Ende April ist normalerweise See-Conference-Zeit. Morgen geht es los mit der SEE #7, aber ich bin diesmal nicht dabei und werde deshalb keine Geschichten von Stararchitekt Joshua-Prince Ramus mitbringen. Auch nicht von Professor Andrew Vande Moere, der übrigens auch wieder auf der See ist, wie schon die letzten Jahre.

Die Talks sind aber auch diesmal dankenswerterweise alle online zu sehen. Go visualize!

Als Ergänzung hier eine Liste der besten Visualisierungsblogs, heute veröffentlicht von flowingdata, ohne Präsentationscoach Michael Gerharz hätte ich es vermutlich verpasst.

Danke, Netz.

Geschichten aus dem Netz und übers Präsentieren bringe ich dann im Mai von einer anderen Konferenz mit. Und Ihnen allen ein schönes Wochenende, falls es nicht schon angefangen hat. Man kann ja schließlich nicht immer nur übers Präsentieren nachdenken, obwohl ...

Präsentieren bedeutet: Atmen, verständlich sprechen, seine Stimme finden, Pausen machen, zuhörergerecht denken, Geschichten erzählen, veranschaulichen, Choreographie Wort-Bild beachten, ...

Vermutlich gibt es es kaum ein breiter gefächertes Gebiet. Die wirklich relevanten Aspekte werden sich nie ändern. Die neuen Bestseller von Duarte und Reynolds sind schön, interessant und wichtig. Aber sie basieren alle auf Erkenntnissen, die uralt sind: Menschen sind Geschichtentiere. Menschen sind Augentiere. Wenn es im Unterholz raschelt, drehe ich mich um. Wenn Sie piepsen oder klingen, als ob Sie sich für Ihren Namen schämen, höre ich weg. Da hilft auch der Nadelstreifenanzug oder die einstudierte Gestik wenig.

Quick link to a Mashable overview of what to include in your startup pitch presentation.

1. Cover Page
2. Summary
3. Team
4. Problem
5. Solution
6. Marketing/Sales
7. Projections or Milestones
8. Competition
9. Business Model
10. Financing

Don’t forget to tell your potential investors what’s in it for them.

Advice from designers for designers.

Lots of good stuff in here. My personal favorite is by one nobodyspecial.

.. language is a great tool for exploring ideas. Great design begins with asking the right question - getting at the heart of the problem you’re setting out to solve. Refining your design will start with discussions with other students - learn to be articulate, you’ll be amazed at how simply saying out loud what your thinking can cause a quantum leap in your understanding of your work. 

[I have only edited the apostrophes, I swear.]

Jane Hart from C4LPT, the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies, is still accepting contributions for this year’s list of the top 100 learning tools.The list will be finalized and published in November 2011.

A first glance reveals TED, Evernote, iPad (apps), DropBox, StoryBird, SecondLife, and, inevitably, Moodle. Learning still seems to invite the idea of documents (Excel and Word feature, too) but I can see Picasa as well as Audacity, the fabulous Aviary Suite, or Vimeo. Good.

Depending on your background, you may be familiar with many or most of the tools on the list, so you might also want to check out her very well structured directory of 2000+ learning tools. I have just replaced my own learning bookmark collection of the past ten years with this.

Jane’s site is a goldmine of information on all aspects of (social) learning.

If you want to invite the backchannel and embed polls or Twitter into your Keynote presentation, try this posting.

That posting includes many further links, including to two classics, Atkinson’s 2009 book on incorporating the Backchannel and Mitchell’s 2009 e-guide.

Related to this (and just in from my inbox, thx!):

• http://lab.arc90.com/2011/03/21/donahue/
• http://www.donahueapp.com/
• http://go.donahueapp.com/

Looks exciting.

I wonder what the list will look like in two years from now. My bet for my own area (presenting) is on the iPad used as a whiteboard. Scribble while you speak. Show and tell. I also have high hopes for HTML5, as HTML is how my online teaching existence started.

Back in1998, when I launched my first web based learning platform at college, my number one wish was being able to make things move. Now, drag and drop or animated sequences are a availabe at the touch of a finger. Brave new world.

But still I bought a set of new pencils yesterday and a stack of new sketch blocks to organize the upcoming exams and other presenting events. 

Always. Plan. Analog. Digital is only second nature. Yet.

Image: Polly Dunbar, Ideas Everywhere © 2011

Ideas Everywhere by Polly Dunbar as featured on Bookstart is a great lesson in Story Telling 101: Where do ideas come from, how to create suspense, and more.

A good presentation is a good story. This is lovely stuff. (Which is why my teacher/editor me only very quietly mumbles: It should be whose, not who’s in the image above. How did this get past the editor? But then editing/correcting is a whole different story from writing.)

You may feel this particular story is not age appropriate for you. You are mature, grown up, a professional. Picture books are kids’ stuff.

Well, you’re in for a surprise. Age is a marketing thing. Great stories are beyond that.

You may want to read the author’s notes to find out more about what it takes to tell a story/give a presentation.

• Ideas
• Characters
• Emotion
• The BEGINNING
• Location
• Dilemma
• Conflict
• The MIDDLE
• Resolution
• The END

And let’s not forget about imagination. 

There is also a three-part interview with the author. Below is part three in which she talks us through illustrating tips, how to flesh out ideas and what to expect from the process of making a picture book.

Linklove: via Twitter/@storytellin