A Parable on the Beach

An excellent visual-based teaching on the Parable of the Sower, found in Mark 4 and Matthew 13.

Public Speaking Tips

Three lessons learned:

1. Hand gestures are a good way to keep your audience tuned in to you using your natural energy.
2. White noise, birds tweeting, dogs barking, airplanes flying overhead, potted plants in the background, your unraked yard, that unfinished project next to the fence, your lectern that’s not a lectern, and your rose bush that leans to the right can distract your audience from your message.
3. What was the first lesson again? I couldn’t quite pay attention with all that other stuff going on.

Hat tip to Andy Saks.

Life Without Water

Our electricity went out a couple of Fridays ago, and it was a major deal at our house. We were unprepared, could barely find a working flashlight, and had to figure out how we were going to entertain ourselves for the evening. Two miracles: we’ve had a mild summer, so we didn’t really miss the air conditioning, and it was late enough to put the kids to bed.

My wife and I ended up going out to the deck, lighting all the citronella candles we could find, and played cards for three hours until the power came back. Our only modern conveniences: a radio (which was powered by C-cell batteries I had bought by mistake instead of D-cell) and Taco Bell (which I drove over to Plainfield to get).

A long time ago when I was an unsaved and unsuccessful worker bee, I didn’t have enough money for a season to pay all my bills. I got behind on the gas bill, and they came and turned it off. I went through three months of cold showers and no heat in my apartment. I was too embarrassed to have anyone over and too embarrassed to share my experiences with anyone I knew. I just put on my “Everything’s okay, I’ve got it under control” mask and went back out into the world.

Daniel Mosley shares an interesting experience that happened to him lately where he forgot to pay the water bill.

He makes some interesting points. We are so reliant on our modern conveniences that when you don’t have them for a day, you really start to think how dependent we are on basic utilities that we take for granted.

PowerPoint 2010 Slide Show Teaser

Looks like the newest version of PowerPoint will have some Vista-ish transitions and allow for more multimedia support. Very cool demo, but I hope Microsoft is not baiting and switching on this like they did with Vista. They showed us all kinds of cool stuff in the commercials, but failed to tell you that you had to buy the Ultimate Edition to get it.

Hat tip to Ellen Finkelstein.

CBS and Pepsi Bring Video Ads to Printed Page

I had this on my Twitter feed last week, but I found some video of this in action.

Is Social Media a Fad?

Hat tip to Chris Spagnuolo.

Not only is the video an excellent example of what you can create with just text and mostly static graphics, but it also asks a lot of relevant questions about social media and networking. Is it just a fad? Some of it is… for example, I’ve noticed a lot of people that I used to bug me with Mafia Wars requests on Facebook have moved on to bugging me with Farmville requests on Facebook. They’re still using Facebook, but the apps have changed.

On the other hand, I don’t think YouTube, Facebook, and even Twitter will go away. People keep wanting to predict the death of Twitter, but it’s probably the fastest way to get your message out to an audience that deliberately has chosen to hear from you.

A lot of startling and interesting statistics all around…

Syllabi Updated

If you click on the ADM 316 and COM 115 links above, you will now be able to view those course syllabi in PDF format. I will soon have an updated syllabus for MGT 205 in the next week or so.

A Visual Presentation Entirely in Words

Hat tip to Garr Reynolds.

This is an interesting presentation. The only graphics are words, colors, size, and movement. It shows you what you can do with a presentation even if you’re not an artist.

Phony Debt Collector Harassment Raises Concerns of Data Breach

The Better Business Bureau has released an alert on fraudulent debt collecting activity where scammers are calling people, claiming they have defaulted on a payday loan, and threatening them with arrest if they don’t hand over credit card or banking information.

This story might have a local connection, as there was a break-in last year at Central Collection Bureau (CCB) in Indianapolis.

One server taken contained records on approximately 700,000 people, 10 of whom were Vermont residents. Information exposed includes names, contact information, SSN, DOB, dates of service and medical procedure codes.

First, keep in mind that there are federal and state laws which prevent telephone debt collectors from making such threats. They are required to tell you where they got information, and they are also required to stop calling you if you tell them to stop. You can also request a telephone number for an attorney to contact the organization who’s calling you. Most important, no one can threaten you with arrest for amounts to legally as a breach of contract.

Unfortunately, the people probably getting held up over this are people who are probably at high-risk for being arrested anyway… those who might have outstanding warrants, those who are living in the country illegally, and those with prior criminal records.

Watch the Twitter Feed

You might think I’ve been gone for more than a week… well, I have, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not updating things around here while I’m gone.

You might find the following links useful. They are hashtags on my Twitter feed set up by course. I’m hoping to get all the pertinent IWU CAPS courses hashed on here eventually, but for now, these are the ones I teach. Happy reading!

ADM316

BUS105

COM110

COM115

MGT205