Communication | Presentation

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 11:55:23 -0600

From Michael Hyatt’s blog, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing

Gift Suggestion
Amount

Admittedly, I am a big fan of Steve Jobs. Without question, he is my favorite business presenter. He is passionate, articulate, and polished. In The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, author Carmine Gallo talks about “How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience” (the book’s subtitle). She deconstructs the ingredients that make Steve great and shows you how to use them in your own presentations.
$14.93

Made to Stick is my favorite general communications book. The authors, Chip and Dan Heath talk about why some ideas and survive and some die. Drawing extensively on their study of memory, emotion, and motivation, they analyze the concept of “stickiness.” Using the mnemonic, SUCCES (sic), the authors outline six key principles—Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Concreteness, Credibility, Emotions and Stories—for making your ideas more sticky.
$17.16

Beyond Bullet Points is the first book that really got me to thinking about the limitations of bulleted slides. You know the type, where the presenter simply reads his slides to you one after another until you fall into a hypnotic trance. Cliff Atkinson, the author, teaches you the fine art of classical story-telling and you can apply it to almost any presentation.
$19.79

In terms of actually preparing your slide deck, slide:ology is the best book available. Nancy’s agency creates some of the most beautiful slideshows you have ever seen, including the slides for Al Gore’s now-famous speech, “An Inconvenient Truth.” I have personally worked with her agency and can vouch for her design savvy. The book is down-to-earth and practical with dozens and dozens of real world examples.
$23.09

Presentation Zen is a great companion to slide:ology This book extols the virtue of simplicity, instilling in me the conviction that every slide should make a singular point—and only one point. His book is a wonderful departure from the brain-numbing types of slideshow presentations we take for granted in corporate America. If you want to stand out from the crowd, this is a good place to begin.
$23.09

I have tried half a dozen different slideshow remotes. I’ve used the native one that comes with Apple laptops, along with the iPhone version. However, I keep coming back to the Keyspan Easy Presenter remote. The main thing I like about it is that it is simple and really small. It fits in the palm of my hand, so the audience can’t even really see it. It makes advancing slides look like magic.
$37.96

Yes, you can create beautiful 3D books, software boxes, and brochures with Photoshop—if you are a professional designer. But for the rest of us BookShot 3D is the easy alternative. As the CEO of a publishing company and a big believer in the value of reading, I refer to a lot of books in my presentations. This program makes it simple to create stunning book 3D covers, boxes, and more.
$60.00

I am an outliner by nature. I literally think in outlines. I always start preparing a speech by starting with an extensive outline. OmniOutliner Professional is the best outlining tool I have found. It is intuitive and easy to use. It also has enormous flexibility. It simply works the way my mind works, making it easy to get the thoughts out of my head and into a form I can organize and begin to package.
$66.99

I used to use PowerPoint for my slide presentations. Once I saw Apple Keynote (part of the iWork suite), I chunked PowerPoint for good. In my opinion, Keynote offers a professional edge that is unparalleled. It is easier to use, deals with type beautifully, and offers jaw-dropping transitions and effects. If you want to present like Steve Jobs, you can start by using the software he uses.
$72.99

I try to record all my speeches. This was always a hassle until I discovered the Zoom H2 Digital Recorder. It is super easy to use and the audio quality is superb. When I am done recording, I connect the device to my laptop via a USB cable and copy the mp3 files to my hard drive. They are then immediately available for editing or uploading to my server. It runs on either batteries or a power cord.
$141.29

The Professional Communicators Summit is a one-of-a-kind educational opportunity for speakers. It doesn’t focus on how to make better speeches. Instead it focuses on how to actually make money speaking. I attended last year and was blown away. The conference is hosted by veteran speaker, comedian, and author Ken Davis. This is the best investment an aspiring speaker can make in his or her career, which is why I list it first. It’s not cheap, but it’s worth every penny.
$997.00

I used to be a die-hard Windows user. Then I saw a friend of mine make a presentation using a Mac and was blown away. At first, I bought a Mac with the intention of only using it for presentations. But it eventually stole my heart, and I have never looked back. In my humble opinion, nothing tops a Mac when it comes to producing compelling slideshows. I use the 15″ MacBook Pro .
$1,629.00

“Raising Truly Great Kids”

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 22:40:37 -0500

www.engagememphis.org

Dear Memphis Leader!

