Mike Simpson » DIY – Do It Yourself

The Power of Online Video and Presentations – Chris Anderson from TED Talks creates a Prezi

Mike — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:09:01 +0000

Prezi is a cloud-based presentation software that opens up a new world between whiteboards and slides. The zoomable canvas makes it fun to explore ideas…

TED is a cutting-edge conference featuring “ideas worth spreading”

It goes without saying that people want to be entertained, and video may be the ultimate entertainment. The use of video in marketing, and education is also becoming more prevalent. In my workshop, a student recently declared that most of her listening exercises were conducted with video. I feel mostly the same way, and maybe that has to do with the fact that we often source our media from the Internet. The Internet, with its steady increase in content and bandwidth is an ideal platform for video.

When I conduct my “CALL workshop” – on Educational Technology – I have found that if I ask for “interesting sites” that I get a few predictable responses. In no means do I mean “predictable” as “dull.” But the two sites that are recurring with some frequency as possible teacher/student tools are TED Talks and Prezi. They are both very worthy of your time.

Presentation has come to mean two things: one a series of text and images, presented using tech like PowerPoint, and two, the actual process and art of giving a talk, with the slideshow of images and information playing a major role. the conventional knock against PowerPoint is that it is dull. In my opinion, it is not the technology at fault, but the skills and imagination of those who create them (to be simple we see too many bullets, too much text).

I happened upon some links I can share that bring it all together, and show the synergy between presentations and online video. First off TED Talks which is an amazing wealth of ideas and eloquent people speaking – and a worthy mention as great resource online. And the second, Prezi, has crept up in frequency and my be on the cusp of great things. It just so happens that I found a “talk” and a “Prezi” by TED head Chris Anderson, and it’s a cool reference from Prezi’s own blog to share with you.

Chris Anderson, not to be confused with Wired editor of the same name, is both the TED head, and one of a number of respected presenters who has shared a presentation using a web-based tool. Slideshare is a well known site, and experts such as Garr Reynolds, author of the amazing book “Presentation Zen,” has posted numerous presentations there (Check Presentation Design 411, which starts to really break the fundamentals down around slide 11). You can view Chris Anderson’s Prezi to see some of the format’s potential to be engaging and truly interactive. Watching his Prezi presentation I was reminded of the power of motion graphics tools like Adobe’s After Effects – it’s truly a visually dynamic format – the “camera” perspective pulls away, rotates and zooms in on featured content areas (which would represent slides in a tradtional Powerpoint format). Chris samples some “baby break-dancing” videos and other eclectic international footage to complement the message he has to share, which is that Internet video is changing the way we communicate in an increasingly globalized world.

If you are keen to create a whole new kind of animated Powerpoint, with highly visual transitions and different kinds of embedded media, you should check out Prezi, and Chris Anderson’s Prezi is indeed a true inspiration (see first link below).

Links:

There’s only one link you need that connects you with both Chris Anderson’s Prezi presentation and one of his TED talks:
http://blog.prezi.com/2010/09/16/watch-ted-head-chris-andersons-prezi/

Prezi – “Create game-changingpresentations online.”
http://prezi.com/

A blog article on the features of Prezi – “Finding an alternative to PPT”

http://www.k-international.com/blog/finding-an-alternative-to-powerpoint/

Presentation guru Garr Reynolds wrote about this same topic here
Garr Reynolds’ blog entry on Chris Anderson’s Ted Talk and Prezi

Alternative Online Presentation Tool – Slideshare -” Offers users the ability to upload and share publicly or privately PowerPoint presentations, Word documents and Adobe PDF Portfolios”
http://www.slideshare.net/

Alternative Online Presentation Tool - Google Docs (also create text docs, spreadsheets and more)
https://docs.google.com

Interview with Ray Larabie – Font Designer

Mike — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 14:01:13 +0000

Early this year I interviewed Ray Larabie, a Canadian font designer (from Ottawa), who lives and works in Nagoya, Japan. Ray studied animation at Sheridan college and worked initially in the video game industry. He runs a successful company called Typodermic. I knew about Ray back in my early days of design (mid 90s) because I had on occasion searched for free fonts on the web. At that time he operated as Larabie fonts (there are still dozen of his freebies out there!). I rediscovered Ray doing some font browsing at MyFonts.com. Ray is an interesting guy and I’m pleased to announce he’s the first subject in my newly launched interview page (which will archive other interviews I’ve done as well, with a variety of artists, musicians, designers and thinkers). Check out the interview!

