Presentation Zen

The older I get the more I take to heart the old Mark Twain chestnut: “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” In March of this year I created a post entitled Videos to help you rethink education, learning, & school. That list of videos included a provocative interview with Seth Godin. This month Seth put those same thoughts together in a new short-form presentation which he delivered at TEDxYouth@BFS. I heard Seth say many of the same things before. Yes, I can quibble about a few of his strongly asserted points, but for the most part I think he is spot on. Of course there are great teachers doing good work around the world, and there are even some outstanding schools. But it's also true that the very system of mass schooling needs to be questioned.



Head over to Squidoo.com to download Seth's "Stop Stealing Dreams" 30,000 word manifesto. Definitely worth your time.

The importance of doing
Confucius said "Tell me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Let me do and I understand." My favorite years in public school were spent in the elementary school years. Perhaps because there was a lot more doing throughout the day compared with the rather dull and passive experience of sitting and listening during the Jr. high and high school years. This short presentation below features Gever Tulley talking about the importance of tinkering.



Presentation Generation
Presentations and digital storytelling play a key role in 21st-century education. I share some of my thoughts about presentations today in this TEDxKyoto talk from earlier this Fall.

In cooperation with Ideas on Stage, I'll be holding two day-long presentation seminars in London November 7 & 8. Participants may register for either day or for both days. The first seminar (Nov 7) is similar to the Presentation Zen European Seminars which were held in Paris in previous years. This first first seminar will take participants through the Presentation Zen approach to preparation, design, and delivery. All three areas will be covered in an interactive, upbeat setting, with special emphasis on design and effective visual communication.

The second seminar (Nov 8) focuses on the importance of story and storytelling in presentation, especially short-form presentations which are now popular at conferences and other events such as TED, Ignite, Pecha-Kucha, Webstock, etc. This storytelling seminar includes discussions on the definition of story, why story is a powerful approach to communication and teaching. In the storytelling seminar the emphasis will be story structure and applying practical lessons from screen plays and the art of cinema to live presentations, especially those presentations created and delivered with the help of multimedia. (More information is available on the Ideas on Stage wesbite or click on the image below to register for one or both days.)

A few pics from past seminars
Here are some snaps from past seminars to give you a feel for the atmosphere. The Presentation Zen European Seminars sold out fast in previous years, mostly because we kept the size relatively small to achieve a relaxed atmosphere and better engagement. The Hilton in London gives us more room, yet we still are limiting the spaces to keep the atmosphere intimate and friendly. For London we hope to keep the first day to around 100 participants and the storytelling seminar to 70 participants. So far — just by using Twitter and Facebook — people have signed up from over a dozen countries, including as far away as Japan. The audience that has signed up so far is extremely diverse and includes academics, designers, IT professionals, surgeons and other medical professionals, and business people from myriad fields. (Hopefully the audience will include you as well!)

 
 
 
 
Above: A few snaps from recent Presentation Zen seminars in Paris, Tokyo, and Shanghai. This will be the first PZ seminar series in London (although I have presented several times in London, Oxford, etc.).

Held at the Hilton London Paddington Hotel
The Hilton London Paddington is a classic hotel that is centrally located and has easy access from Heathrow (Paddington Station) and the Eurostar (St Pancras station). Fantastic hotel and a great location.

A couple of testimonials from the Paris seminars in previous years

"It truly was an excellent workshop and an engaging experience. These are best practices for effective communication across a variety of media. It cannot be hammered home enough just how important these concepts are to effective communication, whoever you are and whatever your personal or professional goals. A big thanks to Garr Reynolds for sharing his energy, talent, and knowledge and to the gracious, generous organizers for what I wholeheartedly agree was a first-class event."

    — Sara Freitas-Maltaverne, Director, SFM Traduction, France

"Garr's seminars in Paris were the rare opportunity to see him live in Europe and take an active part in the Presentation Zen movement. His presentation skills are outstanding and his message is simple yet powerful. Meeting other interested and interesting presenters helped me to gain a new perspective on presentations."

      — Boris Baesler, Presentation Coach, Switzerland

More information about the Presentation European Seminars 2012.

