Slidecasting by Slideshare.net

How to Change the World: Reality Check: Slidecasting by Slideshare.net: "Slidecasting by SlideShare.net enables you to synchronize PowerPoint slides and audio files. To create a slidecast, you upload slides to SlideShare.net. The audio file is hosted anywhere on the web. Then you link the slides and audio by using an online synchronization tool. When you play the slidecast, the audio is streamed from its location and plays with the slides. The service is completely free."

Thanks Guy!

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How to Draw a Giraffe

WHOLPHIN DVD � Film: How to Draw a Giraffe

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16 Awesome Data Visualization Tools

16 Awesome Data Visualization Tools: "From navigating the Web in entirely new ways to seeing where in the world twitters are coming from, data visualization tools are changing the way we view content. We found the following 16 apps both visually stunning and delightfully useful."

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What are you reading?

A comment by chap got me curious: What are you reading? I am especially interested in magazines and books.

Please share your favorite magazines, most recent books you have read/enjoyed, and if you don't mind, your job title -- I imagine that if you're a CTO you might be reading different things than if you are a product manager.

I'll start: I've been reading Everything is Miscellaneous by David Weinberger. My favorite magazines are Business 2.0 and the Economist. Job title: CEO.

Also I'd appreciate your vote:

If Time Inc. does shut down Business 2.0, which magazine(s) should we seek to partner with, so we can continue to publish visual explanations of business technology issues?

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Visual communication - an interview with Dave Gray

I was recently interviewed on the User Experience Podcast:

Visual Communication - an Interview with Dave Gray

"Dave talks about giving ourselves permission to draw, about how the printing press led us to communicate in a particular way, and about how that can limit our communication in a digital environment, about how PowerPoint can be both inhibiting and comforting, and about how where we are with video today is where we were with PageMaker 20 years ago."

Would love to hear your thoughts.

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Time Inc. threatens to shut down Business 2.0

The next generation of search engines, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane.

As many of you may know, XPLANE has worked with Business 2.0 magazine since its initial launch in 1998. Over the last nine years we have worked closely with the magazine to develop visual explanations of technology and business issues. I believe it's a truly special publication and I have never seen another magazine quite like it.

If you want a trip down dot-com memory lane, I have posted a few of my favorite Business 2.0 XPLANATiONs here.

Time Inc., the parent company, is about to drop the axe on Business 2.0 magazine because of a decline in ad revenue. Actually, according to a recent New York Times article, this is largely due to a recent move by Time to consolidate the sales forces of its finance and business publications:

Aside from the overall downturn in the magazine business, current and former Time Inc. employees point to what appears to have been an ill-advised move this year to combine the advertising sales teams of Time Inc.’s finance and business publications, which include Fortune, Money, CNNMoney.com, Fortune Small Business and Business 2.0.

Consolidated under a single banner, Time Inc.’s Business and Finance Network (or Tibfin, as it is known inside the company), Time sales representatives stopped pitching the distinct appeal and audience of Business 2.0 to focus on the larger titles like Fortune.

That often turned Business 2.0 into an afterthought; big advertisers like Microsoft and Intel were offered discounts on other Time Inc. business titles if they would also buy pages in Business 2.0.

Adage reports a grassroots movement to save the magazine, and today readers started a Facebook group to convince Time Inc. to reconsider:

Please join the fun and let's see if we can save the magazine! Join the Facebook group here.

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New job openings at XPLANE

Are you a visual thinker? We have some new job openings at XPLANE. Read about them here. Maybe you can join our gang!

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A blog is a way to change a company from the inside

... but not the way you think. A blog is a way of getting support and affirmation from the outside, for the things you are trying to do on the inside.

A blog is a way to keep your faith alive.

As always, please share your thoughts.

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Did You Know 2.0

Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

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What is language?

What is language?, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane.

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WikiMindMap

1. It's a mind map program
2. It's 100% online
3. It searches any term on Wikipedia and automatically creates a mindmap

Yes it's true and it's very cool. Check it out.

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Visual thinking

Great presentation on visual thinking by Ryan Coleman.

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What makes a place great?

Corner nook, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane.

"It's surprisingly simple.

Over the past 30 years Project for Public Spaces has evaluated more than 1,000 public spaces, and informally investigated tens of thousands more. From all this we have discovered that most great places--whether a grand downtown plaza or humble neighborhood park--share four key qualities:

1. It is accessible and well-connected to other important places in the area.
2. The space is comfortable and projects a good image.
3. People are drawn to participate in activities there.
4. It is a sociable place where people like to gather, visiting it again and again."

Read more.

Can we do this in our common (shared) office spaces? What makes for a great shared space?

Please share your thoughts.

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Ice breaker

Ice breaker, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane.

Here's a simple but effective way to break the ice and introduce people at your next meeting or event. It's a good way to get people into a brainstorming/creative mood and sets the tone for a creative meeting.

1. Give everyone an index card and a colored marker (it's better if everyone has a different color).

2. Have each person fold the card in half to make a table tent.

3. On the front, have them write their name and draw their "supermask" (as in, if they were a superhero, what would be their mask?).

4. On the back, have each person write their "supername" and "superpower."

5. Go around the room and have each person describe their card to the group.

Variations:

1. If everyone more or less knows each other: After writing their name, have each person pass their card to the person on their left or right. The person receiving the card fills it out and passes it back. Then go around the room as before.

2. Instead of "supername" and "super power" you can try other things, like "wrestler mask, name and secret move."

3. Corporate version Have each person draw a self-portrait on the front of the card, and on the back write something others are unlikely to know about them.

We did this at a recent edition of visual thinking school and it really livened up the meeting. Here are the results.

Give it a try, and post your cards to the vizthink! pool.

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The most important technique of presenting

Index card sketches from Meshforum 2006, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane.

"Look your listener in the eye. Most inexperienced speakers lose the attention of their audience by looking up at the ceiling to collect their thoughts, looking at the floor, or darting their eyes around the room.

Whether you are addressing a small or large group, lock your gaze on one person, and keep it there for about five seconds - long enough to complete a thought. Then look at another person, take a breath, and continue with your next thought.

If you are talking to only one person, you'll want to break eye contact once in a while to avoid staring. But looking at one person per thought, and pausing slightly between each thought, is the most important technique of presenting."

-- From How to shine at presentations by Kevin Daley, founder of Communispond.

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