Do we get the General Idea? Art Exhibit arrives at AGO

Mike — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:38:26 +0000

There is a quite a buzz surrounding the arrival of a large exhibition of work by General Idea at the Art Gallery of Ontario. GI were a Toronto-based art collective, founded in 1969 and comprised of: AA Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal. They were renowned for their irreverance and satirical wit – playful yet antagonistic in their sometimes harsh critiques of beauty, sexuality, the art establishment and the media.

The exhibit occupies most ofthe top two floors in the general collection, which means there is no additional charge. We arrived on a rainy Wednesday evening at 6 o’clock – coincidentally the night that the gallery is free for a couple hours, and made our way straight to floor 5, with the plan to work our way down to 4. We bypassed the classics on floor 1 and headed straight to the elevator. The scale of the work exhibited is impressive. It basically occupies two entire floors (there are only 5 in the general gallery) and features impressively large works (some of which though may fatigue the eyes with their incredible saturated color schemes).

The work itself is interesting but grows a tad tiresome – there are a handful of major works involved, motifs, that are worked again and again. The AIDS logo, if we can call it that, is a fabulous reworking of the classic LOVE sculpture created by Robert Indiana. It appears in various guises, and is an incredible example of the modern art of sampling, recycling and reworking earlier design for a modern purpose. When displayed across a 5 metre by 10 metre wall though, the motif loses something and truthfully is a little disorienting and painful to look at (there is actually a physically uncomfortable component that both me and my companion noticed – was that part of the intent? I’ll guess the answer is no and that the curators are simply milking the themes for all they are worth).

I was very intrigued by “Miss General Idea” – a paraody beauty contest that was a major early work. It is genius – they created this contest, publicized it and playfully attacked the institution of the beauty contest. It’s too bad the displays consist mostly of blown-up images from their pamphlets, or a few simple props (though the props are sometimes outstanding – the venetian blind dress comes to mind!).

There are motifs that entertain and bring true giggles – the Poodles orgy images are omnipresent but beautifully designed (and the babies illustration is wickedly brilliant!). The Poodles are a welcome image that recurs throughout the exhibit and somehow have true staying power never losing steam and are ingrained in my mind.

General Idea is arguably, one of the most important artistic groups to have been generated in Toronto, and , not being an art expert, I won’t judge their significance in that way. I will give them a nod and say that I greatly admire their pioneering DIY spirit, the verve with which they threw themselves into areas like publishing (FILE magazine), and their masterly manipulations of the establishment (“Miss General Idea”) and the art industry. A great sense of humour is readily apparent, though truthfully many pieces have a dark, serious quality. The aesthetic is very punk – which is always good. Even if you don’t “get it” necessarily, you will feel the visceral quality and never ever be bored. That said, I have been lucky enough to visit a few exhibits in the last year, including “Rear View Mirror” at Power Plant, Tim Burton at TIFF, and Marian Bantjes at OCAD, and I can definitely say there is room for improvement in the layout and presentation of the General Idea group’s art.

This exhibit relies too much on the AIDS imagery, tries to blow things up to a scale which doesn’t necessarily serve the message in the medium, and unfortunately lacks proper vehicles for two important elements. The first is a proper history of the group, something to give the average gallery-goer some context, and secondly, a proper venue for the multimedia aspect. Power Plant had small mini rooms that are dark and allowed one to sit and immerse onself in a movie for a few minutes. The AGO has monitors with either shabby speakers or headphones – which is not even close to good enough. Is the multimedia worth displaying? Then put it in a dedicated room!

