Theme Thursday #25: 11.19.09

It’s Theme Thursday and that means it’s time to do something fun and creative. For altered book artists, go take a peek at GoMakeSomething, who has a list of elements to add to altered books, each with a how-to link, including one for 350 ideas for altered books, as well as how to do a layout for one.

Colored pencils from metu.edu.tr

Altair Designs provides you with different geometric patterns, a brush, a color selector and a few auto-fill in tools. You can color in designs, save them, email them, and see other people’s work in a gallery. Surprisingly enjoyable; a great way to explore color combinations you’ve been wanting to  work on.

Tired of explaining your project progress  to your peers? Here’s a jargon generator that creates empty, meaningless phrases for you. The advantage is that these phrases sound important. Who wouldn’t want to empower cross-market e-platforms?

Thanks to frequent commenter Pete Harbeson, we have a map quiz with a twist. The maps are shown, complete with colors, demarcations and scales, but there is no explanation. Using only the information shown and your basic knowledge of, try to guess what information the map shows. It’s not about geography, it’s about information.

More on found poetry: Logolalia is a site dedicated to artists’ collaborations. The link points to an artist who is working through a page of a book a day, looking for found poetry. It’s visually and poetically interesting.

And finally, TinyBuddha gives you simple advice for a complex life. In this link, 7 keys to happiness.

Five Most Recent  Theme Thursdays:  * * * Creative Play 11.5.09 * * * Creative Play 10.29.09 * * * Creative Play 10.22.09 * * *  Creative Play 10.15.09 * * * Creative Play 10.8.09 * * * Creative Play 10.1.09* * *  Creative Play 9.24.09 * * * Creative Play 9.17.09* * * Creative Play 9.10.09 * * *

—Quinn McDonald is a life- and certified creativity coach. She teaches people how to write and give presentations. She also wonders what you would like to say that you didn’t?

Theme Thursday #23: 10.29.09

Theme Thursday is about finding your way–through maps. I know I’ve done maps before, but I find them so fascinating–a way to help people see life in a way that helps them make sense in a personal way.

Hand-Drawn Maps is a website that celebrates maps of every kind.  They are curated in sets of 10, from expansive maps of imaginative places, to different takes on Philadelphia. Maps help bring the third dimension down to two in a ways that makes sense of both time, space and life.

Christine Mannix is an artist and cartographer. I found her name on a blog on maps– Cartophilia, –although I’ve been told she’s not the author. In any case, Cartophilia is unusual and interesting and varied and worth a look!

Many people have contributed their own hand-drawn maps to this UK site. It’s fun to click around on thumbnails and see completely different hand-drawn maps of vineyards and Venice and an odd look at the U.S.

John-a-Lookin’ Around journals about different places he sees on his walkabout. There are detailed sketches in his journal entries, creating a day-to-day map.

Urban Sketchers has a world-full of people who draw what they see. Sort of an Atlas of very focused pieces. This one is John Wooley, who is 10,  is on his way to seeing life very closely and very well.

Google has given mind-maps a try, well, in their own way. You can see your searches mapped out by category if you try the Google Wonder Wheel http://bit.ly/2GwPMP.

You can join in on Theme Thursday: post three links to sites you love or blogs you follow. You can do it on your site or in comments here.

Five Most Recent  Theme Thursdays: * * * Creative Play 10.29.09 * * *  Creative Play 10.15.09 * * * Creative Play 10.8.09 * * * Creative Play 10.1.09* * *  Creative Play 9.24.09 * * * Creative Play 9.17.09* * * Creative Play 9.10.09 * * *

How Heavy is That Paper? Pounds v. GSM

If you choose paper for your brochure or  your art print,  you have seen the weight of the paper stock printed in three ways–in pounds (60-lb. or 60#),  grams per square meter (g/m² or gsm), or points (pts).  There seems to be a big difference. There is. Even if you don’t love the metric system, you’ll find the gsm method more reliable.

Ream of paper from ecosalon.com

For years, I could feel a piece of paper and know with great certainty its weight in pounds, if it was cover or text stock, and with some certainty, the manufacturer. Well, not every paper, but I could tell cover and text stock and the manufacturing mill for about 30 different mills. It was my job in those days.  I had more trouble if the weight was card stock, which is given in points. When the gsm method first came up, it seemed to be random–that it didn’t match with the pounds weights from paper to paper. I started losing bar bets. Here’s the difference, in simple words.

