Vivid Ideas Inc.

Okay! I couldn't resist this find!  It is worth following the link just to check out their domain name.

THE WORLD'S LONGEST ABBREVIATION
THE LONGEST LIST OF THE LONGEST STUFF AT THE LONGEST DOMAIN NAME AT LONG LAST

The first question is 'why is abbreviation such a long word?'

This abbreviation may just explain it, it is the world's longest abbreviation

NIIOMTPLABOPARMBETZHELBETRABSBOMONIMONKONOTDTEKHSTROMONT

Meaning: Laboratory for Shuttering, Reinforcement, Concrete and Ferroconcrete Operations for Composite-monolithic and Monolithic Constructions of the Department of Technology of Building Assembly Operations of the Scientific Research Institute of the Organization for Building Mechanization and Technical Aid of the Academy of Building and Architecture of the USSR.

This is one of my all time favorite business books.

Jim Collins and his team of researchers used strict benchmarks to identify a group of eleven companies that made the leap from good to great and then sustained that greatness for at least fifteen years.  The greatness had to be independent of their industry.  The team then identified eleven other direct comparison companies in the same industries as the eleven that had become great and six additional companies that had made an initial leap from good to great but the leap was then unsustained.   The team then spent five years extensively studying and analyzing the 28 companies. 

Their goal was to figure out what was in the "Black Box":  What enabled a company to become great and to sustain that greatness?  The team did not set out to prove a theory.  They set out to discover one and ended up discovering many.

The resultant book is itself GREAT!  It is very well written and a joy to read.  Collins is an expert storyteller.  He weaves in examples and stories that firmly anchor the deductions that the team made from their research.  The fact that the concepts in the book were derived from making sense of the empirical data collected is what makes this book so incredibly powerful and useful. 

It is worth repeated reads because each time you can get more out of the data and concepts presented.  In fact, I first borrowed it from the library, liked it so much that a few months later I wanted to reread it.  I again checked it out but was enjoying it so much I found myself wanting to highlight sections so I went out and bought the book.

Recently when I was working with a client on defining the Hedgehog Principal for her business, I decided I wanted to review Collin's presentation of the concept.  This time I listened to the book on CD. I found that listening to the CD brings a whole new light to the information.  I have now purchased the CDs too!  The book is read well.

Jim Collins has also written a follow up for the Social Sectors which I have not yet read.

Lee LeFever from CommonCraft.com has made a simple yet excellent video demystifying RSS. It is only slightly over 3 minutes long.  And it is very well done!

Click To Play

There is an old joke about how to tell the difference between an amateur and a professional photographer.

The punch line is that the amateur shows you ALL of their pictures.

Of course the punch line has double meaning.   The amateur probably only took 5 rolls of film (or the digital equivalent) and forces you to sit through all 150+ photos.  The professional took 50 or more rolls.  Out of all that the professional shows you only 8 photos - all of which knock your socks off, elicit emotion, and tell the story.

The professional photographer and presenter are similar.  The professional photographer has the willingness to take the 50 rolls of film and the presenter has the willingness to do the work to develop the thoughts for the story.  Then comes the point where each have to get ruthless to find and refine the story.  The photographer culls through all the shots to select the best.  The presenter sifts through all the collected evidence and information.

"Not enough gets said about the importance of abandoning crap. . . . Things that are really good are good because people are being really tough."    — Ira Glass

Letting go of the parts that do not add to or strengthen the story is a big challenge.  I think the culling and whittling down is part of the letting go process.  It is a way of acknowledging the wealth of information but choosing to keep only the best.   It is hard to let go of information a person has worked hard to gain.  There is a desire to tell the Judge, Jury, the Class or the Conference EVERYTHING the presenter knows.

It is often said that the best lawyers are the most convincing story tellers but it is this sifting process that is the critical beginning. The best storytellers are the best because they have to have a best story to tell.

The quotes in this entry are from the second segment of an interview series with Ira Glass of This American Life. 

"One of the things  . . . is how hard it is to actually find a decent story . . . Often the amount of time finding the decent story is more than the amount of time to produce the story."   -  Ira Glass

I have actually worked on this blog entry for quite a while. I suddenly realized that I had been doing just that - finding the decent story.  I have been developing and clarifying the story line.  One of the exciting things I have realized is that what has happened here is exactly the point that I have been having difficulty explaining to clients when I first start working with them.