General Idea were a compelling group of artists with some amazing ideas. This exhibit is probably your best opportunity to engage with those ideas. I just recommend going on Wednesday when it’s rainy and there is no line-up for the AGO’s free-admission night.

“Haute Culture – General Idea” runs from July 30, 2011 to January 1, 2012 at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.

Links:

Toronto Star article – provides an introduction and overview
http://www.thestar.com/article/1032194–general-idea-haute-culture-at-the-ago

Art Gallery of Ontario website

http://www.ago.net/haute-culture-general-idea

TESL ON Conference – Presentation – Create, Manage Websites

Mike — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 14:50:35 +0000

I’m very excited that on October 28th I will be presenting at the TESL Ontario conference in Toronto. This is an opportunity to refine some thinking I’ve been doing about the possibilities available to teachers and other professionals to harness the power of websites and blogs. My presentation is going to be on the topic of “Websites for Content Creation and Management,” and will explore everyday tools like Google Applications and WordPress, an amazing tool for creating websites and blogs.

This is the summary of some of the themes and topics I will touch on at this year’s TESL ON Conference:

The nature of teaching and learning is changing. Teachers are now able to create their own websites with content creation and management tools like WordPress. No technical knowledge is needed. Anyone can create a site and add their own content (including text documents, links, rss feeds, photos and various multimedia including podcasts and third party materials from resources like Flickr and YouTube). During my presentation, participants will be able to explore sample websites and blogs created by other teachers, and see demonstrations of content creation and class management tools (including tools for group interaction which mimic some of the functionality of CMS/LMS systems like Moodle and Blackboard). No background in graphics or websites is necessary, but some familiarity with software like Word and/or comfort with Internet browsers and web surfing is essential. Participants should also be adventurous and keen to expand their technological knowledge and skills.

I’m really hoping to meet some of you at the Conference! Register for my presentation or just drop by before or after my time slot! My presentation code is “TQA” and I present from 4pm -5pm at the Sheraton Centre hotel. Please consult the organizers’ PDF for more information about the 2010 TESL Ontario Conference.

Pedestrian Sundays Rock Toronto’s Kensington Market

Mike — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 21:55:29 +0000

< Photo of Maracatu Nunca Antes, Toronto-based Brazilian music group, by Yvonne Bambrick

Kensington Market is a colorful, lively place chock full of quaint shops and colorful characters. On the last Sunday of every month they hold an innovative, car-free, pedestrian-only street festival.

My pal Grey Coyote is the President of the Kensington Market Action Committee and a loyal supporter of community events like Pedestrian Sundays. I asked him to write about the event and tell us what we might expect for the last two events on September 26th and October 31st.

“With the summer quickly fading away, the hotter days of Pedestrian Sundays is now behind us, but there are still two left to go. On September 26th, the theme will be fall harvest time – and on October 31st, it will be a Halloween theme as we honour our ancestors. As with every street closure, there will be giant games in the middle of the street, buskers and musicians spread out the whole length of the Market, and as far as the eye can see – food – food – FOOD! So far, with absolutely no corporate funding whatsoever, we’ll pulled off most of our 7th season without a hitch. Belly-dancers warmed things up in anticipation of summer on the May 30th opener. The June 27th event was a fire theme, and I almost got heat stroke shaking my percussion along with the Samba Elegua! On July 25th, we had a water theme to try to cool things down, and on August 15th, we all tried to turn off as much power as possible to remember the great blackout of 2003. August 29th saw the Kensington Air show (our way of saying that we don’t need the war planes that come for the other air show at the lake). For each and every one, the streets were packed with a multicultural melange of people enjoying the streets without any vehicular intrusion – something that can be instituted in any community that wants to band together and have a street closure day. – For me, that’s the most important part of it all – knowing that this is our town and our streets and that bowing to the convenience of cars is not something that we have to do every day.”

