Lee Davies

Last week I was taking a stroll through Facebook when number three son updated his status: ‘what is the Berlin crisis?’  Now, I nearly didn’t see this as it was sandwiched between umpteen Formspring comments, a couple of comments about ‘birds’ (he is fifteen and no ‘ornithologist’) and the regular abusive comments he and his friends seem to enjoy.  Intrigued, I replied:

“most obvious would be the tension between the, then, USSR and America (well the West, but essentially the States) over Berlin, which ultimately led to the partition of the city through the construction of the Berlin wall.”

Turns out he is studying the Cold War as his final year history project before taking his GCSEs in the summer.  What followed was a deep conversation, part in public on his wall involving some of his friends and part through direct messages, about this period of modern history, so real to me as I remember just how much the Cold War and acceleration of the nuclear capacity caused me anxiety when I was his age.  We meandered through Berlin, Cuba and the Prague Spring and, as he had to set the Cold War in the context of current American foreign policy, discussed similarities between post WWII tensions between ‘East and West’ and the increase in tension between fundamental Christian doctrine and Islamic fundamentalism under the Bush administration.  This went on for a good hour and involved lots of searching for good reference points to support the various arguments.
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We all know that when it comes to social media content is king.  We also know that when it comes getting your message out there the mystical 140 characters is the main consideration.  We all want to write killer content that fits into a tweet or a Facebook status update, don’t we?

Well, it is true to a large degree, but the introduction of shortened urls of 10 – 12 characters allow us to link to other content.  We just need to make sure that we throw out a nicely baited hook, a tweet of 120 – 130 characters that captures the mood of the piece and inspires the reader.

This is nothing new.  Great writers and speakers have always had the ability to grab the attention of their audience with a few well chosen words.  I think Winston Churchill is a prime example, with his reputation as a orator built around his ability to communicate with great brevity and wit. (more…)

What is a presentation?  Sounds like such a daft question, doesn’t it.  Let me tell you what it is not.  It is not a PowerPoint slide set.  Yet this is where most people start when confronted with the need to get a new set of messages across to an audience, as if ploughing through a dozen or so PPt slides will get the creative juices flowing.  For me, this is the very essence of death by PowerPoint, not for the audience but for the presenter.  PowerPoint is not and should never be your storyboard; it should only be the medium through which you share elements of your story with the audience.

Storyboard?  Yes, that’s what I said.  A presentation, at least in my eyes, is a story.  A carefully crafted experience where I take an idea or a theme and bring it to life and where the most important medium is me, the storyteller.  Everything else, from what I wear through to how I stand, is my theatre, my presentation.  The challenge is in getting the story right, and you can’t do that through PowerPoint alone.  My storyboard consists of post-it notes and a flat surface and is informed by the brief I have for the presentation – my own brief or from the conference/session organiser. (more…)

A common theme for questions at recent conferences I have spoken at has been the dichotomy between personal and professional identities.  Is it best to keep the two separate or have we reached the point where the blurring of boundaries that takes place so readily within social networks makes this impractical or impossible?  If you read around the subject you will find that opinion is mixed.  For some the frequent need to share information between personal and professional spaces makes the maintenance of two distinct identities difficult or a hindrance.  For others their personal and professional lives are so far apart and so very different that never the two shall meet.

There is, of course, no right answer.  I believe it is also far more complicated than a simple dichotomy.  At best it is a trichotomy but in all probability is multichotomous: determined by the type and nature of the spaces I use and the way I view my professional self.  I’ll try and explain and for the purpose of simplicity I’ll stick to the trichotomous concept of online identity. (more…)

The cover of today’s Metro (25 August 2010) makes for interesting reading.  In the ‘briefs’ section alongside pointless stories about the X Factor and Big Brother are two tantalising glimpses of what lies within the paper.  The first is the fact that the GCSE pass rate has hit an all time high with 69 percent of results at grade C or better.  This is followed by a link to new research indicating that the use of the internet, in particular social networking, is reducing the ability to think or concentrate.  The irony is not lost on me, if only sub-editors had the ability to think. (more…)

I wrote the following piece for the Chartered Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineering.  It appeared on the discussion forum and attracted some considered responses, but plumbers (or certainly those who are members of CIPHE) are not renown for participation in online networks.  I thought I would repeat it here because I suspect a lot of the sentiments will resonate with other professional bodies and membership organisations.  Please feel free to comment here, tweet this post or continue the discussion on Facebook.

“We may see ourselves as unique and special, but CIPHE is not the only professional body representing a vocational occupation.

