Very shortly I will be off to the Yaletown Gallery to see Leftantler's photo in the Landscapes of Vancouver show. I'm really excited! The show is on for a couple of weeks but you can have a virtual tour here if you can't make it downtown :-)
Congratualtions to Leftantler of course, but also to all the other photographers - it's shaping up to be an awesome collection,
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Very shortly I will be off to the Yaletown Gallery to see Leftantler's photo in the Landscapes of Vancouver show. I'm really excited! The show is on for a couple of weeks but you can have a virtual tour here if you can't make it downtown :-)
Congratualtions to Leftantler of course, but also to all the other photographers - it's shaping up to be an awesome collection,
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BBC NEWS | UK | Children 'damaged' by materialism
It's only one poll of course but it does illustrate one of the major reasons my wife and I decided to leave the UK. Of course, moving to North America doesn't might not be an obvious choice, but it's not actually the children we wanted to leave behind. It was the adults.
The article talks about what childhood should be and how it shouldn't include commercial sales techniques. I agree but would add that, not being a parent myself, what I see is that children are becoming 'adults' at an earlier age. So what is the Children's market? I know there are 'official' opinions of this but for me it's looking like 12 years old is the cut-off.
This dropping in age of course means that children seem to become adults earlier and earlier, which means there are more of those adults I mentioned I wanted to leave behind. More elegant writers can discuss the merits/problems of materialism but for me it's fairly straight forward. If children are growing up to be more and more material there is a huge risk that they will be more and more superficial at the same time.
We live in a complicated world which DOES require adults to think more deeply about what they do, what it means for their families and for wider society. With more and more children becoming less able to do this, the future direction of society becomes more and more worrying. To me this means that those of us who are adults NOW, need to act NOW, take responsibility NOW and give the children a world which might actually be worth protecting when they become adults.
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Tags: materiality, children, commericalism, society
Tags: photography, goddesspiral, lightpainting, moosecamp, photocamp northernvoice, nv08, Northern Voice 2008
At today's Toastmasters meeting I played the role of humourist. The timing of this made me laugh a little, partly because of a black dog but mainly because last night I completed Michael Palin's excellent Diaries 1969 - 1979, The Python Years.
Michael's (I have to use the his first name as I feel I know him a little bit now!) book was an inspiration, not so much because of Monty Python, but because of his ability to laugh at himself. So today I decided that instead of telling a joke, I would simply share the thoughts I first expressed in this blog post last year.
Although the speech was only a minute or two, I decided to introduce a new element. Last year at Northern Voice, I enjoyed watching Dave Olson give an entire 30 minute speech using paper slides that he presented then tossed away like a good Bob Dylan video.
I can't pretend to have been as accomplished as Dave was, but the overall effect seemed to work. The feedback was good and even heard a few gentle giggles in the crowd.
Northern Voice kicks off again today, with Moosecamp tomorrow and the conference all proper like on Saturday, when Dave is speaking again - this time with a subject called F*ck Stats, Make Art Dossier. I can't wait! If you are not attending, check out Miss 604's guide to following online.
Photo by Robert Scales
Tags: toastmasters, MichaelPalin, Diaries, MontyPython, NorthernVoice, nv08, Moosecamp, DaveOlson, Miss604
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Last Thursday I gave the my 5th Toastmasters speech. This takes me half way towards achieving the award of a 'Competent Communicator.' The speech was very well received and I was particularly pleased to receive some solid feedback from two visiting DTM (Distinguished Toastmasters).
It's amazing how much head space these speeches take up. Preparing a 6 minute speech doesn't sound like too much of an ordeal, but believe me, it does take some planning. This time round I chose a subject which was slightly heavier than had gone before. Previously my speech topics included Crows and Mountains. This time I spoke about car culture.