Grey Coyote
greycoyote.net
paradisebound.ca

THANKS to my contributors: Grey Coyote and Yvonne Bambrick

More info: P.S. Kensington

Free Online Course – DIY Graphic Design and Marketing – July 5- Aug 9

Mike — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 18:52:00 +0000

I’m a teacher and designer offering a free online course for people interested in developing skills in areas like Graphic Design and Marketing. I’m offering the course to people who are not artists, but who have “artistic” or “artsy” tendencies and would like to develop some materials to promote themselves, their business or their organization. Many of my current students are working in various fields, including the arts, education, media, entertainment and law/finance. The most successful students are those with some strong ideas about design projects they’d like to work on in areas like print and web (business cards, logos, blogs etc). If you are interested and can commit 3-4 hours a week toward readings, participating in forums and completing assignments, you are welcome to apply.

June 25th is the deadline to receive formal letters of interest/intent. Please contact me for more detailed information.

You might also check out this post from when I first offered the course (includes link to PDF outline)

Mike Simpson

mike | strongandfree.ca

Build It and They Will Come – Self-Marketing in the “DIY” Digital Age

Mike — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 16:57:50 +0000

Can my site rank higher than Facebook and Yahoo? Yes, in the right circumstances, and with a terrifically crafted post on a specific subject.

The Contact Photography Festival just passed and my blog’s Google rank was higher than EYE weekly magazine and both the Facebook page for the fest and a page in Yahoo Business. The Google result for “Contact Photography Festival” placed me on the third page of results (out of millions) and confirmed to me that my online marketing strategies are paying off.

People do come to my site, read my articles and check out my videos. The question is: “How to convert that into something tangible”? You’ll also note that my blog contains no advertising of any sort, so some might ask the more elementary question “Why blog?”

It’s interesting to mull the answers and talk about what motivates me and how I’m marketing myself on the WWW.

Motivations to Blog

First of all I am an expressive person and I’ve always liked writing. Designing a blog was fun and graphic design is my main focus, but I’m interesting in reaching a wide audience and exposing people to interesting people, places, and events, and engaging people in issues I care about. If you check out my site, you’ll see I have postings on a variety of topics but they fall mainly under these 10 categories: art, design, Toronto, film, books, blogging, WordPress, education, school, workshops etc. I write about what I know and what I’m interested in.

Recently I had an interesting experience while taking an informational interview with a design industry person many years my junior. After I introduced myself and my wide background of work, the designer took a deep breath and offered up this comment: “I think you have to ask yourself, ‘Do you want to express yourself or do you want to communicate?’” Later I had a chance to mull it over. I realized that I was doing both. I understand how communication works in the digital age and I’ve capitalized on it — and I express myself through my art and my blog (and other sites).

Represent Yourself – Online Identity and Branding

“Whether you realize it or not, you have an online “brand,” too. Do you have a Facebook or MySpace account? Do you comment on blogs? Have you tried out Twitter? When you post content, engage others or share information about yourself on the Web, you are creating a unique identity—branding yourself, in a sense.”

- Patti Church / Whyhire.me

In an article in Career Options magazine, which is targeted toward Canadian college students, Ms. Church describes trends in branding and marketing and puts forth the argument that we all need to fine tune our online brands, because if we don’t, others will do it for us. She quotes the amazing statistic that a giant majority of employers will google a job seeker, and often they find publicly accessible web pages, such as Facebook, Google or blogs and forums. Read Patti’s terrific article at: http://careeroptionsmagazine.com/creating-your-online-brand/

In “The Long Tail,” one of the more interesting business books of the last decade, Chris Anderson of Wired Magazine analyzes trends related to business and the rise of the collaborative community-based Internet. There are two things he writes about which I find relevant and interesting. One, products are increasingly being made and distributed by prosumers (yes – it implies a combination of professional /producer and consumer) — regular folks who take it upon themselves to avail themselves of some semi-professional gear and produce hi-quality art, music, books and utilize the digital tools of our age to get their message out. An important chapter takes a look at the “Democratization of the tools of Production.” Anyone today can develop their own product and marketing materials – and online aggregators like Amazon and iTunes allow us to pitch our product to the whole world. Two, a smart person can develop what might be called “traction” or “cachet” – a certain respect and professional prestige which, if it doesn’t directly earn money (and it can if you publish a book for instance), can indirectly boost your career by opening up opportunities to you in your industry. Some speaking engagements might be non-paying but that presentation, like the blog entry, impresses upon your peers that you have a valuable contribution to make. Convert your reputation, in other words, into professionally-related reward.

