I was invited to give a Webinar for an IBM group interested in Information Overload and how to solve it. I shared with the group my take on the evolution of solutions to this problem from the mid-90s to the present – and the likely future. Here is the video, shared with permission.
An unusual lecture subject Yesterday I gave a somewhat unusual invited lecture at the Innovation as Culture conference in Tel Aviv. The lecture was about Information Overload, something I speak about often, but in this case I was asked to consider it from an Innovation point of view. After some thought I realized there were a number of points of congruence between these two subjects: after all, innovation requires thinking, and information overload is a major barrier to deep, focused thought. On the other hand, many solutions to information overload are extremely innovative. That’s two areas to explore already –.. Read more
An under-appreciated skill There is an art, or a skill, called Oratory, or Public Speaking, and in my current career it’s part of the required tool set: without the ability to speak well in a public setting I couldn’t make a living delivering interesting lectures, something I take great pleasure in doing. However, the art of eloquent speaking goes far beyond formal lecture delivery: it is what people do all the time in a business setting, whenever they present a PowerPoint presentation or just speak to assembled colleagues or managers in order to impart information and influence a decision. And.. Read more
Startup innovation knows no bounds Living here in Startup Nation, and having worked with and been around startups for much of my life, you’d think I’d grow used to these little powerhouses of innovation. And yet they always manage to surprise me, with an endless stream of innovative ideas and applications. Perhaps my favorite kind of startup is one that takes existing technology and applies it to make something completely different. Recently I went to the Innovation Day fair of StarTau, Tel Aviv University’s entrepreneurship center, where they teach students to become Entrepreneurs (and Intrapreneurs – I actually lecture there.. Read more
Lecturing has been one of my passions ever since I first entered the workforce 35 years ago. Wherever I was employed I’d volunteer to deliver lectures every chance I had: to fellow employees, to new hires, to visitors, to students, at conferences – and now that I’m self-employed I also do it for a living (though I still can’t resist volunteering to lecture for free if it’s in a good cause). I’ve delivered hundreds of talks on VLSI technology, Technical Leadership, Internet adoption, Information Overload, Social Media, the History of Computing, Innovation, Quality Assurance, Science… and it turns out that.. Read more
In a previous post I promised you to write about how to craft great PowerPoint presentations. I was planning to give you a list of “do this, do that” tips, but I found myself thinking about some underlying factors that make a slide presentation effective (or not). This turned out much more interesting than just a list of tips, so I’ll share my conclusions with you as food for thought. The conclusions pretty much agree with the way I write presentations for my lectures; I will give you some pointers at the end. Do you really need a “Great PowerPoint.. Read more
Microsoft’s PowerPoint can be a blessing or a curse. Either way, it is an inseparable part of our business environment (though you do occasionally run into a presenter with the skill and self-assurance to avoid PowerPoint presentations altogether). The trick is to make your PowerPoint presentations into effective tools that you wield to achieve your goals, rather than the converse. I’ve been using PowerPoint for almost two decades, and have seen it used endlessly by others. I still use it today in my public speaking role, where it’s imperative that it do good. And it never ceases to amaze me.. Read more
A serendipitous request Much of the cooler stuff that I do happens serendipitously, when someone hears of me and comes with a request for something different. In this case it was a friend of a friend who runs workshops for corporate employees approaching retirement. She wanted a lecture about the Internet, to be given to retirees of a Lo-Tech company. At first this seemed a problem: I consult about social media adoption by Gen Y in the enterprise, but that’s the very opposite of Lo-Tech Baby Boomers in their mid-sixties! But as I thought about it I realized that a.. Read more
Being the curator of the Alan Turing Year exhibition at the Jerusalem Science Museum, I was invited to sit on a panel dedicated to Turing’s legacy at the ICON Science Fiction, Imagination and The Future festival in Tel Aviv. My talk there was well received, and touches on some interesting truths, so I decided to share its content here. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have! Incidentally, Alan Turing’s life and work will be the basis of a new lecture I will be adding to my public speaking offerings. The subject is a fascinating one on so.. Read more
