Living in More Than One World

As I noted in my previous post, I am writing a short series of progress reports/impressions of the first-time author experience for Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life. You can only be a first-time author with a new book once in your life, and I want to make the most of it. Besides my first bookstore event last week at Reiter’s Books in Washington, I have made presentations in a variety of settings. I’ve already spoken three times for the Wharton Club of DC; twice in DC (including once for its Nonprofit Roundtable) and once at the City Club in suburban Virginia. I screened my 21 minute Drucker interview DVD at all these events, and will also be screening it on October 15, when I will do a presentation for the Wharton Club of Philadelphia. Speaking to these audiences is especially meaningful for me, as Drucker had a longstanding history with the Wharton School. I’ve also spoken at two Rotary International meetings in suburban Maryland, and have another scheduled for Washington. I haven’t screened the video at these talks. As with the Wharton events so far, Rotary has been a great audience with insightful questions. Reflecting my own different worlds, I also had a well-attended, exhilarating event in early September for DC/SLA, the local chapter of the Special Libraries Association. This had the highest percentage of friends/professional colleagues/former students in the audience. The video was well received, even by people who had seen it before! Libraries are also a crucial part of my event strategy. I had an enjoyable presentation last week at Arlington County, Va., Public Library. This held special significance as I began working on the book when I was living in Arlington, seven years ago. Next week will be the first of two dates for different locations of DC Public Library. More details are on the About page of my website. I’ll post again after I return from my publisher’s author retreat in California next week.

I haven’t posted for a few weeks, so I would like to add to my blog at least once or twice before I leave later this week for an authors’ retreat in California, sponsored by my publisher, Berrett-Koehler. It’s been a little over two months since my book, Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life, was published. This post will be the first in a short series of progress reports/impressions of the first-time author experience. I’m focusing mainly on the author events, which have been some of the most crucial activities since publication date. I wrote earlier about the first event (even before the official publication date), the July 11 book signing at the American Library Association annual conference in Chicago. I’ve done a mixture of events since then, all of which have been enjoyable and gave me the opportunity to meet and work with a number of interesting new people. Each event requires considerable detail-work ahead of time. The people I’ve worked with have been very good about making sure things work as smoothly as possible. Depending on the setup, I have done a presentation based on the principles in the book, with a brief account of how I came to write it. At some places, I have screened my 21 minute DVD interview with Drucker, which always gets a positive reaction. The audiences have varied in size, but all have had interesting and thought-provoking questions during the Q&A segment. Most of the events have been and will be held in the Washington, D.C. area, where I live, but some will be held in other cities. On October 1, I did my first bookstore presentation, at Reiter’s Books, in downtown Washington. It was an exhilarating experience, with an audience mixture of friends, former students and people I had not met before. We did not screen the video. In the next post, I’ll go into more detail about where I have done the presentations so far, and where I’ll be going in the near future.

Garr Reynolds, on his consistently useful Presentation Zen blog, has a handy and helpful recent post, 10 Tips on how to think like a designer. The ideas and insights he presents have applicability to a wide audience, which was his intention. Whether you are designing a presentation or anything else that people will have to look at and understand, you’re likely to discover things that will help you consider your project in new ways. One of the most provocative tips is the first: embrace constraints. The inclination for most of us is to complain about what we weren’t given to do something, rather than to focus on how to make the best of the situation. Reynolds suggests cold realism instead: “Your problem is what it is. How can you solve it given the resources and time that you have?” Reaching into Zen – Reynolds is based in Japan – tip #3 is to adopt the beginner’s mind. That way you are open and receptive to fresh new ideas and concepts because you are not jaded and shackled by your own experience. In a related manner, he suggests we sharpen our awareness and curiosity of the wonders all around us, all the time. “Good designers are skilled at noticing and observing,” he writes. “They are able to see both the big picture and the details of the world around them.” A running theme through some of the tips is to remember that what you are designing is about the audience — however that is defined — not you. Try to be empathetic and see things from their point of view. I enjoyed Reynolds’ 2008 book presentationzen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery. His next book, presentation zen Design: Basic design principles & techniques for the non-designer, will be published in November.

A nice place to be this week, starting two days ago and running through July 5, is the Aspen Ideas Festival. A large and diverse group of big thinkers from academia, business, law, science, government, nonprofits, the arts, architecture, media and more have converged in Colorado for what looks to be a highly stimulating event. Since most of us can’t be there, the next best thing is following it online at the festival’s website and on the blogs from Atlantic Online. The Atlantic is a co-sponsor of the event, along with the Aspen Institute. Just a handful of the more recognized names from the 200 speakers and moderators: Madeleine Albright, James A. Baker III, Stephen Breyer, David Brooks, Marian Wright Edelman, Thomas L. Friedman, Howard Gardner, Frank Gehry, Alan Greenspan, Sandra Day O’Connor, Tim O’Reilly, Susan Rice, Charlie Rose and Eric Schmidt. You can see the entire list of the speakers and moderators, with photos and thumbnail descriptions, on the festival site. The Aspen Daily News has an interesting piece reflecting on the first day of the festival, and looking to possible highlights from the upcoming speakers. You can view videos from the festival on the Audio Video Library portion of the festival site. One of the several that are available now is Google Looks at the Economy: In Conversation With Eric Schmidt, in which Google’s Chairman of the Board and CEO is interviewed by Kai Ryssdal, host of “Marketplace,” on American Public Media. We are fortunate to live in an age where we can have a virtual experience of these major events (including music and literary festivals, and to some extent, professional conferences) that we can’t attend in person.

Making effective presentations that really engage audiences and classrooms is an ongoing challenge. As people have more access to great presentations both in person and online, the bar keeps getting set higher. Garr Reynolds has an excellent post on his Presentation Zen blog, Making presentations in the TED style, about learning from the best presentations at the famed TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference. It includes tips and links to video presentations from the likes of Al Gore, Seth Godin, Isabel Allende and others. Reynolds notes that TED has strict rules of eighteen minute time limits, with some presentations limited to three or six minute slots. You can also find many other videos of presentations at TED on their site, as well as more information about their worldwide conferences. I also enjoyed Reynolds’ 2008 book presentationzen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery, which has a foreword by Guy Kawasaki.