If you are a leader in our city, an influencer of others, you are someone we want to be involved with Tim Kimmel, the “Raising Kids for True Greatness” event and a push to raise the quality of parenting in our city.

We truly believe that a clear vision for strategic parenting and a clear education on best practices when it comes to strategic parenting are crucial for us seeing the bar raised with it comes to parental investment into the lives of the children in our city.

Will you please consider joining our efforts by getting the word out with us and supporting with your energy, influence and participation the “Raising Kids for True Greatness” previews and actual event?

As the email attached to this letter details, there will be two identical previews in late August. One is a lunch on Friday, August 28th and the other a dessert and coffee on Saturday, August 29th. We want as many folks as possible to attend one of those two events to share with them what the October event is all about and equip them with all they need to recruit others.

The actual “Raising Kids for True Greatness” event is Friday night, October 30th and Saturday morning, October 31st. It’s six hours of the best parental training offered anywhere. Tim Kimmel will be here for both the previews and the actual event.

Please go to and send those you influence to www.engagememphis.org to RSVP for the preview. You can also sign up for the actual event. We will make a push after the previews for event attendance.

Also, please leverage your influence, voice and persuasiveness to get as many people as possible to the previews so they can know what is happening and what is coming and why this is so strategic for our city, our families and our children.

Thanks so much for considering joining efforts with us in this city wide initiative of the faith community to envision and equip parents to parent well for God’s glory, fame and honor!

Forward this info along to other leaders in our city...
Let’s go get em,

John Bryson

P.S. Engage Memphis initiates strategic initiatives to bless our city for God’s fame, name and glory. We exist to seek the shalom and welfare of the City of Memphis.

Fellowship Downtown

Thu, 6 Aug 2009 14:39:36 -0500

Fellowship Memphis follows trend of churches that add multiple locations

By Cathryn Stout, Memphis Commercial Appeal
Thursday, August 6, 2009

An established East Memphis church will soon begin services at a prominent building Downtown.

"Bass Pro (Shops) is just a front," said pastor John Carroll, joking about the lengthy negotiations to bring the outdoors store to The Pyramid.

Ricky Jenkins (left) and John Carroll will lead Fellowship Downtown, an outgrowth of the Fellowship Memphis church that meets at Crichton College. Starting Sunday, Fellowship Downtown will meet at Downtown Elementary School at 10 N. Fourth.

Members of Fellowship Memphis recently held a prayer gathering for the city. Instead of expanding their East Memphis site or moving to the suburbs, the congregation is adding a Downtown location.

Members of Fellowship Memphis recently held a prayer gathering for the city. Instead of expanding their East Memphis site or moving to the suburbs, the congregation is adding a Downtown location.

But no, Fellowship Memphis is not headed for the pointy structure. It's not yet big enough to fill the 20,000-seat arena. But the midsize church is drawing overflow crowds at its worship services at 255 N. Highland. The church, which meets inside Crichton College, began hunting for additional space this spring. That quest led to another school campus.

Starting Sunday, the church will hold services at 9 and 11 a.m. at the college and a second 11 a.m. service at Downtown Elementary School under the name Fellowship Downtown.

"Instead of going to more services at one location or instead of building a new church in a suburban or urban location, we decided to do something that's only about 10 years old in the church community, and that's go multisite," said Carroll.

The church is paying to rent the school's 800-seat "cafe-gym-itorium," but expects to have only 100 to 120 people at the first few services. Its Sunday sessions will not interfere with weekday classes or programs. Additionally, the church installed thousand of dollars worth of new audio-visual equipment in the multipurpose space that the staff and students at Downtown Elementary are able to use during the week for free.