I was inspired by the epic poem by Heathcote Williams called Autogeddon, written back in the 1980's. A dark attack on the automobile. My theory was that in real life many of the things I would be called to speak about could be serious, heavier subjects. Kind of less fluffy bunny, more heavy hare ;-)
The corporate Toastmasters Club I am in is very friendly and supportive. The theme this week was Valentines. So when I trotted up to the lectern I suspect it was a bit of shock! This particular speech was much much harder to prepare. Numerous re-writes to tone it down / lighten it a bit. It's easy to let the passion sweep you away and become a preaching bore!
I now move on to speech #6, which has a focus around using tonal variety. I think I have a general subject, but I'm yet to nail the specific purpose or flesh out the details. I have about three weeks to prepare ... I'm looking forward to it!
Tags: toastmasters, publicspeaking, autogeddon, speeches
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I'm thrilled to announce that a photograph by Leftantler has been selected for inclusion in this show! Congratulations Leftantler!
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I'm thrilled to announce that a photograph by Leftantler has been selected for inclusion in this show! Congratulations Leftantler!
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Today I had the great pleasure of being a judge at the CaseIT 2008 Competition. This is an undergraduate business case competition which has been running since 2004. This year the competition took on a truly global dimension, with teams from South Africa, Singapore, Denmark, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Canada and the US.
The day started with a Judges briefing. The case study which we had been sent earlier in the week centred on the dating site called Plenty of Fish. This site was setup, and is run, by one individual: Markus Frind and seems to have achieved notable success, with $10M of Revenue p.a. with practically no cost. The question is/was whether or not this is sustainable and what Markus should do next.
The competitors were given 24 hours to prepare their presentations and locked away for that time. They did have a laptop and internet access which was very carefully monitored with all sorts of restrictions on what they could and could not look at. This was a very interesting case, addressing topics which are very much in vogue, social networking, online dating and of course, sustainability.
The structure of the day was that first of all the teams were divided in to four rooms, with 4 teams presenting in each room. The timing was strict, 20 minutes for the presentation and 10 minutes of questions. The Judges had a few minutes to ponder before the next team came in. One team from each then went through to the second round where they presented again, this time to all the judges.
As an additional step, following the second round was a lightning round, where four questions were asked and the teams given 60 seconds to prepare a response and 2 mins to answer. All in a big room, with all the judges and all the teams together.
After all this the judges got together and decided who was 1st / 2nd and 3rd. The subject line gives the game away of course, but in all seriousness all the competitors today deserve a lot credit. I know there is a whole circuit of these case competitions and some of the teams were very well practiced, but I have to admire all the participants who stood up there today. Without exception it was clear that they had put a lot of work into this, and standing in front of folk like myself must have been very daunting for them.
In terms of the presentations themselves, it was interesting to see the mix of time spent on presenting the situation and then the recommended actions. Too much on the former, too little on the latter. The standard of presenting was surprisingly good with a good deal less umms and ahhs than you might expect, the majority of the presentations also had a good structure. Generally I think there were too many words on too many slides and not enough pictures, but maybe I'm splitting hairs.
The discipline of having to prepare at short notice for an important presentation is a good discipline to learn. Being able to successfully analyse and interpret data, come up with a strategy and then communicate it are all key skills the students will benefit from in later years. Add to this that many of them had travelled half way round the world and still had to go back and make all their normal term/course deadlines made the whole thing even more impressive.
These students are the future CEOs, CTOs, leaders, Prime Ministers or Presidents. They will be running the world when I'm old and grey (which is probably far sooner than I was planning!). I came away greatly encouraged by this and more so inspired. As one of the speakers mentioned at the Awards Dinner, when I was an undergraduate the most I could organise was an anxiety attack, let alone the job these teams did in the competition.
So congratulations to SFU, who came away with 1st prize. As a judge I had no idea which team was which, until after the placings had been settled. For the record Singapore came second, Calgary third. I also enjoyed the Awards Dinner which had a great buzz. A very enjoyable end to a very enjoyable day - I hope I get invited back next year!
Based in Vancouver, BC, Stewart is a financial storyteller. He helps organisations tell their story through numbers.
