UKOUG 2008 Conference & Exhibition

I will be speaking tomorrow (as part of a double act with my good friend Marc Humphries) at the UKOUG 2008 Conference & Exhibition.

The subject for the talk will be "Are you ready for Gen Y?". If you are interested/worried about talent management and happen to be in Birmingham (UK) at 12.25pm please pop in an share your thoughts and experience on Gen Y.

Presentation cliché of the week: Clip art

Nancy over at Slide:ology adds "clip art" to her growing list of presentation clichés and I for one agree 1000%. The number of times I have seen those horrid little stick men or had to try and stop my intestines from leaping out of my mouth and strangling me when I see the dreaded cartoon characters shaking hands. Just so dumb! Nancy makes the point well by asking

Remember how stores used to sell CDs full of “15,000 pieces of clip art”? Well, there was a reason it only cost you twenty bucks.

Clip art RIP.....

Top 100 learning tools 2008

In this handy presentation, Jane Hart provides a list of the tools being used around the world to learn, network and communicate.

The length of the list and the number of options says as much for the growth of the online software community as it does to support the view that many take that there is just too much to choose from and that we need rationalisation.

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: tools learning)

The clarity rules - logic tree

One of my friends and colleagues Greg Stewart has just started a new blog called The Clarity Rules. Greg's thesis is that:

If you can't make yourself understood in an information age...what good are you?

Greg plans to pull together a set of Clarity Blockers as well as to provide content on presentation technique and style.

One of his posts suggests that the idea of a "logic tree" can significantly improve the comprehensibility of a presentation/argument/idea etc.

Greg refers to the classic work of Barbara Minto whos premise is basically that:

• Our logical brains look for order and patterns to things
• If you're making an argument, make it easy for the reader to understand how your logic fits together
• That way, your reader can spend time deciding whether or not they agree with your conclusion, rather than distracting themselves trying to figure out how to pull what you're trying too say out of a batch of disorganised facts

Greg’s Clarity Rules are a welcome and much needed addition to the blogosphere why not pop over there and have a look for yourself. Clarity is not one of my strenghts so I for one will be a frequent visitor.

The power of pictures

Need I say anything else about the credit crisis?