東京 Nikkei Seminar 10月4日
日 本の皆さんも、オリンピックの熱気が冷めやらぬロンドンでのトレーニングに参加しませんか？今のところ、日本を含む15の国から参加者が集ってきていま す。ロンドンが無理なら、10月4日に東京で開催される1日集中セミナーにぜひご参加ください。ロンドンでも東京でも（もちろん両方でも！）、皆さんにお 会いできるのを楽しみにしています。

• プレゼンテーションZen 第2版 Now on Sale! 

The first big TEDxKyoto will be held this Sunday, Sept 16 in the beautiful and historic city of Kyoto, Japan. Years of preparation and planning have gone in to this event and the organizers have worked very hard to put on a first class TEDx conference. Most of the presentations will be in Japanese (with interpretation) and there are a great list of speakers from all over Japan and the world. A few presentations will be in English, including mine which is schedule near the end of the day. I'll be speaking for about 15 min on the impact of visuals, video, and story in short-form presentations today. You can follow the event live on ustream. The videos will be on line in HD soon after the event. Below is a teaser for the event in video form. And if you are attending the event live in Kyoto, I look forward to seeing you there.



Update
We all had a great time at the inaugural TEDxKyoto event Sept 16. The audience was great and full of very interesting creatives and leaders from tech, entertainment, design, education, etc. The after party was fantastic—met so many cool people. In a few weeks the videos of each speaker/performer will be up on the TEDxKyoto site and on tedxtalks.ted.com Here are a few pics from the event.


Garr Reynolds on stage at TEDxKyoto, Sept 16, 2012.

 
Left: With Zen Priest Daiko Matsuyama from the Taizon Temple in Kyoto. Meant a lot to have him say how much he appreciated the PZ approach to presentation. Right: With Patrick Newell (co-founder of TEDxTokyo), and Makoto Kyoto (a genuine Geiko or Geisha). Makoto is a jazz singer too — here is her album on Amazon.

Assembling talking points, lists, and tedious outlines is a rather drab exercise that neither challenges your creative abilities or leads to a rewarding experience for you or your audience. But if you are going to do something different, if you are going to craft a talk that engages, illuminates, and even inspires, then the preparation is going to take creativity. This is especially true for the creation of a short-form presentation such as a TED/TEDx talk, or an Ignite or Pecha Kucha presentation, etc. In spite of much our formal schooling's efforts to mold us into compliance seekers rather than curious and intelligent creatives, we are still at our core creative beings. Creativity is in all of us—in fact it's who we are. And yet, regardless of our professions, we can benefit greatly from being even more creative. So how to do that? One way to start is to listen to the legendary John Cleese below and incorporate his tips into your daily work and life where possible. This speech is from 1991 and is as relevant as ever.



Can you learn to be more creative?
In case you don't have 30 minutes to watch this video,  I have summarized Cleese's thoughts here. Early on Cleese refers to the late UC Berkeley psychologist Donald MacKinnon (1903-1987), who Cleese says, reached many of the same conclusions scientifically that he arrived at over the years through experience. But Cleese also prefaces his speech with the idea that any talk about how to be more creative is futile since it's one of those things that just can't be explained. "It is literally inexplicable," Cleese says, albeit a bit tongue in cheek. Cleese says that while it's difficult to say what creativity is, he can at least shed light on what it is not. "Creativity is not a talent, it is a way of operating," Cleese said. "Creativity is not an ability that you either have or do not have. It is...absolutely unrelated to IQ." Dr. Mackinnon also found that, beyond a certain minimal level of intelligence, creativity and intelligence were not necessarily related. What makes some intelligent people more creative than other intelligent people it seems is that the more creative people are able to get themselves into a particular mood, according to Cleese (and Mackinnon's research). A mood or a state "that allowed their natural creativity to function." Mackinnon described this as an ability to play and even to be childlike. In this state people are able to explore and discover, even though there may not be any immediate practical purpose to their play. "Play for its own sake," Cleese stated, is the key.