Pounds measure weight, no matter what the size. The pound weight of paper is set by the weight (in pounds) of a ream of paper–500 sheets. It doesn’t matter how big the paper is– cover stock is cut from a “standard” size sheet that measures 20″ x 26.” Text stock is cut from a “standard” size sheet  that 25″ x 38″–considerably bigger. But a ream of 500 sheets, regardless of size, is put on a scale and

Strathmore drawing paper: 24 sheets, 80-lb or 130 gsm.

weighed.  That measurement is accurate, but very variable.

Points measure height, no matter what the size. The point size is a bit more reliable.  It measures the height of a ream of paper. A 10-pt card stock means a ream of paper (500 sheets)  measures 10 inches. In this case, the flat size of the sheet doesn’t matter.

To get a feel for the difference: Most business cards are 10-pt or 15-pt stock, the post office’s minimum measurement for a post card is 7-point stock. A point is 0.007″ or one-one-thousandths of an inch.  This is a better measurement for comparison, but it still doesn’t sort out heavy-bulk differences for paper that’s been compressed more.

Gsm measures the weight of a standard size paper.  Gsm is the reliable because it is standard across all papers. It measure the weight of a square meter of paper. That sets the size as the constant, and allows the weight to vary by heaviness of paper stock.  A square meter of  a light stock might be 90 gsm, and a square meter of heavier stock might be 140 gsm. In each case, the size is the same–a square meter.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer, life- and creativity coach who trains people how to communicate clearly.

Theme Thursday #22: 10.22.09

For 22 weeks, Thursdays have been creative play date. Today is no exception. The winter holidays are coming up, and it might be time for you to consider gifts for others. Maybe you need to drop a few hints to others about what you want.

Botanica 2 bag from Greenward

If you are going green for the holidays, take a look at Greenward’s shop. The brick-and-mortar store is in Cambridge, but the website is at the other end of that link.  There are felt wine racks, and well-designed kitchen tools in fresh colors, water bottles, even soaps.  I’m in love with their stationery. Customer service by owner Scott Walker is top notch, and shipping is prompt–I just placed my first order and was amazed at the personal level of service.

Quirkology is now on YouTube with their mix of fun science. The :59-second personality test is clever. The other videos are short, engaging and you’ll learn something useful. Use it as a break from shopping.

If you love your cat enough to want to provide a handmade piece of artwork that is both cat bed and scratching surface, check out Love that Cat. The cat furniture is more reasonably priced. Winter is coming, and if you don’t provide a bed for your cats, they will soon be sucking up your warmth. Here is a custom-designed catwalk that doesn’t involve models, but did require a home remodeling.

I’m a fan of the Duluth Trading Company. It sells impossible-to-wear-out clothing for men who ride in trucks, and the women who thump them on the head if they call them “little lady.” If you love hiking, working, or playing outdoors, check out their gear, like this vest. (Warning: if you are a girly girl, this isn’t your ideal site.)  They also stock clever items at reasonable prices. I’m a fan of the map case (for those of us who carry big loose sheets of raw-art journaling paper) and the LugBuddy, a simply device that straps baggage together. I use it to keep an overnight bag attached to the sissy bar of my motorcycle, or to hold together the equipment when I’m dragging in books and training materials on a hand truck.

You can join in on Theme Thursday: post three links to sites you love or blogs you follow. You can do it on your site or in comments here.

Five Most Recent  Theme Thursdays: * * *  Creative Play 10.15.09 * * * Creative Play 10.8.09 * * * Creative Play 10.1.09* * *  Creative Play 9.24.09 * * * Creative Play 9.17.09* * * Creative Play 9.10.09 * * *  Creative Play 9.3.09 * * *

Theme Thursday #21: 10.15.09

This Theme Thursday is about unlikely or unusual art–art that happens because someone has moved the boundaries of meaning making into an entirely new direction.

Art: Light from a solar lawn light. Photograph, © Quinn McDonald 2009

Diana Adam’s microscopic photography is both beautiful and incredible. Learn about the world you live in while knowing that the world is an art project.

Sam3 started with the idea of a shadow, and then moved the figure of a shadow into urban art.  Sam3 also uses a bottle of water, squirts it and makes art not only from the splash, but as it dries. And then, of course, there’s the animation. . .

Crooked Brains started with a clothespin and went way, way beyond the clothesline for the art.

Oh, and one last one you can join in on, even if you don’t think of yourself as an artist. I’m creating art from other people’s words and art–that they send me on postcards. You get a do-over on something you left unfinished, I get to make interesting books. See the story and details here. Join in, I’d love to hear from you.

