around you want to talk to you, it also makes you feel more positive about life. This is the ‘fake it till you make it’ scenario and the science says that this really works. Watch this TED talk to find out how.

Secondly, spend as much time as you can listening to other people. Giving people your attention and listening closely to what they say is both respectful and flattering. I am not always very good at listening (coming from a family of champion interrupters as I do) but I do find it very effective when I can manage it.

If you agree/disagree or have any other tips for influencing people without selling your soul, please comment. I’d love to hear from you.

I’ll leave you with a nice quote from Mr Carnegie…

Happiness doesn’t depend on who you are or what you own, it depends solely on what you think.

Dale Carnegie 1888 -1955

Take a Lesson from the Old School (inc.com)

Writing

Desperately seeking perfection

November 14, 2012by MargaretLeave a Comment

It was pointed out to me that one of the sentences in my last post ran on for too long and that I had also used the words ‘as well’ in two consecutive sentences. This is true. Slightly clumsy writing if not actually wrong. To be honest I was a bit worried about publishing that last post as I was convinced it would contain a major error and I would end up looking like a fool. I double checked it before I posted, added a few words (unnecessarily as it happens) and hit the publish button hoping like mad that it would be ok. Never mind. One can only try.

I still think that it’s important to make an effort to organise your thoughts. The opposite of laziness is not perfection, it’s effort, and it applies to everything you do. You should be striving to do the best you can in the time you have available. You can’t wordsmith every single sentence until it’s perfect or you would never get any work done, but you can make an effort to unjumble the content once it’s on the page.

I read a lovely quote by Guy Kawasaki which goes like this…

“While brevity may not be the cause of elegance, longwindedness certainly prevents it.”

So I think I will end there.

Writing

Are you a lazy writer?

November 12, 2012by MargaretLeave a Comment

Thermometer-lazy-1 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I see a lot of poorly written and badly designed information in the course of my travels. I suppose that sounds a bit harsh, doesn’t it? Maybe it’s not so much that they are badly written, they are just sloppily put together.
For example, the other day someone gave me a big long memo about a meeting they had been to. It was kind of them to take the trouble to make some notes, but they had really just poured out their thoughts onto a page without any consideration of which order the content should be presented in so that it made logical sense to the reader. This resulted in some of the key points about why we should go down a particular path being in mixed in with very detailed points about how this should happen (process notes). They had gone to the trouble of typing up their notes but they hadn’t taken that one extra step of organising them so that they made sense. Just a few extra minutes would have made the whole thing make more sense and have been more persuasive as well.
This is often the case with emails as well. People just write down whatever pops into their minds without thinking about what the reader needs to know first. I don’t think this is intentional but it would certainly help if writers did a little editing. By all means write down whatever comes to mind, but feel free to move it around so that it makes sense. Put it in a logical order. Your readers will thank you.

Presentation Design, Writing

4 ways to improve your presentations

November 4, 2012by Margaret4 Comments

Let’s imagine for a moment that you have been asked to develop a presentation for your manager about a new HR policy. You begin by opening up the corporate template and start typing using the default settings in PowerPoint with its obligatory bullet points. Blah…blah…blah….

Before long you have lots and lots of slides loaded with text and you’re bored with the whole process.

It’s more than likely that your boss has provided with little or no guidance about what the point of the presentation is, or why it needs to be developed, or even who it’s for.

You want to create something professional. You’d like it to be a bit different, but not zany because you don’t want people to think you are weird and it won’t do your career any good to be thought of as too ‘out there’.

So where do you start with creating a presentation that is effective and gets the message across? Here’s where I can help.

1. FIRST THINGS FIRST

If possible sit your manager down and ask him or her the following questions:

Why do we have a new policy? Does it solve a problem or clarify a situation?
Who is the presentation for? If she says everyone, you might need to make two versions. One for staff, one for managers.
How are people likely to respond to the new policy? Will they see it as an improvement to their working conditions or a hindrance (you really need to know what the target audience is feeling about the issue that the new policy is attempting to address).

2. TELL THEM WHY IT MATTERS

Start your presentation with the reason why there is a new policy. For example a policy on working from home has been created because the organisation recognises that work doesn’t just happen at work, and that workers have complicated lives. Always start from how the policy will affect the people in the room and what problem it is trying to solve.

3. KEEP YOUR MESSAGES SHORT

Put your key points on the slides. One point per slide please! Make every effort to avoid corporate speak. Be straightforward and direct. So for example, instead of saying that the organisation has to rationalise their resources because of competing priorities, just say ‘we have limited funds and we need to use them wisely’. People really appreciate clear messages that get your point across.

4. TELL THEM WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO DO

Be very specific about this. Tell them exactly what you what them to do, don’t make them guess. Using our working from home example, ask them to read the new policy and speak to their manager if they are interested in working from home.

And that’s it. You will have created a presentation that is clear and helpful. It will tell people why they need to know and what they need to do. You’ll be a star!

Related articles

Share this:

Related articles

Share this:

Share this:

Related articles

Share this:

Share this:

Related articles

Share this:

Related articles

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: