Shadow Stabbing #12: PowerPoint

In this instalment of Shadow Stabbing I introduce my approach to the PowerPoint presentation. Part of my inspiration came from Teppo's post at orgtheory.net. Early on in the process, I try to decide on a key image that I want to leave the audience with. I had had some vague ideas in that direction before seeing Russell Davies on YouTube making the same point (the video seems to have been removed). In this case, the key image is the weekly writing schedule; the presentation is designed to impress that image upon the audience.

In fact, listening to people's comments after the presentation suggests that it worked: the idea of dividing the working week into three-hour blocks stuck. Another thing that worked quite well was to use the opening and closing sequences of this instalment of Shadow Stabbing (with modified titles) as the first and last slide. I also experimented, more or less successfully, with musical elements in the presentation (which can be inserted straight from your music library).

Making this video forced me to finally learn how to interlace still pictures (PowerPoint slides in this case) with my running monologue in front of the camera. I'm now starting to have a broad enough repertoire of effects. Though I intend to learn even more over the summer, I'm already feeling confident about next season (less formal experimentation and more actual content). It will start on Friday, August 26, which is also the end of the first of week of Project Palinurus. More about that on Monday.

Don't let the future distract you from the present. There are still two instalments left in the Spring 2008 season. Until next week, then, keep searching ... and keep writing.

Shadow Stabbing #11: Editing

According to my plan, I am supposed to make another five videos before I take a break for the summer. I wanted to make sixteen in all; that is, I had given myself a kind of sixteen week challenge, which I thought would run to the end of May. In order to stick to that deadline, I'm going to lower my ambitions a bit and settle for 14 altogether. That is, I have three more to go.

(Something similar is happening with the writing group I have organized. As we near the end of the semester, we have renegotiated the ultimate deadline for submissions to journals. I am also trying to get the authors to rethink how many papers they will manage to submit. In all cases, it's about whether or not a realistic plan can be made through which to realize their ambitions. The idea is to cut your losses early.)

At least one more of this season's videos will use the same format as this one. And next year I want to make half of the videos like this, i.e., as real-time examples of actual editing. One of the most satisfying (and fun) parts of my current job is running a weekly writing workshops with two groups of PhD students. For an hour and a half, we edit a short sample of text provided by a participant, displaying the Word document on the wall using a beam projector.

I'm sure there's a better of way of recording the screen image, and even the method I settled on here could be executed better. (If you blow the image up to full screen you should be able to read what it says. I wrote a post about it on Wednesday.) I'm also going to decide on a quick and easy way to make the lead-in and the sign-off.

In any case, I hope you enjoy it. Do keep searching.

And keep writing.

Rerun

This week's video is a rerun. It is one of the least watched of all the videos and I am not sure why. It's actually one of my personal favourites.

I've got about four weeks left in this first, somewhat informal, 17-week plan. After the summer, I am going to work on an even more explicit regimen up to Christmas. I know that my work is starting to look suspiciously like motivational speaking or business coaching. Every time I look into that analogy, the similarities just become more striking.

It turns out, for example, that the 16 Week Challenge is already a reality show. Its creator, Andrew Morrison, described it as follows:

I’ve worked with thousands of people from Hawaii to West Africa. The one thing I’ve discovered is that we all have ideas but very few of us are taking the necessary steps to put these ideas into action. This show will inspire others to start manifesting their dreams despite the lack of money, knowledge or connections. Now you can sit back and learn the insider secrets to turning your ideas into cash.

Well, I have worked with dozens of people from Iceland to Denmark. The one thing I've discovered is that we all have ideas but very few of us are taking the necessary steps to put these ideas into writing. This blog hopefully inspires others to start articulating what they know despite the lack of time, inspiration, or recognition. Now you can sit back and learn the insider secrets of turning your ideas into journal articles.

The key here is the phrase "taking the necessary steps"—in fact, the key is the single word "steps". In my experience, the greatest barrier to becoming a successful academic writer is the reluctance to approach the writing process as a series of steps, each of which can be taken without much thought or drive. Planning that process (and its product) does, of course, take some thought. And sticking to the plan takes a certain amount of drive. But, after they have been planned, the individual steps are something you just "do". (There is no "try".)

There will be a new video and more musings about process and usage next week. Until then, keep searching ... and keep writing.

Shadow Stabbing#10: Craft

Yes, spring has come to Copenhagen. In this week's video, you can catch me undwinding in my office after work. I've been able to get a lot of my own writing done this week and I'm quite happy with the results. I should be sending it off to review early next month after some of the people here at the department have had a chance to read it and comment on it (just as the editors of ASQ suggest).

I don't know about the aesthetics of eating pizza and drinking wine during a vlog post. Let me know whether I pull this off with my dignity in tact. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The brief notice in the New Yorker about Richard Sennett's book can be read here. I really do think we should hold a seminar on this book, along with the important "critical" companion, which was published a few years ago, The Corrosion of Character. Sennett is rightly worried about what globalisation is doing to "the skill of doing things well". I have an almost religious respect for such skill—I think it may be the most practical sense we can give to the notion of "soul". In any case, I think we should stop trying to keep up with everything, everywhere, every second of the day, and spend, you know, 10,000 hours becoming good at something. It's just common sense, really.

As a vlogger, I have many influences. See if you can make out how my Shadow Stabbing persona is a "hidden transformation" of Russell Davies and Glenn Gould (needs RealMedia player).