Donn King's Corner

Esher Sketch photo credit: Wild Guru Larry

In Flipped classrooms hold implications for communication (part 1), we talked about an experiment I’m conducting this term, and explored the background a bit. In this part, let’s explore some of the advantages of the flip, especially for students.

Inside out

There are certain advantages for students getting “lecture” material outside of class via reading or podcasts (audio or video). I have tried to follow my own guidelines and speak rather than lecture, and I think it works in the way intended. I contend that “out loud” excels at giving the “big picture,” the context into which the details fit, making them more understandable because the audience sees the pattern, whereas print excels at explaining and mastering detail.

A skilled writer can show the big picture, and a skilled speaker can get detail across memorably, but neither are easy. Most of the time, why not simply focus on strengths? Give an audience a handout, a white paper, a book, etc., to master the detail, and use speaking to give the big picture.

Think about when you’ve been on the receiving end. Have you ever had a history teacher flood you with dates and names and wars and wound up simply empty? Have you ever gotten so lost in the details of a book chapter, you couldn’t find your way through? Most academic conferences, and most business reports, would improve fivefold from this simple realization.

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Kelly Clarkson

Last week we talked a little about the impossibility of reporting “Just the Facts.” I wasn’t actively looking for examples this week, but one just jumped up and slapped me in the face.

I followed a Twitter link to Mashable’s story entitled Kelly Clarkson’s Album Sales Down After Ron Paul Twitter Endorsement, intrigued by the headline. I knew they had reported last week that Clarkson’s sales were up following her endorsement of libertarian Ron Paul as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, although even then they focused on the “flap” rather than either the endorsement or the rise in sales. (The “flap” was about some followers who reacted badly to her endorsement. Other stories elsewhere reported a surge of over 400% in a single day, and quoted a number of tweets to her explicitly saying they had bought the album because of her endorsement. None of this was mentioned in either Mashable story.)

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photo credit: goldberg

“Just the facts” is a phrase not only a part of American culture, but part of a values system–as if the facts can be separated from the expression of facts. Here’s the reality: there is no such thing as facts apart from the expression of those facts, and the expression of facts inevitably changes the perception. The mere selection of facts, of which facts to focus on, changes perception.

For instance, Scott Shane notes a very important dichotomy in the way people talk about tax increases on businesses (as if a tax increase on business doesn’t just get passed on to the rest of us anyway–but that’s a different point). In his article Less than a Tenth or More than Four Fifths? he says, “The share of small businesses and the fraction of small business income hit by tax increases are usually very different numbers.” Both are simply facts, and yet the choice of which to focus on in a talk or a paper yield very different impressions.

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photo credit: Sean MacEntee

Do you find yourself getting sucked into either the defaults of PowerPoint (bullet point after bullet point), or unable to resist throwing all the shiny effects into your presentations?

Garr Reynolds is the leading voice in effective presentation design these days–the overall design of the whole presentation, not just the presentation software part, but he is probably best known for his teaching on the effective use of presentation software.

In his article Progress and the intentional selection of less Garr points out that “while technology has evolved in dramatic ways over the last generation, our deep human need for visceral connections, and personal engagement has not changed.” He is certainly not building up to an anti-technology screed, but rather making the case for choosing technology wisely.

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Richard Garber makes the point well that the often-quoted idea is wrong: fear of public speaking is probably not as widespread as we’ve been told. Communication anxiety is still very widespread, as the research cited shows. It’s just not as universal as we’ve heard (and as I’ve often said in class). You can see this between the lines and explicitly in his article, “What’s the difference between a fear and a phobia?“

In How to Conquer Your Sales Fears, Entrepreneur magazine offers tips intended for business owners that also provide solid help for speakers who fear aspects of the Speech to Persuade. It offers techniques for overcoming five common fears in such situations. While not every technique can be used by a speaker, most can, and the principle behind the technique can almost certainly be applied in some fashion.

Cross-posted at http://blogs.pstcc.edu/dking/2011/11/16/advice-for-business-owners-helps-speakers/

As I write this, I’m at the Innovative Professor Conference at Austin Peay State University, getting ready to do a presentation about a method of publishing student work for Flipboard, one of the most popular apps available on the iPad.