Most Sundays, the "teaching pastor" will preach live at Fellowship Downtown. On other Sundays, churchgoers will watch a recorded broadcast of the 9 a.m. sermon at the Highland campus. Although the sermon will be the same, the Downtown campus will have its own band, children's church and ministries tailored to the area.

The launch of the new church is evidence of Downtown's emerging bedroom communities, said

Leslie Gower, spokeswoman for the Center City Commission. She added that including a children's ministry will also attract Downtown families looking for a new place to worship.

"There are several families living in Downtown particularly over in Mud Island and (the) South Bluffs," she said. "Fifty-one percent of the people living in the Downtown area are over the age of 35 and a lot of those people have kids under the age of 18, so it's the gamut of ages Downtown."

In addition to welcoming congregants of all ages, ministry leaders are hoping that Fellowship's message of "transformation, empowerment and diversity" will bring together churchgoers of all backgrounds. Headed by lead pastor Bryan Loritts, who is black, and teaching pastor John Bryson, who is white, the nondenominational church boasts a vibrant, multicultural membership.

The Fellowship Downtown launch team is headed by Carroll, who is white, and resident pastor Ricky Jenkins, who is black. The two men share a passion for ministry, but their paths to that passion differed.

Jenkins, 32, moved from Oakland, Calif., to Memphis in 2008 to join Fellowship's pastoral training program.

"I'm a fourth-generation minister. And I'm related to dozens and dozens of ministers. My dog preaches," he joked.

Carroll, a few days shy of his 32nd birthday, was raised by divorced parents and spent his childhood shuttling between services at the Church of Christ and Baptist churches. Despite his early exposure, he did not fully embrace Christianity until he was paired with religious dorm mates in college.

"Just seeing people who adored Christ, that's what changed me. Not a sermon," he explained.

Committed to living his faith ever since, he moved from Tyler, Texas, to Memphis to follow the Fellowship Memphis church plant. The church formed in 2003 and Carroll came the next year after landing a new job. He has watched the church swell from 27 members to its current roster of 1,200.

As the church enters its next growth spurt, Carroll -- now a full-time church employee -- hopes to build on Fellowship's tradition of inclusiveness by creating a spiritual hub Downtown that welcomes "everyone from the homeless people to people with million-dollar homes overlooking the river."

"The class barrier is a much bigger wall to climb than the race barrier," he said.

He and other Fellowship staffers have spent the last few months making connections with some Downtown and Midtown neighborhood associations, business owners, homeless shelters and universities.

"We're not whites pursuing blacks or blacks pursuing whites. We're brothers and sisters in Christ pursuing the people of Memphis," added Carroll. "My hope is that Sunday is an aggregate expression of our church in the community."

Raising Kids in a Pornified Culture

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:02:06 -0500

Raising Kids in a Pornified Culture

From Zach Nielson, his response to a current issue:

We live in a pornified culture. So how do we raise sane, healthy children in this cesspool? What do you think?

Aim to give our kids a huge view of God who is gloriously delightful. We can’t simply tell our kids to stop doing certain behaviors, but we must also teach them to delight in what God has made. I have been trying to make a discipline out of pointing out all the good in God’s creation. This week while we have been on vacation it has been a blessing to watch my two older kids spending hours picking the wild raspberries that grow in Grandma and Grandpa’s huge back yard. They need to be reminded that God is so good to give us such amazing created blessings, such as raspberries! If we are not careful we can become functional Gnostics (flesh and matter is bad, only that which is “spiritual” has value) in our communication about ethics with our kids. 1 Tim. 4:4 is a good verse for them to memorize.

2. Teach them the gospel. Our kids are spring loaded to be default legalists. They have to see us model the truth of the gospel through active repentance and forgiveness. They have to know that their acceptance before God is not based on their performance, but on Christ’s performance. They have to know that their standing as a family member is not dependant on their obedience as if they could earn that status, but rather, their standing as a family member implies a certain type of living. For example, when we are discinpling our kids we often say, “Since you are a member of this family and since I love you so much, you will not do….”. This is far different than saying, “If you want me to love you and if you want to keep living in this house, you better stop doing…!” The indicatives of our faith HAVE to preceed the imperatives. If we reverse that order we’ll be in a heap of trouble.

