Cluetrain(1) "Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors."
Markets are not abstractions, and neither are our audiences. They're people worthy of our full attention and respect. If we can remember that it's about them and not about us...we're on the right path.

(2) "Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice."
I don't hate politicians and I don't hate marketers...but I hate the way they talk. "Mission-critical, forward-looking value propositions...." People do not talk that way! Many corporate speakers have a special gift for the "blah-blah-blah." Is anyone listening? Speeches and presentation do not have to be be stuffy and dull, but neither do they need to be hyped-up and shallow — your audience is praying you'll be different.

(3) "Already, companies that speak in the language of the pitch, the dog-and-pony show, are no longer speaking to anyone."
Even if your presentation is directly sales related, you have to believe in your product (not the hype) deep down inside. I'm not talking about drinking the Koolaid kind of belief, I'm talking about believing in your product (your cause, research, etc.) like you believe in yourself. Speak to the audience like you respect them, like you think they are smart, like you think they are interesting. Don't be a TV commercial. Commercials more often than not insult us. And even when they're clever, we don't really care and soon forget because...they're not real.

(4) "Companies need to lighten up and take themselves less seriously. They need to get a sense of humor."
The best presenters take their cause and their audience very seriously...but they do not take themselves too seriously. They are relaxed...they have nothing to hide. At that moment, nothing could be better than sharing time with the audience, and the audience feels that.

(5) "Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived."
Your speaking does not have to be perfect. In fact, perfect speech and too much polish may alienate a crowd. It's not real. Each case is different, but an open, natural, friendly, relax approach — away from the podium — is usually best. People pay more attention to a natural, open voice. And few things are more boring for a crowd than the reading of a long manuscript from a podium.

(6) "By speaking in language that is distant, uninviting, arrogant, they build walls to keep markets at bay."
If you want your talk to fail, simply build a wall between you and your audience. There are many ways to do that: Speak in abstractions, stand in the dark, insult the competition, speak too long, create dreadful visuals, be evasive, and on and on.

(7)"Learning to speak with a human voice is not a parlor trick. It can't be 'picked up' at some tony conference."
You can learn a lot from presentation coaches and communication books, but this is not rocket science. We can be much better by simply looking at the presentation as an opportunity to have a conversation with others about something we care about. All the technique, training, and "PowerPoint" tricks are useless if the talk doesn't come from your gut, from your heart and soul.

(8) "The inflated self-important jargon you sling around — in the press, at your conferences — what's that got to do with us?"
Never try to impress. It didn't work in high school (lord knows I tried) and it won't work with your audiences (or your markets) either. A good presentation is like a good blog: it's transparent, unique, fresh, honest, authentic, and accurate even if not perfect.

(9) "If you want us to talk to you, tell us something. Make it something interesting for a change."
Most sales presentations are designed by committee and sent to people in the field with scripts in the PowerPoint notes view. No wonder the presenter sounds distant and "corporate."

(10) "De-cloaking, getting personal: We are those markets. We want to talk to you."
As the Cluetrain authors say, people "...do not want to talk to flacks and hucksters. They want to participate in the conversations..." The best presentations feel like a conversation.

The whole Web 2.0 is spoon fed to the public in this cover story of the April 3 issue of Newsweek (also my birthday btw). It doesn't get any buzzier.

I always had a problem with brainstorming sessions especially when they were briefed on the spot. How does one expect someone to come up with a creative solution on the spot? When it comes to creative solutions, I do have a bag of tricks but why reuse an idea if there are fresh solutions to be found.

There have been many times when I found myself sitting in a room with a random sampling from a company to come up with a creative solution to a business problem. I never found myself in a meeting to come up with an accounting solution or a client relation’s solution but for some reason everyone is capable of coming up with creative solutions. This atmosphere is on par with "the chain is as strong as the weakest link". You begin to defer to the lowest common denominator, the biggest mouth or someone trying to prove their importance to the company.

I'm in a room where there is a range of qualifications/understanding. The problem is presented and then its go time. In my head, I eliminate every trite, banal and obvious solution and try to come up with a solution that will be set apart from the rest. However, before I can process the problem, around me starts to fly every obvious solution there is. So what happens is we get a long list of obvious solutions. How do you quantify what makes an idea better then another? Well if you have experience and training in the field of design you understand the principles and know that they rely on trends and the audience that the material will end up in front of. Also, you need to keep in mind budget, resources and turnaround time. If the group is a random sampling from a company, they will all have different levels of understanding. However, they will have perfect understanding of the obvious solutions. Is it possible to educate each person on what makes good ideas and bad ideas? Maybe. Is it realistic? No! So inevitably what happens is the idea that is the strongest obvious solution prevails.

This is not to say that I do not brainstorm. I brainstorm best with people on my level of understanding or people who complement my understanding with strengths of their own and we defer to the other in our areas of weakness. Creative problems have hundreds of solutions and the best solution is not always the best idea. It is the idea that will work best within the parameters of the problem. Experience, creativity and training are needed to achieve this solution, not a desire to be creative.

This is a neat little tool to get color schemes for interactive projects in a jiffy. Not real sophisticated but it is a good starting point. Color schemes generator 2 Go check it out.

I will quote a piece of the summary that most striking for me :

The next stage of the internet is "Publishability." MySpace is all the rage, but it only lets you publish the simplest of content types, with no fine-tunability of exactly who you are publishing for. Watch the "Publishability" space for publishing tools that let you publish in different ways to different communities. The new tools will build off the initial model of meeting new people to include sharing more intimately with your existing relationships. These tools will also incorporate automated and templated publishing or community management for small business audiences.

Web 2.0 - See what interacting with this giant interconnected machine is going to mean going forward.

For some time now I have been toying with the idea that there is a market for mini content. Not just video feeds but interactive content or mini-sites that can be carried from their birthplace and posted and shared from any portal where the author chooses to post it. It would even still be served up from the original server so it could be updated, archived and tracked.

As Internet TV Aims at Niche Audiences, the Slivercast Is Born came to my attention and thought I would share... It is just focused on video but I like the idea of Slivercast.

Googleidol Oh lord what is going on out there.

This is just wacky. A love song with a bear going around mauling people. I don't know japanese but it sounds like a love song. I like the style as well.

This is for all the designers out there....

Cutomizable content that can be embeded in a site, blog, myspace etc.. This one is from bunnylabs - there is also a lot of support material on how it works.