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A test for anyone who is about to speak in public is when the technology fails – do they know their stuff?
Themes trend, this week it is ‘curation’ which is why I drove 168 miles to a get–together of e–learning like minds in Bath.
Some contrast to the webinar I sat through the same morning and somewhat counter culture in the era of doing everything remotely. Social media far from killing off socialising, it encourages face–to–face social interaction.
It is one thing to read about curation, even to hear disjointed voices behind a presentation online or share thoughts in messages and quite another to follow a presentation face–to–face, to hear and see the discussion, to relate to the speaker and how they come over. Before, in breaks and afterwards the variety of thoughts, ideas and views is like tipping stuff into the compost bin of my brain – dribs and drabs work for me, even in a small group of people in preference sometimes to the sell–out and packed events hosted by other groups around the country.
A test for anyone who is about to speak is when the technology fails.
If they believe in their subject and know their stuff they are better off without a screen of text, diagrams or examples to play with on the Internet – they do that online. Without any hesitation both speakers presented ‘raw’ – reflecting on how well this works I wonder if a genre of presentations where speakers go without these visual props and prompts should be encouraged. What you are left with, and all you need, is someone who has some ideas, some experiences and suggestions and a passion for what they do.
Writers, thinkers and bloggers are constantly taking common terms, the meanings of which we feel we understand, and giving them fresh, broader or nuanced meanings.
My understanding of curation is embedded in museums – I overheard the curator of the current superhuman exhibition at the Wellcome Foundation Museum being interviewed by Aleks Krotovski on Tuesday. When I took a picture using my iPad I was approached and politely told that the ‘curator’ asked that people did not take pictures – curator as stage manager and executive producer of a collection of themed objects. The term ‘object’ itself embracing stills, artefacts, video clips and activities. You curate stuff in a space and set parameters so that an audience of visitors can get their head around what, in effect, has come the curator’s mind.
In the bizarre ways that these things happen I recall, age six at most, creating a fossil museum with ammonites found in the low rocky cliffs of Beadnell, Northumberland.
I was a curator, I brought together a themed collection of rocks, set them out in a room and invited people in – no doubt in the back of my mind imagining the glass cabinets and displays in the Hancock Museum, Newcastle.
Neil McGregor of the British Museum with his 100 objects is a curator.
And we now have, from the Quite Interesting team the radio show ‘The Museum of the curious’ and its host Jimmy Carr.
‘Curation’ for me already means many things.
I search that externalised part of my own mind, an extensive blog 13 years in the writing, for what I’ve said or StumbleUpon before regarding ‘curation’ and find three entries, one prompted by my intention to attend this session and feeding off a visit to the De le Warr and the other two excerpts from Martin Weller‘s book ‘The Digital Scholar’.
Related articles
- How I hope to get inside your head – while exploring the contents of my own. (mymindbursts.com)
- Newcastle’s role in the riddle of the Rosetta Stone (guardian.co.uk)
- “Hand on lads, I’ve had a great idea!” (mymindbursts.com)
- The British Museum acquires medals awarded to Captain Scott (britishmuseum.org)
David Pelzer on life lessons
David Pelzer. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Life Lessons
Dave Pelzer
This post first appeared in Diaryland on 18/02/2003
I like this book for its simplicity; it is also very short. Five or six ideas are enough to keep in your head at any one time; I’m going to pick through the following, chant them, put them in a prayer, remind myself each day what I want to achieve.
1. Be resilient
2. Learn to fly
3. No one is perfect
4. Let go of your past
a. ‘You cannot move forward until you free yourself from the shackles of your past.’
5. Deal with everyday problems
a. ‘Settle your problems as promptly and as thoroughly as you are able.’
6. Rest your mind.
a. Get a good night’s sleep.
i. I go to bed early.
7. Let go, let rip daily.
a. I go down to the sea.
8. Purge your soul
a. I do so in a diary, often in Diaryland.
9. If you have been subjected to negative surroundings, use them to make you strive for something better.
a. I don’t want to be an absent father, not away all week or for weeks at a time, nor a divorcee.
10. Limit your response to negative settings and, if necessary, make a clean break.
a. I got out of TVL, I got out of Worth Media (or did they push).
