As I slowly re enter the world of consulting, blogging and twittering, I find myself in a very different head space compared to a few weeks ago. What’s changed? For one, the end of the year brings about the annual ‘reframing’ that we all try for size. Some call it a New Year’s resolution. Last year, my wife and I decided on a New Year’s theme of “do 1 less thing”. Notice that our theme is not a goal or a target like ‘run that marathon’. New Year’s goals are futile and rarely materialise. So what’s my theme for 2009? …

Viv McWaters and I have created a brand new training program on how to make Insanely Great Slideshow Presentations. Insanely Great Slideshows View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. Where did the training program come from? Over the past few years, I have had many discussions with Viv about the Powerpoint presentations that we observe in our facilitation work. Given our role is about group ‘process’, we are in a unique position to analyse the effectiveness of the presentations we see. Why? We do not suffer from the CURSE OF KNOWLEDGE that comes from working inside the ‘content’ of the …

… and because I really am not a fan of Facebook Hat tip to Johnnie Moore for this one. Cheers Geoff

I am a big fan of Sir Ken Robinson’s ideas about creativity and education. Thanks to Garr Reynolds at Presentation Zen, here is another interview with Sir Ken. Part 1 Part 2 Sir Ken has a new book coming out in 2009 called The Element. It’s about how we find that place where we say, “I’m in my element”. For me at the moment, my element is playing with my kids, being in my vege/fruit garden and facilitating – being ‘present’ with a group and assisting them to do their very best thinking. cheers Geoff

Ok, here’s one thing we can all do to live a better life. If we all took Steve Jobs’ advice, our collective capacity to adapt and improvise would see us through any crisis. Hat Tip to Jack Martin Leith for reminding me about this talk. Here’s a clip: Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what …