Most of my work is with Lawyers designing and developing presentations for litigation.  It would seem that the story is straightforward: "Here is the case.  Here are our claims.  Here is the evidence."  But that is just the beginning.  The real work is in finding the most powerful and convincing storyline which the design, development and production of the presentation then revolve around. 

It is incredibly challenging when someone has worked on a case for a long while, done a huge amount of research, has a vast wealth of knowledge on the subject to then be able to hone down the story to the strongest, clearest, most powerful points to present at trial.  In addition, the lawyers are usually so familiar with the case that there is an added challenge of presenting the story clearly and logically so that the uninformed can become coherently informed and convinced. 

Finding the story is an iterative process.  It is taking the wealth of information and sifting it, winnowing it, refining it, and honing it till the presentation is tight and solid. It means tossing out the extraneous.  In a trial there are often many points that need to be addressed regardless of their pizazz.  I am not talking about tossing those.  The extraneous; the noise that does not add any true strength to the case is the stuff that needs to go.

I recently came across this short podcast of Ira Glass talking about the Basics of Storytelling.  He just nails it! There are a lot of books out right now for lawyers and other presenters about using the art of storytelling to get their message across.  But many of them use classical literature terms.  Trying to think in terms of "Protagonist" is difficult for most people. It is too artificial.  I need to connect with my stories on a gut level and tell it from there so that the listeners connect to the story too.  Ira Glass, with his usual clarity boils the basics down to the graspable concepts. 

Garr Reynold's from Presentation Zen synopsized the main points in the video so well I am just going to paste them in here. 

Summary of Part I (above video)
The old way: Have a topic statement then fill out the facts that support your statement. (This is not to say that logic and evidence and support are not important. Of course, they are important, but they're rarely sufficient.)

In storytelling there are two basic building blocks, says Ira Glass:

(1) The anecdote, a sequence of actions, a story in its purest form, one thing following from another (rather than just disjointed "facts").

"The Power of the anecdote is so great...No matter how boring the material is, if it is in story form...there is suspense in it, it feels like something's going to happen. The reason why is because literally it's a sequence of events...you can feel through its form [that it's] inherently like being on a train that has a destination...and that you're going to find something..."

                                                                — Ira Glass

(1a) Raise questions. Provide the "bait." The anecdote should raise a question right from the beginning. Implied in any question that you raise, however, is that you are going to answer it. Constantly raise questions and answer them. The shape of the story is that you are throwing out questions and answering them along the way.

(2) The moment of reflection. What is the key point? What does this all mean? Why have I asked you to sit and listen for 30 min, etc. It is not just a series of facts/events. Many people get the first part, they tell an interesting sequence of events, but in the end it fails because it doesn't say anything new, it did not have meaning. And sometimes people have the reflection part and the question is clear in their mind, but they fail to put it in a sequence that compels people to follow and engage.

In a good story you need both -- you can flip back and forth between the two. The Anecdote and the Moment of Reflection are interwoven to make a story.

"Not enough gets said about the importance of abandoning crap. . . . Things that are really good are good because people are being really tough."    — Ira Glass

That is true, but also there is a great deal that never gets started because of how tough we are on ourselves.   Different ends of a continuim: Abandoning (never getting started or throwing everything out) on one end and producing "Crap" on the other end with "Abandoning Crap" the perfect point somewhere in the middle.  The fear of failure in one way or another is paralyzing.

I think the issue is where do we place the "failure"?  As long as we keep the trial and error in a safe place then trial and error is part of the honing process.  It is a vital part to the development of anything great; a PowerPoint Presentation, a piece of art, or a blog. The slide ideas that are discussed and roughed out and then tossed are as important as the ones we keep. The art pieces that never get shown are critically important to the process of creating the best art.  I am hoping that it is true for the blog too because it is taking a lot of courage to hit "publish" each time even though I work on these entries for a while and toss a lot!

"Failure is a big part of success. . . . You are going to run into a lot of stuff that is going to go nowhere.  If you're not failing all the time you are not creating a situation where you can get super lucky."    — Ira Glass

The quotes in this entry are from the second segment of an interview series with Ira Glass. Very worth watching!)