Wanderlust and Words

A recent posting on Slide:ology, Duarte Design’s blog, provides some helpful, easy-to-implement tips for improving PowerPoint presentations: Lessons from TED: 5 Simple Tweaks My post on Effective PowerPoint Presentations has additional suggestions.

The House on First Street: My New Orleans Story, Julia Reed Julia Reed is in love with New Orleans – the quirky people, the food, the laid-back lifestyle. She eventually marries and buys a house on St. Charles Street, and the book chronicles the trials and tribulations of renovations – which culminate in Hurricane Katrina. The book provides a moving tribute to the people of New Orleans as they seek to re-establish their city and their homes after the hurricane. This is a must-read for anyone who has visited or wants to visit New Orleans. Driv in g over Lemons: An Optimist in Andalucia, Chris Stewart While Julia Reed is spending thousands of dollars having paint shipped from Farrow and Ball and buying Empire corner tubs and showers with three heads from the Waterworks catalogue, Chris Stewart is buying 37 sheep and constructing a bridge to a remote farmhouse in the Alpujarras mountain valley in southern Spain. Stewart relies on locals to teach him how to build a stone house, clean out...

The following 20-minute video (from the O'Reilly Radar website) is an interview with Clay Shirky , who consults, teaches and writes on the social and economic effects of Internet technology. He raises a number of interesting points, two of which particularly caught my attention. First of all, he says that publishers need to rethink the role of daily newspapers. Do people really want or need a daily newspaper when there is constantly-updated information available online? Shirky says it’s important to rethink the questions and not simply to reproduce newspapers in a different format. He cites the example of the man who invented the steamboat. The successful model was not his first attempt – that had been an experiment to use steam to power the oars on a rowboat. Shirky comments that digital technology has lowered the cost of failure. We can experiment more because the start-up costs are less. However, we have to be prepared to pull out fast if our experiments aren’t successful. The ...

Saskatoon’s First Female Police Inspector My sister in law has been promoted and is now the first woman Inspector in the Saskatoon Police Service. I am delighted – for so many reasons. Shelley certainly merits the promotion. She’s brought intelligence, creativity, honesty and hard work to every position she’s held – from bicycle patrol to policy development to coordinating a conference for the International Association of Women Police . But I’m also delighted to see that the Saskatoon Police Service is recognizing and rewarding officers like Shelley. And I’m delighted to know that women are breaking through the glass ceiling. When Shelley entered the police force, there were 10 women officers; now there are 90. That’s a significant increase. Finally, I’m delighted that the media gave this story such a high profile. Because it’s a good news story, and the media has a tendency to focus on the negative rather than the positive. Negative Stereotypes Our society has become so cynical. We ...

Well - one more step forward in marketing myself as a freelance communications specialist! I now have a website outlining my skills and experience. Please visit.

I bought a terrarium for my budgies this week. Not a typical purchase. I was looking for a way to give my birds more room to move without letting them fly all around the apartment. My brother pointed out the flexible terrariums in the pet store – they’re like large mesh tents – and that seemed to fit the bill. The pet store didn’t sell the size I needed, so I went online to try and find a source. The manufacturers of the product I’d seen in the pet store don’t sell online. Another company had a similar product, but they didn’t sell in Canada. By trial and error, I found Pets and Ponds , a Canadian company that does sell online, and their freight charges were very reasonable. I was looking for a very specific product, and I was able to find it by searching online. I will probably never buy from that company again, but it doesn’t matter. They were there when I needed them, and they were prepared to deliver the product to my doorstep. Thanks to the internet, companies can shift their focu...

Once Upon a Time I have been hired by several municipal organizations in the last year to document complex, innovative projects. The projects involved a large number of people from several departments or organizations at the political, managerial and operational levels. I was asked to interview the key stakeholders and to prepare a report that would serve as not only an archival record of their accomplishments but also a how-to guide for other organizations. Taking a journalistic approach, I incorporated quotes and specific anecdotes into the reports. The reports integrate information from a wide range of people and convey not only facts but emotions. Storytelling techniques make the reports far more interesting and provide a much more adequate sense of what was involved in the project and why it matters. Stories Teach and Inspire Why do we enjoy listening to stories? Chip Heath (author of Made to Stick , as quoted in PresentationZen ) says “What we yearn for is to listen to an intelli...

There is an aura and mystique surrounding wine. But it is also big business, contributing to the economy of many countries around the world. People have been growing grapes and making wine for thousands of years. In the past, it was grown on small plots, and different regions specialized in different types of grapes (pinot, gamay, etc.). The vineyard owners had a close connection with their land – the location, the climate and the weather. The drive to produce wine in large quantities for distribution around the world has brought changes. The Battle for Wine and Love In her book, The Battle for Wine and Love or How I Saved the World from Parkerization , Alice Feirin g expresses outrage that so many winemakers are now producing wines that all taste the same. Using chemicals and technology, they are manipulating the wine so that, regardless of its origin – its terroir – the wine is oaky, fruity and high in alcohol (properties much praised by wine critic Robert Parker). Feiring travels i...

As a freelance writer working from home, it’s important for me to be able to communicate effectively by email. A picture is often easier to understand than a verbal explanation so I really appreciate being able to use Jing to capture a screen shot. One of my ongoing assignments is to write Help for an integrated trucking and accounting software package ( Axon Development Corporation ). I take a screen shot when I am writing documentation for a specific screen and need more information about how it works or if I receive an error message when I’m trying to update the software. I can send the image to Axon to show them exactly what I’m talking about. Once you’ve captured the screen shot, Jing provides you with tools to add highlighting or arrows or a textbox. This has been very helpful when preparing screen shots for a presentation . I’ve also used screen shots as illustrations in Axon’s newsletter. You can also use Jing to record a video of your actions. Jing is a handy, effective tool...

I was given two bottles of Kriek Boon lambic beer for Christmas. I had no idea what it was – so I did some research. Lambic beer has been brewed in Belgium for over 500 years. A mix of unmalted wheat and barley malt, it relies on wild fermentation, picking up yeast and bacteria from the air to convert the grains to alcohol. It’s a fruity beer as the hops are added as a preservative rather than to give the beer a bitter taste. Kriek Boon is a fruit lambic. In this case, cherries were steeped in the beer, which then undergoes a secondary fermentation. The secondary fermentation uses up the sugar in the fruit so you’re left with a dry beer with a strong fruit flavour - reminiscent of cider but with an aftertaste of beer. Not all lambic beers are made in the traditional way. Some add fruit syrup rather than steeping actual fruit that undergoes a secondary fermentation. Others are pasteurized or use prepared yeasts. But the Boon beer is made using traditional methods and is extremely tast...

I have just spent a week in Vancouver with family. Walks by the ocean, good food and wine, birds and flowers, and history were highlights of my trip. Ocean Views Vancouver residents take advantage of the parks and walks by the ocean. You can follow the sea wall along English Bay and around Stanley Park – there are always joggers and people walking dogs. Or you can stroll along False Creek, meander through Granville Island and onwards to Jericho Beach. You can also take the ferry across False Creek or catch a Seabus to North Vancouver. Out of the Rain The Bloedel Conservatory is a wonderful place to visit on a grey, rainy day. Over 100 birds of various species fly freely within the dome, and there is a fragrant assortment of tropical plants and flowers. The Conservatory is located in Queen Elizabeth Park , the highest point in Vancouver, and offers panorama views of the downtown core, the harbour and the mountains of North Vancouver. The Vancouver Aquarium is fascinating. There are f...