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 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:
You’ve done the hard work. Your product or service works beautifully - but something is missing. Potential customers just don’t see the big idea - and it’s keeping them from becoming customers. Your big idea has an explanation problem.
The first step to solving this problem and inviting people to get excited about your idea is learning to explain it better. Lee and Sachi LeFever of Common Craft and the book "The Art of Explanation" have created award-winning explanations for the world's most respected companies and earned over 50 million online video views. They will be your guides in understanding the power of explanation and how to put it to work in accomplishing your goals.