You can join in on Theme Thursday: post three links to sites you love or blogs you follow. You can do it on your site or in comments here.

Five Most Recent  Theme Thursdays: * * * Creative Play 10.8.09 * * * Creative Play 10.1.09* * *  Creative Play 9.24.09 * * * Creative Play 9.17.09* * * Creative Play 9.10.09 * * *  Creative Play 9.3.09 * * *

Affirmations: Beyond Stuart Smalley

You remember Stuart Smalley.  A character on SNL, played by Al Franken, Stuart Smalley was “good enough, smart enough and by gosh, people like me.” Stuart Smalley may have made you feel uncomfortable, or you may have laughed at the New Age silliness, but you probably wondered  about affirmations.

Facial expressions by isamaras.wordpress.com

Because they work. Yep, if you do them right, affirmations work. Here are basic ways to get them to work for you:

1. Practice before you need them. I know, I know, practicing is for wimps.  How hard can this be? You don’t jump in the car and head for the freeway before learning how to drive; you don’t start learning how to cook by doing  coq au vain, and practicing makes affirmations seem natural and easy, something you want to reach for before you are panicked.

2. Keep affirmations positive. Your brain can’t distinguish between what you think you experience and what your body experiences. That’s why you scream and kick while dreaming, and wake up in a sweat from something that never happened in real life. What you tell your brain is what your brain reacts to–when you believe it. So when you are hiking in the desert and a snake strikes at your ankle, you might mumble, “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” but your brain will feel quite afraid. Good thing, too. You need to be just scared enough to take effective action.

Notice the affirmation I just mentioned: “There is nothing to be afraid of.” It sounds positive, but it is not. It includes the word “afraid” and is phrased in a negative form, “nothing to be afraid of,” which lets your brain feast on “afraid,” –which is will. Negative affirmations are as powerful as positive–with negative results instead. If you have tried affirmations, this is mostly likely why they didn’t work.

A  good affirmation uses only positives to give the brain positives to work with. “I’m choosing to be calm,” “I am brave,” are both positives. It also helps you focus on something you want. Both help the brain provide thoughts in that direction.

3. Keep “Should” away from affirmations. “Should” is a two-by-four over the head. It heaps disappointment into your heart. Because “should” has come to mean “but you didn’t.” So when we say, “You should eat more fiber,” the second part of the sentence is, “but you don’t,” or “but I’m eating a donut.” “Should” is in the vocabulary of the gremlin–the voice in your head that spouts negative self talk. Stop “should-ing” on yourself.

4. Keep your affirmations short. Complicated directions don’t work when you are lost, and they don’t work when you are shaky, either. “I can do this,” “I’m ready to go,” work really well. “I’m ready to give this speech,” “I am happy to be here,” is acting “as if” and it helps you focus on the one important thing.

5. Keep your affirmation specific. Hate giving speeches? Right before you go on, think to yourself, “I am prepared for this speech.” Of course it helps if you are prepared. Your brain will override a big fat lie. Hate that client who’s calling? “I’m a polite person,” will help you be a polite person.

6. Repeat your affirmation. You probably didn’t clean up your room the first time you were asked, and neither do your kids. Your brain isn’t all that different. Repeating an affirmation several times calms the body as well as the spirit. Repetitions are used in rallies, prayers, and rituals for an excellent reason–they work.

7. Keep working on them. Some affirmations work better than others. If you have read this far, you are hoping they will work for you. They might not have worked in the past, but with practice, they will work for you.

Samples of affirmations you can use to develop your own

• I can get through this
• I am strong
• I will be kind (instead of “I won’t get angry.”)
• I choose what is healthy for my body
• I feel grateful for. . .
• I believe in myself

© Quinn McDonald, 2009 All rights reserved. Quinn McDonald is a freelance writer, trainer,  life- and certified creativity coach. She teaches people how to write and give presentations. She also teaches people who can’t draw how to keep an art journal.

Theme Thursday # 20: 10.8.09

The theme for today is relaxing, making life fun again.

We’ll start with a way to refresh your spirit. There’s how-to article from Good-Life Zen that includes recovering from spiritual overload. There’s a lesson on three-breath meditation, too.

Dog, relaxing on photography.learnhub.com

One way to relax is to cut your chore-time down. Here’s a video clip on how to fold a T-shirt in two seconds. It took me about 30 minutes to get it, but it does work. Your results may vary.And watching the video takes about 30 seconds.