You are a product, a brand. What are you doing to promote yourself? Are you pro-actively managing your online identity? If you build a website or blog, Google will find it and rush your personal page to the top of the results page. this ensures you present the most professional side of yourself when the world comes calling through digital age channels.

Build it and They Will Come

If you put a modicum of time and energy into a blog you shall reap some reward. If you pay attention to certain practises and principles then it should bring you traffic and reach a lot of people. I have some basic recommendations and they can all easily fit into a summary I could just describe as “Google-ize” yourself. Are your meta tags tweaked? Do you even know what I’m talking about? Here are some tips to help you get going.

Google / Search Engines – Make sure you update your site frequently, use relevant keywords in your headings and page titles, and always be sure to add media to your posts and pages. I am convinced that much of my success has come from exploiting tools like Google Maps, YouTube, social media websites etc – in part to diversify the kinds of content on my site, and also to simply provide links back to my content. Your site probably has the ability to put “meta tags” into the source code – meta tags includes areas like “description” and “keywords” – this helps search engines understand your site and what it’s all about.

Overall there is probably no substitute for good craft – take some time for design and write well. Or hire someone like me to get the job done.

Thanks for reading!

Mike

mike | strongandfree.ca

“iDIY” – Free Online Course in DIY Graphic Design and Marketing – May 24th – June 28th

Mike — Sun, 02 May 2010 18:17:57 +0000

Thank you for your interest – please note that this course took place in summer 2010. Many thanks to all who participated!

_ _ _ _ _

Mike Simpson is offering a free online course. The topic is “Do It Yourself” Graphics and Marketing. iDIY and uCan too! You are invited to participate! (Printable PDF Version).

If you have an entrepreneurial streak or have always wanted to learn a little about graphics, websites/blogs, or multimedia (audio/video) then this course may be the perfect opportunity to “get your feet wet.”

Class Level / Objectives

The course is targeted to beginners and intermediates. The class will last 6 weeks and be done online – where we will have the opportunity to share our discoveries and our work via chat, message boards, and blog postings. How far you go, how much you create is up to you – everyone will be expected to contribute to the process by creating a simple website and posting their work and comments.

At the simple end of the “prior experience” range, beginners or “newbies” will be encouraged to edit photos for an “e-card” or create a graphically-pleasing PowerPoint presentation (too often an oxymoron!). Intermediate students will develop vector illustrations or perhaps a video podcast. Many of the tools are free and the only limit with be your time and imagination!

Class “Time”

All of your work is done, for the most part, asynchronously. This means on Monday we have a virtual class – I upload documents and instructions. Students ask questions. We “meet” virtually for a few hours. However, if you are busy, you can log in and do your work anytime in the following week. When you study is up to you.

Class Difficulty

This class is ideal for beginner and intermediates. You must have fairly strong general computer proficiency and some curiosity about creative work done via computer. Please don’t be intimidated by the idea of having a blog – it is simply a website page where we can share our work and the tools are easy to use (WordPress for example, has an interface that is similar to Microsoft Word).

iDIY course overview:

Week 1 – Introduction to course and materials / create blog (a simple place to post and share your work)

We will go over a) DIY philosophy and practice, b) computer setup / operations and c) software options / blog setup.

Week 2 - Photo-editing and Basic Graphics

We look at design and color theory, essential photo editing techniques, and file formats for print / web (i.e. bitmap vs vector image, jpeg vs png).

Week 3 – Print vs. Web – Getting your message out

Overview of 21st century marketing and the history of self-publishing.

Exploration of marketing options – from brochure / business card to website /blog.

