big picture headlines

The ticket to communicating effectively, with communications consultant, Carmine Gallo (who's not afraid of blowing his own trumpet at every opportunity - but how else do you convince these Stanford Business School grads that they are indeed learning from the best?).

Carmine suggests the following techniques for more powerful and engaging presentations -

• unlocking your passion to persuade
• appealing to the heart not the head
• use the discipline of the 140-character Twitter to get your message across
• decluttering your presentations so the message is clear and singular, like Steve Jobs would
• employing narrative theory to tell the story, like the battle between good and evil

You can learn more about these kinds of techniques, and practice them too, care of Toastmasters International.

Because seeing awesome presenters in action - and unpicking what they're doing well - is one thing, developing the same skills is a whole lot more challenging.

compared to what?

A good friend once told me I undervalued my skills. I'm not sure why, but many of us do it.

If you're charging by the hour here's a good comeback to the 'Gee, that's expensive' response from potential clients.

Or: you get what you pay for.

learning through variety

The latest cognitive studies, as reported in the NY Times, suggest that by altering your physical environment, changing what you're studying rather than slogging away on one subject, and regularly testing, all actually help people learn better.
Trying to recall and forgetting means you need to relearn before you continue.

So the old adage – repetition repetition! – holds its own with the latest from neurological lab data.

Teachers always said, go back over new content within a day and then again within a week to really let it sink in.

The changed environment resulting in better learning and remembering findings are fascinating. Maybe this is why you remember a book you read on holidays, more than the one you read in your bed. And why the classes you had outside, or in a different room are the one's that stick in your head.

So we do need to take breaks, and mix it up.

Variety is the spice of life and the spice of learning too.

creative writing courses

There has been almost as much editorial comment on the proliferation of creative writing courses as there has been the production of these 'dream factories'.

The latest in Overland by Rjurik Davidson.

There's been a converse reduction in the number of literary novels published in Australia in comparison with the number of creative writing PhD's being published.



What does this mean for reading and writing? What does this mean for a shared culture?

I am not anxious about the number of people writing books, nor reduction in books being published. These acts of literacy and literature perhaps balance each other out in a way.

It's the commodification of education that is troubling. It seems the consumer mindset has beset everyone even students of 'creative' writing.

better presentation: don't TELL

The key to a good presentation is pitching it right so before you begin ask questions; really 'show don't tell' and not with clip art; and give the main ideas centre stage – cut the supporting cast of characters, says Dan & Chip Heath in Fast Company.

Spoiler alert (possibly akin to telling you Romeo and Juliet both die) but nonetheless spoiler:
Curiosity must come before content. Imagine if the TV show Lost had begun with an announcement: "They're all dead people, and the island is Purgatory. Over the next four seasons, we'll unpack how they got there. At the end, we'll take questions." We've all had the experience of being in the audience as a presenter clicks to a slide with eight bullet points. As he starts discussing the first one, we read all eight. Now we're bored. He's lost us. But what if there had been eight questions instead? We'd want to stay tuned for the answers.

Johari window

You'll be surprised by what you don't know about yourself. And what people think of you compared to what you think of you.

There's ways to find out the latter, 360-degree feedback is one.

To find out the former, the unknown unknowns, you need to try new things. Latent talent? Only you will be able to discover it.

There's a lovely little graph to chart these called the Johari window. See more info here and here.

behaviour-based interview questions

We've all had them -- and who hasn't hit a wall at some stage...

'tell us a time you...'.

Blank!

I've been in plenty of interviews where fabulous capable people have tanked answering these questions for a lack of preparation.

The behaviour-based question is assuming that your past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour.

These questions also give an indication of your personality, and what you'd be like to work with:
whether you share the glory with others; are able to reflect on your mistakes and see how a situation could have been handled differently; how coherent your thinking is (can you stick to the STAR formula when responding); and how well you deal with follow up questions.

HOW?
1. The respondent doesn't take a deep breath, and think for a moment to come up with the best scenario, before they launch into it. It's OK to say, 'Hmm, good question, let me think about that for a moment.'

2. The scenario is rehearsed and does not really answer the question at all.

3. The respondent starts answering the question and then realises they're not on the right track -- or they THINK they're not on the right track and starts to digress.

4. The answer is very detailed, making it long and tedious to listen to, demonstrating that the respondent does not get to the point or edit out irrelevant information when they're talking.

5. There's a certain amount of fiction in answer and it's glaringly obvious to the interviewers -- the language you use, probably subconsciously, tells a lot about how solid your response is. Using words like 'we' instead of 'I' can mean it wasn't really your project or decision you're talking about. Non committal words like 'maybe' 'kind of' 'perhaps' 'to some degree' also suggest the truth is buried somewhere in your answer. Be confident and precise.

6. If the interviewer asks a follow up question it's not because they're testing you -- you may have omitted some information that would help make the scenario make sense (remember, you know the situation best). Don't get defensive, often this is a space to close any gaps in the information you've just given, or an opportunity to put a positive spin on your response if you haven't already. The interviewer in most cases is trying to help, by leading you to the information they're after.



PREPARE!
You can prepare for these interview questions by looking at the selection criteria for the role you're going for, and then brainstorming some examples working through the STAR objectives.

Here's some useful information on answering behavioural interview questions from the University of Sydney's careers website.

And, good luck!