Mental Floss is a magazine for knowledge junkies–interesting stories that will take your mind of your problems effectively. In this issue, there are five quick stories about people who wrote a message, put it in a bottle and threw it in the water. It’s a good read.

Sometimes relaxing means knowing that you aren’t alone. From the people who brought you the LOLCat and LOLrus, Icanhascheezburger, comes Emails from crazy people.

You can join in on Theme Thursday: post three links to sites you love or blogs you follow. You can do it on your site or in comments here.

Five Most Recent  Theme Thursdays: * * * Creative Play 10.1.09* * *  Creative Play 9.24.09 * * * Creative Play 9.17.09* * * Creative Play 9.10.09 * * *  Creative Play 9.3.09 * * * Creative Play 8.27.09 * * *

—Quinn McDonald is a life- and certified creativity coach. She teaches people how to write and give presentations. She also teaches people who can’t draw how to keep an art journal.

PowerPoint to Video, Just Like That

Yesterday, I blogged about improving PowerPoint presentations. One of the comments was by Zhenya Gospodinova who works for SmartSoft.  She told me about a product her company sells, and left a link.

A good idea grows on you.

I spiked the comment. I have too many people who leave random comments with their ads in them, and my post wasn’t about PowerPoint, it was about using PowerPoint.

To her credit, Zhenya was persistent in a good way. No name calling, or accusations, she apologized for advertising her company, and sent me a sample of the software, a PowerPoint to video converter. I’m a bit thick, but I am also curious. I couldn’t open the software, largely because I still write with a fountain pen and do not intuit the answer to questions like “how would you like to open this software?” The question came from my computer and while I said, “quickly, please,” I think it wanted me to choose one software to open another. That is beyond my pay grade.

Frequent poster, and coding language speaker Pete had it open in a flash. He liked it. But I was persistent in my skepticism.

“Why do I need to put my PowerPoint presentation on a video, Pete? So I can jerk around the fast forward button on a video? I don’t see that as an improvement,” I grumbled.

Pete is nothing if not patient. “With this software, you can send a PowerPoint presentation to someone who doesn’t have PowerPoint. You can post a PowerPoint to YouTube as a video, which makes it look professional and makes it easy to use.”

I suddenly remembered that my web host doesn’t support PowerPoint–”So I can create a PowerPoint and post it to my website?” I asked Pete, knowing that I could create slide shows of the traveling journals.

Pete assured me that I could convert a PowerPoint to video and post it to my website.  Then told me his favorite part–you can email a PowerPoint presentation on your cell phone and someone else can see it on their smartphone or other mobile device.

Now, if only I could figure out how to install it, I’d be a happy file user. Any tips, Zhenya? (If you’re still speaking to me, that is.)

NOTE: The program is for Windows only, which is disappointing, as I have a Mac, and not the big iMac, which has Windows as well.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and trainer in writing skills. She is no software genius, but she knows a good thing when she sees it

PowerPoint: Stories, Not Bullets

Not everyone who can make type on a keyboard is a writer. Writing is a skill that’s learned through practice. Writing well isn’t easy and it doesn’t come naturally. So I teach people how to write.  Clearly. Concisely. How to give presentations. How to write the presentations they give, using PowerPoint.

Poor PowerPoint. It’s been so misused, I may have to open a shelter for abused PowerPoint

Seth Godin's book is a starting point for help, but it won't write your presentation for you.

presentations. You know them–the ones with overloaded slides. With charts that need an engineer and an explanation to make sense. With all those bullet points.

You thought bullet points were the cure, right? You thought they were the solution to bad PowerPoint. Nope. They are one of the ways to ruin a PowerPoint presentation

Although I teach a full-day course on writing and designing effective PowerPoint presentations, here are  five quick tips on how to improve your PowerPoint presentations. Today. If you follow these five steps your next PowerPoint will be better than your last.

1.Don’t do what you hate seeing. What do you hate about other people’s PowerPoint presentations? Write down the three worst things people do. Then don’t do any of them. The ones I see most often are: too many bullets, no story development, horrible design.

2. PowerPoint was never designed to be report-writing software. Using it that way will ruin your presentation and give you a lousy report at the same time. PowerPoint was designed to have engineers talk to marketing. It’s a presentation software. Use it for that. What about the report? Well, if you do your presentation right, you will also be able to generate the report, but not in the same step.