I have this theory that “out loud” is best for big picture information–establishing context, talking about meaning, etc.–while detail is best communicated via writing. In keeping with this, in the session I’m mostly trying to show what’s possible and point to resources, while developing the details on the “how to” via a public Google doc. I’m also pointing to this post for people to be able to find these resources:

• My Twitter feed: @donnellking
• The Google doc how-to
• The Prezi from the session

I have an opinion about opinions. Being human, I have an opinion about almost everything.

The old saying, “I’m entitled to my opinions,” misses the mark. It makes as much sense as, “I’m entitled to my thoughts.” Got a brain? You’re going to have thoughts. I can’t remember where I read this to give proper credit, but someone once pointed out that your brain secretes thoughts the way your pancreas secretes insulin. It’s just what it does.

Wisdom comes in not believing everything you think. Examine your thoughts. Recognize that you have thoughts, but you are not your thoughts.

For the sake of discussion, though, let’s leave the original expression in place, and look at corollaries.

Students hear this from me: “You’re entitled to your opinion, but you’re not entitled to have it taken seriously.” Just because you express it doesn’t mean it’s worth anything. Want someone else to take it seriously? Offer the underlying evidence that supports that opinion. The mere fact that you have an opinion will not sway anyone but the weak-minded. The underpinning for that opinion may make a difference to someone who incorporates it into their own mental structure and make it his/her own.

But go beyond that. “You’re entitled to your opinion. Whether it’s wise to hold onto it and cultivate it is a different matter.” In “I Wanted to Like It,” Karen Maezen Miller points out that opinions and their expressions have consequences. I know an opinion is just a thought, not a fact–but it often doesn’t feel that way. Everyone is entitled to his/her opinion, entitled to express it–endlessly, it seems. And because we don’t recognize the difference between thought and reality, we take our own opinion and the expressed opinions of others to heart, where it can set up shop and kill us.

We equate having an opinion with caring. It’s not the same thing.

Furthermore, we tend to be happier when we understand an opinion is a preference, not a need.

Here is something that goes beyond opinion to the level of experience (still not the same as fact): I am happier when I hold my opinions lightly, and there’s seldom a time when I am happier expressing my opinion than just keeping it to myself. Maybe that’s why blog posts have tended to taper off. In any case, an unexpressed opinion held lightly seldom damages anyone or anything; an expressed opinion held strongly often does.

This report by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press might lead to a “well, duh!” response. Nevertheless, it is good to see solid evidence bearing this out. “Citizens who believe their community’s information systems, government, media and such are performing well are more likely to be engaged in their community and are more satisfied with the quality of their community as a whole.”

The report further says that people in such communities are more likely to believe they can make a difference. Again, not rocket science. It occurs to me that there is a segment of the power structure that might benefit from these insights, though. Some in power (in my cynical view, perhaps most?) are interested mainly in power. There is a sizable segment that seeks truly to serve, however, and at least some of them believe they must serve the public by protecting it from knowing too much.

Thus, the power-hungry and the well-meaning elite may join forces to further the nanny state.

The power-hungry will not care, of course. In fact, this may encourage them to close government as much as possible, since the last they want is citizen involvement. The Romans were not the last empire to understand the usefulness of bread and circuses. But for those who really want to serve, the lesson is supported: openness and communication is always better.

…in order to find the good stuff. That’s sort of what Anne Lamott advised in her book Bird by Bird. One of her chapters was titled pretty much that (using a stronger term than crap).

Daniel Pink posits a similar idea in his piece entitled Why you should come up with at least 1 bad idea today, based on a Wall Street Journal piece by Dilbert creator Scott Adams. Believe it or not, Adams (not known as an optimist) puts an even more positive spin on the idea.

Lamott seems to me to be saying you have to write crap to get it out of your system, and if you’re willing to just let it flow, you will find amid the effluence some worthwhile material. Adams, on the other hand, says that coming up with bad ideas a) gets you started on the process of coming up with something good, and b) provides quality raw material for good ideas. Not just fertilizer, in other words, but seeds.

As I watch speech students struggle to come up with “the” right idea, right structure, right approach, I wish I could communicate this principle. Perhaps Mr. Pink will help do so.