3. Teach them that boundaries bring freedom and obedience is a blessing. One of the greatest means that I have observed in my sanctification is believing that obedience is a blessing. When I was a kid I thought that if I screwed up, God was going to whack me with a big stick. No one ever taught me this (that I can recall) but it’s simply what I gravitated towards. Obedience was not motivated by love, but rather by fear of punishment. This didn’t get me very far.

When my kids are age appropriate I plan to communicate the truth that sexual sin will never prove to bring freedom. They can choose to reap the harmful consequences of disobedience, but will warn them from God’s word and personal experience that they don’t want to go down that path.

4. Talk to them sooner than later about sex. Twenty-five years ago, when I was 8, I remember going next door to our neighbor’s back garage. As any curious kid would do, I liked to snoop around a bit. I soon discovered that he had boxes full of Playboy magazines. Sometimes a friend and I would sneak out there and grab a few of the magazines and go sit in the bushes and look at the naked women. Back then, that was a risky endeavor that filled my stomach with butterflies for fear of getting caught by my parents or the neighbor man, but today all you need is a closed door and an internet connection.

I’m not sure yet how this will go down, but I know I will need to help my kids know what is out there and why it is so destructive. Some would say that this will just serve to stir up their curiosity, but what is the alternative? I would rather have them be warned by me, so that I can give them reasons and means to fight it, than have them just stumble upon it someday on the internet.

5. Begin to train your kids on how to interact with the opposite sex. We have already started to “date” our two older kids. Once a month (on the number of the month of their birthday) we rotate taking them on dates. We feel that it is very important for them, at a very early age, to begin to experience what it looks like to be treated well by a member of the opposite sex. Especially for girls, having no healthy male attention from Dad will often lead them to seek it out in unhealthy ways from younger men who are more than willing to provide it. My boys need to learn that women are not objects to be consumed but that God will someday provide them a helpmate that they will have the opportunity to lay down their lives for through loving service.

6. Guard who your kids spend time with. Since sexual exposure is so much more accessible today than it was 25 years ago, we are much more aware of who are children spend time with. There will come an age (sooner than I want to think about) when we won’t be able to guard them as tightly, but hopefully the above points will have taken root in their lives so they will be able to make wise decisions.

7. Put Your Computer in a Public Place and Turn Off The T.V.
We don’t plan to let our kids spend unsupervised time on the computer and it will be limited. Certainly this will change as they get older, but again, hopefully by then, they will have tasted of the blessing of obedience and have interalized the gospel. Victory over porn is definitly a heart issue, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have structures in place to help us have victory over sin. Since all victory over sin is a heart issue, does that mean I should just place myself in dangerous situations all the time to prove the point? “I want to know that my obedience is motivated by more than just following the right rules, so I am going to dive into unwise situations that could lead to sin, just to see if I am strong enough to withstand it!” That is absurd. We need right hearts so as to not be legalists, but right boundaries can help us experience God’s blessing of obedience.

The T.V. will show your kids functional soft porn all the time. There are so many better things to do with your kids than watch T.V. Read with them, play sports with them, experience creation with them, tell them a story, or just serve them in an activity that they dictate. The key phrase here is “with them”. If they spend more time with the T.V. than they do with you as a parent, you know you are in trouble.

8. Seek to cultivate a relationship with your kids such that they feel as though they can be open with you about anything. As a young Dad, I am not totally sure how to pull this one off, but I know that it will come through modeling this kind of openness with them. I will seek to draw out their hearts and show them that if they are honest with me, Dad will be fair, loving and offer a listening ear to them. I will need to initiate honest discussion with them and take risks of communication with them. If they see me as guarded and reserved why would I expect them to be any different?

Kroc Center

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:28:58 -0500

Excited about this for our city!

www.krocmemphis.org