3. Start with the story. Don’t start by opening PowerPoint and designing the slide. That’s not the story. If you start creating your presentation by opening PowerPoint, you get caught up in design instead of story. Presentations are always about the story. PowerPoint is a presentation aid. It helps you add visuals and emphasis, helps people remember what you said, influences their thinking, but it cannot be the content-carrier. Providing content is your job. How do you write a good story? Best way to start is to ask yourself: What do I want the people to think/do/believe when I’m done?

4. Stop using bullets. Most bullet points are unrelated topic headings that presenters use to know what to say next. That information belongs in the “Notes” section of PowerPoint. If you’ve never heard of the Notes section, don’t do another presentation until you’ve learned the good side of this powerful software. Most people put information that belongs in Notes on the screen. That’s the fast track to losing your audience.

5. Use images that help tell your story. For example, which makes you more interested in the topic of “Summertime home repairs”–a slide that reads:

Tips for Summertime Home Repairs

• Time home repairs to suit the heat
• Don’t paint wood that gets full sun in a.m.
• Wood will warp when sun dries paint

A picture adds to your words in ways explanations cannot.

Or seeing this photo, while the presenter says, “Home repair is tricky when it gets hot. Wood soaks up paint. The sun dries it, but it also warps it, giving you a white picket fence that needs braces.”

The objection I hear most often is, “Well, where do I get pictures I can afford?” It always makes me smile. It makes me realize that most people write PowerPoint with only half the tools–words, but no photos or planned images.

Often the words are as poorly planned as the images, but words are free, so they are made to substitute for images.

In the day-long class, we look at your past PowerPoints and see what went wrong, learn what a PowerPoint can (and can’t) do for you and for the audience, dig for the purpose of your presentation, learn the basics of telling a story, choosing effective colors for your presentation, how to find and use photos, designing charts and graphs for presentations (because you can’t use the same one you used in the report), and, yes, when to use bullets in your presentation. You’ll learn the five biggest mistakes and how to avoid them, when to use a slide and how to use PowerPoint to make your presentation work for you, rather than be your presentation that you are enslaved to delivering.

--Quinn McDonald is a writing instructor who helps people design and give powerful presentations. See all of her training topics. (c) QuinnCreative, Quinn McDonald, 2009

Theme Thursday #18: 9.24.09

Maps are fascinating. They help us figure out where we are and where we still have to go. They help us figure out what is happening near us and far away. They show us proportions, how high that mountain is, how low the sea.

Boston Ride, map by Bill Tipton, Compartmaps.com

Bill Tipton draws maps. An amazing amount of technical knowledge combines with artistic ability at Compartmaps. Here’s the really amazing thing: Bill told me he does custom maps. He also does photo-realistic technical drawings. But the maps are what intrigue me. That’s one of Bill Tipton’s maps on the left.

While I’m on the map theme: I occasionally get lost on the internet, and turn up someplace with no idea how I got there. Today I came across an orphan piece–a piece written two years ago with such yearning and hope that I became intrigued. Seanie Blue wrote a story of people who had no map of time or their lives. Blue hoped it would become a movie. The story is on his website, as is his hope to sell it. . . and then no updates, although he has posted often since then.

Ready to get back to writing your own novel? Chris Brogan will help you map what makes a story work.

Poems are a kind of emotional map using only words and the images they invoke. For a fresh poem every day, you can check in at Poetry Daily. Give yourself a treat before you start reading emails in the morning.

If you love typography–the way printed letters look on a page, watch this video of artist Richard Darill of Bit Rebels drawing a letter cascade with different typefaces. One of the best thrills on YouTube is watching artists draw. Here’s an artist drawing a picture of Betty Davis–with a mascara wand. Is this possible? Yes, it is. I tried it, and it works. I’m not a portrait artist, I stuck to a willow tree.

You can join in on Theme Thursday: post three links to sites you love or blogs you follow. You can do it on your site or in comments here.

Five Most Recent  Theme Thursdays: * * * Creative Play 9.17.09* * * Creative Play 9.10.09 * * *  Creative Play 9.3.09 * * * Creative Play 8.27.09 * * * Creative Play 8/20/09 * * *  Creative Play 8/15/09 * * *   Creative Play 8/6/09 * * * Creative Play 7/30/09 *** Creative Play 7/23/09 * * *

—Quinn McDonald is a life- and certified creativity coach. She teaches people how to write and give presentations. She also teaches people who can’t draw how to keep an art journal.