This post by Aaron Wherry in Maclean’s is a must-read for anyone interested in the best that political speech-making skills offered in this fine town. I agree wholeheartedly with his praise for Robert Fowler’s impassioned speech, but also draw your attention to Wherry’s observation:
We have may long ago lost our patience for hours-long addresses, but there remains a certain craving for the sight and sound of a politician speaking resoundingly, passionately and at length.
Going beyond the confines of the Queensway however, my money on the finest political speech of the year was this one by Gordon Brown. He gets bonus points for quoting the classics in his conclusion…
When Cicero spoke to crowds in ancient Rome people turned to each other after hearing the speech and said “great speech.” But when Demosthenes spoke to the crowds in ancient Greece and people turned to each other they said, “let’s march!”
But let’s not limit this best-of list to political speechmaking.
Two of the finest presentations in 2010 were TED Talks—neither relied heavily on powerpoint slides, but rather on thoughtful rhetoric and a speaker who believes passionately in a cause.
The first presentation was by Sir Ken Robinson, arguing for a revolution in education…
We have to go from what is essentially an industrial model of education, a manufacturing model, which is based on linearity and conformity and batching people. We have to move to a model that is based more on principles of agriculture.
The second noteworthy presentation was by game designer Jane McGonigal, making a persuasive case for how gaming can change the world, starting with this arresting point…
Right now we spend three billion hours a week playing online games. Some of you might be thinking, “That’s a lot of time to spend playing games.” Maybe too much time, considering how many urgent problems we have to solve in the real world. But actually, according to my research, at The Institute For The Future, it’s actually the opposite is true. Three billion hours a week is not nearly enough game play to solve the world’s most urgent problems.
And….there’s one more thing. I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a tip of my hat to Jesse Desjardins‘ award-winning “You Suck At PowerPoint,” doing his part for making the world a better place, free of snoozeworthy slideware presentations. (Added hyperlink for those of you accessing this on iOS devices)
View more presentations from @JESSEDEE.
The power of simplicity
I’m recent customer of Netflix, an American-based online service for movies that was only recently introduced here in Canada. For a very modest monthly fee, you can stream films to your deskop, iPad or TV. Just as important, it remembers where you were in a film, should you decide to pause and then pick up later on a different device. It also has a pretty intuitive way of suggesting movies you might enjoy, based on the feedback you provide. Just as important, it doesn’t feel like work to use this service.
Granted, they don’t have the same selection of new releases as you might find at the local video store. They also don’t seem to excel at having all the typical mainstream films you’d typically expect from a brick-and-mortar operation.
But that’s okay. And the reason why it’s okay is that Netflix does one thing, really, really well.
It makes it easy to find a good movies to watch.
Daring Fireball zeroed in on that today with a choice quote from the Chief Product Officer at Netflix who summed up what they’ve learned about delivering an online service: “simple trumps complete.”
Simplicity is a passion that I share, too.
Simple is hard. It doesn’t trivialize a complicated problem. Rather, it means that you have thought long and hard about that problem and have found a way of solving it that will meet and even exceed the expectations that people have.
Simple means more than just minimizing steps. It means you have taken the time to figure out what matters most to your customers and delivering unfailing on that need, versus trying to deliver many promises and being just adequate most of the time.
Great writing never goes out of style
Yesterday, I participated in a great discussion on LinkedIn: in an age in which communicating is becoming less formal due to the growth of social media, do traditional writing skills matter as much as they used to?
You bet they do.
Whether you’re a manager communicating to staff, or an account executive working with clients, there’s more to what you do than simply getting a point across.
Great communication is the mastery of the art of persuasion. The rise of social media means you have more tools at your disposal to ply those skills, but rules still apply.
An email message, a tweet or a blog post is easily hobbled by poor style and typos. Those kinds of mistakes mean you’ll have to work a lot harder to reach and connect with people.
People judge what they read. It’s that simple.
Granted, I’m biased as a writer by trade, but speaking strictly as a business owner, I’d much rather make a small investment in ensuring my message is concise and error-free (and that can be as simple as just taking a few extra minutes to review your work), rather than spinning my wheels wondering why a message isn’t getting any traction.
Great writing doesn’t just define you, it also defines your message.
The art of taking chances
What does creativity mean to you?
To me, it’s what I call the art of taking chances.
Forget the labels on things, pull together ideas that you might otherwise assume would be an impossible match. The results can sometimes be really surprising.
Case in point: could you ever imagine Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis jamming on the same stage?
Neither could I, until I saw this.