Week 4 – Multimedia – Audio and Video

Do you want to clean up the crackly sound in your family’s home videos? Want to upload a promotional video of your business or community group to YouTube?

The fundamentals of audio and video editing will be reviewed.

Week 5 – Independent Study

Students work on projects and review progress with peers / teacher.

Week 6 – Exhibition of Work and Evaluations of Course

Each student posts their best work to a gallery page. We meet in an online chat / message board to share and critique.

Students submit course evaluation and comments to Mike.

QUESTIONS? Want to “get tech”?

Please contact me to register.

Thanks,

Mike Simpson

mike | strongandfree.ca

_ _ _ _ _

About Mike

Mike Simpson has developed his own websites and marketing materials since 1996 when he founded a street wear company. He made clothing that sold in a dozen stores around Toronto, published small magazines, and developed skills in graphic design and marketing. More recently Mike has worked as an ESL teacher and currently leads teachers in workshops that explore the use of computers and the internet in teaching/learning. Mike is writing a book on DIY graphics and media, business philosophy, history and techniques.

About DIY

“DIY” has been a motivating concept and practice for independent-minded self-starters since the 1970s. Its origins were in music / lifestyle sub-cultures such as American and British punk. These artists, musicians, and publishers founded their own small businesses and established communities that organized their own concerts, books and magazines, and clubs / retail stores (sometimes in the form of “cooperatives”). DIY has since been co-opted by corporations like HomeDepot but the essential ideas and core values of independent spirit and self-reliance have not changed. It’s an exciting time! The 21st century is the age of communication tools like social media and blogs – never before have computers and the internet so easily enabled regular people to get stuff done themselves.

Book Review – Presentation Zen

Mike — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:41:39 +0000

4 famous books on Presentations

I have just finished a book review on Garr Reynold’s inspirational Presentation Zen. I summarize a few of the key ideas in the book and offer some links to online presentations at Slideshare and Ted Talks.

Presentations have fascinated me for the last year, coinciding with my early video experiments, one of the first of which was a video resume based on a PowerPoint presentation I uploaded to LinkedIn. Presentations, when combined with an interesting speaker and interesting topic, are a great learning experience. Too often though, we associate presentations with some dull training or business information session. It shouldn’t have to be this way.

In the world of education, the concept of “digital storytelling” has been a buzz concept for the last few years. More than ever, regular people have access to tools for telling their stories and sharing their ideas digitally. One of the problems with this of course, is the great output of mediocre or uninspiring video and other multimedia. I think a crash course is necessary, to teach a few design basics to anyone thinking about putting together a presentation or video.

In my expansive book review of Presentation Zen you’ll find some design principles I followed when creating presentations and a number of examples I borrowed from Reynold’s book. These days with tools like Photoshop Elements (a light version) being affordable and accessible, there is really no excuse for anyone to churn out a template-based “presentation by numbers” production. Interesting photos can be found at stock photo sites or through creative commons licensing. A world of resources is available to give your presentations some graphical pizazz.

Read the review of Presentation Zen and check out some links to amazing presentations
http://iam.strongandfree.ca/book-reviews/presentation-zen

Two Decades involved in Small Press, Publishing and DIY Media

Mike — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:38:13 +0000

Mike and "Driver 8" magazine - Hot off the Press! Photo by Ian Robertson

I’ve been involved with publishing and DIY enterprise for a long time— almost two decades! A colleague recently scanned some negatives and I thought I’d share a cool photo with you.

This was my first apartment in Toronto, circa 1990, and a group of Ajax friends had convened a weekly artists group that discussed art and politics, and one of the products of our meetings was the idea to create a magazine.

“Driver 8″ was photocopied at Kinko’s and mostly distributed via friends and contributors. It was my first effort at a literary zine, after spending my teenage years doing punk-oriented zines (and interviewing legends like Henry Rollins, Ian Mackaye / Fugazi / All / Dougboys and many more).

Many thanks to main collaborator and photographer Ian Robertson!