It is interesting to reflect back on the very reason professional bodies exist.  It certainly isn’t for the ‘benefits’ of membership that seem to be a priority for members now.  Professional bodies exist because professionals feel the need to be united through their shared sense of identity – this identity usually includes a shared set of beliefs or values in the profession itself (‘standards’ in the modern age), a desire for professional esteem or status (post-nominals, or ‘letters after my name’) and the opportunity to influence. (more…)

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Let me get one thing clear right from the start.  This is not about PowerPoint, though I will mention it from time to time.  I use PowerPoint a lot, because it is simple and allows me to achieve the effects I want to enhance my presentations.  But I could equally use a range of digital images in a slideshow or an alternative to PowerPoint such as Prezi, BrinkPad, Adobe Presenter, Preezo, Google Docs or PreZentit.  Yup, there are that many and a whole lot more.  I’m not going to compare and contrast the alternatives here, you can readily do this online and this Mashable article isn’t a bad place to start.

Right – that’s the techie stuff put to bed.  How often have you heard the muttering “oh no, death by PowerPoint” at the start of a presentation, even when the presentation medium isn’t PowerPoint?  It is, however, a criticism of the style of presentation not the choice of medium – when PowerPoint is used as little more than a visible autocue.  Sadly, however, it has become synonymous with the software and will often be chanted before giving the presenter a chance.  I have someone particular in mind at this point, an individual who always mutters this phrase but who couldn’t give a presentation if his life depended on it, PowerPoint or no PowerPoint.

I know I am not a bad presenter; I get enough positive feedback to know that I must be doing something right.  I suspect it is the teacher in me (or the performer).  (more…)

It is often overlooked, but the ‘icon’ can be the most powerful element of organisational participation in social media.  Think about it.  Most organisational logos are designed for the big, bad world of reality.  They leap out from posters, shop fronts, 52” television screens, etc.  But when we create that Facebook profile they are shrunk to a size approximately 5cm square.  Then there is the thumbnail, an image taken from the profile picture that is effectively the organisations online brand in every post or comment made.  Facebook automatically shrinks and crops profile pictures to create the thumbnail 1.25cm square.

Yup, that’s right.  Your online brand identity needs to be clearly defined in an area 1.25cm X 1.25cm (that’s just 50 pixels high and wide).

So the top tip for organisational engagement in social media is design a logo specifically for use with sites such as Facebook, You Tube, Twitter, etc that works when viewed in the micro world of tweets, status updates and comments.

Sticking with Facebook, the optimum profile picture size is 5cm X 5cm (200 pixels high and wide).  Facebook specifications recommend that profile pictures should be 5cm (200px) wide, while height can vary as needed.  What is less documented is how the thumbnail that Facebook uses across the system is generated from this picture.  Facebook automatically crops profile pictures when generating a thumbnail, losing all of the information around the edge.  There are no hard and fast rules for what works well.  I have played around with a number of test images and recommend a border or image free area on corporate profile pictures of 0.375cm (15px).  In other words, when you create a corporate or organisational image for use as a profile picture, make it 170px square centred within a 200px square canvass.  Oh, and don’t forget Facebook rounds the corners of thumbnail images.

For example:

(you can see this in action here)

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I’m afraid I don’t buy into any proposition presenting technology or the use of social media and web 2.0 technologies as new pedagogies, anymore than the introduction of paper and ink.  We should not confuse the way we learn with the medium we choose to channel learning through. I’ll support this by looking to ‘critical pedagogy’.  Ira Shor described critical pedagogy in terms of “habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning”, Paulo Freire employed this approach to learning in challenging domination through thinking critically about their situation.

Now, if anything social media has opened up the opportunities for individuals and communities to challenge society and beliefs; critical pedagogy for the masses.  Has the fundamental pedagogical ideology changed?  I’d argue no.  What has changed is the way individuals and groups optimise technology through pedagogy.  Let us not confuse the how and why people learn with communication tools they employ to make it effective.

The important message is not to sacrifice pedagogy on the altar of technology. (more…)

A couple of weeks ago I spoke at a Solace national conference, Solace being the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers, the representative body for leaders and senior managers working in the public sector.  My focus was the use of social media for citizen engagement or more simply how local government can get the most benefit from the conversations and discussions that take place in online communities and social networks.

I think I took them a little by surprise and for a while they were certainly wondering why this rather odd bloke had been invited to speak at their conference, dashing around the stage using screenshots and images to paint a picture of his life, but they got there in the end.  My message: it doesn’t matter one jot what they think about social media (and my pre-conference survey suggested not a lot), their constituents and the communities they serve will be active and they will be talking about the quality and effectiveness of the services they receive.  Being “not interested in that Facebook rubbish” is fine if you are also not interested in your reputation.

The reality is that, whatever the organisation, its customers will have an active online presence and the washing is being aired in public – good and bad.  This is particularly true of public services and the voluntary sector, where staff expertise and capacity around social media can be limited.  But if everyone employed in an organisation is empowered to be active in social networks and online spaces and there is a clear strategy for escalating the potentially injurious comments they pick up on to senior leaders, there is a veritable army of organisational champions out there watching. (more…)