11. Overcome your guilt. Make amends and move on.
12. Don’t give yourself away in the vain hope of appeasing others.
13. To help yourself, be yourself.
14. Never go to bed upset.
15. Resolve mattes before they envelop you. Compromise.
16. Hate no one. It is like a cancer.
17. Forgiveness cleanses.
18. When life’s not fair.
a. ‘Before you quit on yourself when life isn’t fair, exhaust all your options for making things happen.’
19. How badly do I want it?
a. Resolve to make things happen to you.
20. What have I accomplished?
a. Ask yourself what can you not accomplish when you truly commit to that one thing?
21. Know what you want and determine to make it happen.
22. What is truly important to me? (us)
23. Attempt the so-called ‘impossible’ until it becomes an everyday part of your life.
24. Don’t give your best away.
a. ‘We allow self-doubt, time, situations or whatever else to erode our dreams. We quit on ourselves. We carry regret, regret turns into frustration, frustration into anger, anger into sorrow. We’ve lost one of life’s most precious gifts: the excitement, the fear, the heart-pounding sensation of taking a step outside our protective womb.’
25. Go the distance.
a. ‘Part of the thrill of success is the journey of the struggle. If it were easy everyone would be doing it.’
26. Be happy.
a. The older we get, the more complacent, hopeless and despondent we become.
27. A consistent, positive attitude makes a world of difference.
28. There may not be a tomorrow to count on, so live the best life that you can today.
29. Start saying positive, rather than negative things about myself (and everyone around me).
30. Focus. If you have no goal or the self-belief that you can accomplish them, you will end up going nowhere.
a. A little bit of adversity can help to realign you, make you humble and make you want it more.
b. Being asked why I turn to write whenever I’m up against it is highlighting my hearts desire I’m not entering a cave.
31. Deflect negativity.
a. Flush it away and replace it with something positive (from a positive environment).
32. I wallow in my own abyss of doom and gloom.
33. Every day see the brighter side of things.
With a six and four year old sick at home I do little else but supervise their activities, ensure that they are warm, safe, fed and entertained. I snatch at J G Ballard’s novel, ‘Super Cannes’ from which I exhumed the following quotes. I’ll chew over them another time, when I feel better and I don’t have a four year old having a tantrum.
‘Relaxing on the coast highway, I changed down to third gear. For the next thirty minutes I drove like Frenchman, overtaking on the inside lanes, straddling the central market lines on the most dangerous bends, tailgating any woman driver doing less than seventy, my headlamps flashing, slipping the clutch at traffic lights as the exhaust roared through the muffler and the engines wound itself to a screaming 7000 rev, swerving across the double yellows and forcing any oncoming drivers to skid their wheels in the refuse-filled verges.’ J G Ballard. It sounds like my brother driving on the A1 up to Beadnell from Gosforth.
Familiar territory.
‘Senior policemen are either philosophers or madmen …’
So I have heard; it gives me a way ahead in my novel.
‘A perverse sexual act can liberate the visionary self in even the dullest soul” writes Ballard.
Related articles
- Time Warp (eastsideacd.wordpress.com)
Super-Cannes J G Ballard
J. G. Ballard, painted portrait DDC_2018 (Photo credit: Abode of Chaos)
With a six and four year old sick at home I do little else but supervise their activities, ensure that they are warm, safe, fed and entertained. I snatch at J G Ballard’s novel, ‘Super Cannes’ from which I exhumed the following quotes. I’ll chew over them another time, when I feel better and I don’t have a four year old having a tantrum.
‘Relaxing on the coast highway, I changed down to third gear. For the next thirty minutes I drove like Frenchman, overtaking on the inside lanes, straddling the central market lines on the most dangerous bends, tailgating any woman driver doing less than seventy, my headlamps flashing, slipping the clutch at traffic lights as the exhaust roared through the muffler and the engines wound itself to a screaming 7000 rev, swerving across the double yellows and forcing any oncoming drivers to skid their wheels in the refuse-filled verges.’ J G Ballard.
It sounds like my brother driving on the A1 up to Beadnell from Gosforth.
Familiar territory.
‘Senior policemen are either philosophers or madmen …’
So I have heard; it gives me a way ahead in my novel.
‘A perverse sexual act can liberate the visionary self in even the dullest soul’‘ writes Ballard.
Mind Bursts 