Open & closed
Cleese says that we can describe the way people function at work in terms of two basic modes: open and closed — and creativity is not possible in the closed mode. The closed mode is the one we are in most of the time at work, running around busy in an "active...slightly anxious mode." The closed mode is not a bad thing, of course, and is often crucial for getting things done — but it is not creative. By contrast, the open mode, says, Cleese, is more relaxed, less purposeful, more contemplative, and more inclined to humor. "Humor," Cleese says, "always accompanies  a wider perspective." The open mode is more playful and curiosity can operate for its own sake since there is less pressure to get to a particular goal quickly. Play, says Cleese, "allows our natural creativity to surface."

Conditions needed to become more creative
Cleese elaborates on five factors that may lead to the open mode and thus at least improve conditions for creativity to flourish. They are Space, Time, Time, Confidence, and Humor. (Not surprisingly, these factors are often lacking in schools due to the regimented, institutional approach to most schooling around the world and the compliance-driven, beauracratic atmosphere that besets many large organizations.)

(1) Space. You can't be playful and creative in your usual environment with its usual pressures, Cleese says, since to cope with all the pressures you need to be in the closed mode. Therefore, you need to create a space which gets you away from the everyday stresses and pressures of your job. It needs to be a kind of fortress of solitude in which you will not be disturbed.

(2) Time. The space you create for yourself must be maintained uninterrupted for a specific amount of time. Cleese suggests 90 minutes as a minimum. It is difficult (impossible?) to get yourself in the open mode by giving yourself space, say, ten minutes here and fifteen minutes there — it doesn't work that way. Without a specific starting and finishing time, it is too easy to drift back into the closed mode of putting out fires and dealing with the everyday stress of reacting to problems.

(3) Time. You have now used space and time to create an oasis of quiet, but it is also key that you not take the easy way out just to get the problem solved. Cleese believes, and Donald MacKinnon reached a similar conclusion, that the more creative people are willing to tolerate the discomfort of not solving the problem quickly in order that they may discover a much better and more original solution. The more creative people, then, put in more pondering time. The aim should be to give yourself the maximum pondering time possible while still being decisive once your solution is reached.

(4) Confidence. To play is to experiment and try new things, and this necessarily leads to making, for a lack of a better term, mistakes. We must remain open to trying anything without fear of it not working out. You cannot be playful if you are frightened of being wrong. "Nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake," Cleese says. You must have the confidence to be free to play. Realizing that there is no such thing as "a mistake" while you are experimenting and pondering in the open mode will help you be more creative.

(5) Humor. Humor gets us from the closed mode to the open mode "faster than anything else," Cleese says. Laughter creates relaxation and humor widens our perspective. The problem is, people confuse serious with solemn. We can be quite serious indeed while still using humor to examine, ponder, and even discuss very import issues. Laughter does not necessarily make what you are working on any less serious. On the other hand, solemnity, says Cleese does nothing more than serve pomposity and egotism of those who are threatened by the freedom and creative thinking that can be generated by humor. "Humor is an essential part of spontaneity, and an essential part of playfulness — an essential part of the creativity that we need to solve problems, no matter how serious they may be."

In the spirt of factor five above, please enjoy this skit called The Argument Clinic from Cleese's early work with Monty Python's Flying Circus in 1972. This is still one of my favorite bits. We used to watch this at our Philosophy Club meetings in my college days at OSU.

Final points
While you are in the open mode, you must keep your mind around your subject, Cleese says. You can daydream, but you need to gently keep bringing your mind back to the problem. "If you just keep your mind resting against the subject in a friendly but persistent way, sooner or later you will get a reward from your unconscious." If you put in the pondering time first, this reward may come as what feels like a sudden insight from nowhere or an epiphany. Cleese says that it can be very rewarding to create a space and time to play with others on a problem as well. However, it is important that your partner or small group members not create an atmosphere that is defensive. In closing Cleese touches on the ideas of random connections and intuition, and the ideas of Edward DeBono and "intermediate impossibles" that lead to more creative thinking. Finally Cleese offers amusing advice on "how to stop your subordinates from being creative."

Recent interview with John Cleese on creativity.
Below Cleese touches on creativity and "slow" and "fast" thinking.



Link
• Presentation: A few minutes with John Cleese on creativity