Blog Posts About: SXSW

Just a quick note that Common Craft will be attending SXSWEdu in Austin, TX, March 3-6. If you're going and would like to say hi, please contact us or look me up on the Twitter @leelefever. 

Actually, it's not just an idea, it's a whole session about how explanation skills (and technologies) can help educators be more awesome.  

Here's the thing - it's not easy to become a speaker at SXSWedu. To do it, I need your VOTES.  

You see, when the kind SXSWedu folks review all 700 proposals, they consider audience voting for 30% of their decision.  So, this is my shameless attempt to encourage you to vote for my presentation. 

Here's the description of my talk:

As an educator, you explain ideas every day. But have you ever considered what makes an explanation work or how to improve your explanations? What if you could help students and staff relate to and understand complex ideas by explaining them more effectively?

 

Explanation is a skill and in this session, you’ll learn how to package complex ideas into effective explanations that inspire and motivate your students using a few simple principles. You’ll also learn about the emerging, affordable technologies you can use to create, present and share meaningful explanations.

 

Lee LeFever, founder of Common Craft and author of The Art of Explanation will show you how to intrigue and motivate others with remarkable explanations.

Sachi and I are heading down to Austin, Texas for the SXSW Interactive Festival, March 7-12.  After taking a few years off, we're excited to be heading back. I'm going to be doing a short "Future 15" talk on Monday, March 11th at 4pm about the Art of Explanation in Room 616AB. I know a Monday afternoon time is tough, but I would be honored if you could attend. 

Thanks to your votes, I was selected to speak at the SXSW Interactive Festival in 2013.  I'll be speaking as a part of the Future 15s, which are 12 minute talks that focus on forward-looking ideas across a variety of topics. I'll be speaking about The Art (and Power!) of Explanation - an idea I believe has a lot of potential for the future (and now).  The festival is March 8th-12th, 2013, in Austin, Texas. Thanks for helping to make this happen and congrats to all the speakers, a group I am honored to be among.

I'm also excited to be a part of the upcoming Ignite Seattle, an event that has become an Seattle institution and spread to cities around world. My five minute talk is called "The Long Lost Art of Explanation". Ignite Seattle 18 will be on November 8th at 7pm, at Town Hall. Tickets are on sale now for a whopping 5 dollars. Here's the description of my talk:

I’m on a bit of a mission. I want to help the audience (everyone, really) to become more effective explainers. I think it’s a lost art, something we take for granted and never think about. But the potential for improvement is tremendous. My ignite talk will discuss the basics of explanation and how to take a complex idea and explain it with context, connections and stories. My hope is that everyone will leave with ideas for how they can be better explainers.

I did an Ignite Seattle talk in 2009 about my family's business in North Carolina called "Where Goldfish Come From":

I'd love to meet you at these events. Come and say hello. If you know of other events that are looking for speakers, please let me know. 

I have a favor to ask. Each year, the technology world convenes in Austin Texas for the South-by-Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSW).  To speak at the conference is an honor and the organizers look to the public to help them decide who should speak.  This year Sachi and I have submitted a presentation and in order to increase our chances of being accepted, we're begging asking nicely for votes for our presentation. 

Our talk is all about explanation skills and I think you'll agree that if anyone needs them, it's the tech community.  The details of our talk are below:

Sachi and will be heading down to South-by-Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) March 13th-17th and I hope we'll see you there. We'll have plenty of stickers - just ask! 

I'll also be speaking, along with an excellent group of folks from the visual thinking world, at a panel discussion called "Shift Happens - Moving From Word to Pictures." The panel is on Monday (3/16) at 5pm 10am.

Other panelists include:

• Sunni Brown Owner, BrightSpot Info Design
• Tom Crawford CEO, VizThink
• Dave Gray Chairman, XPLANE
• Dan Roam   Pres, Digital Roam Inc

It's going to be an awesome discussion. I hope we'll see you there!