How to tell a digital story

Here is an excellent example of a digital story.  Is there anything left out?   From Hiking in Finland by Hendrik Morkel.


The Longest Way 1.0 - one year walk/beard grow time lapse from Christoph Rehage on Vimeo.

"What's the Use Case" from Seth Godin's Blog

This is a re-blog from Seth Godin's Blog. He's absolutely right. How often have I approached a teacher with a software tool, an idea or a project without actually describing what the use is?

What's the use case?

Visit an architect. On the first visit, right after shaking your hand, she unrolls plans for a house. "Here are some sketches..."

Wait. That's backward.


Sketches for what? How do you know if I want a house or an office building? How am I to judge these plans? Is it a mind reading exercise?


The most effective way to sell the execution of an idea is to describe the use case first. And before you can do that, you need to have both the trust of your client and enough information to figure out what would delight them.


Then, describe what a great solution would do. "If we could use 10,000 square feet of space to profitably service 100 customers an hour..." or "If we built a website that could convert x percent of ..." or "If we could blend a wine that would appeal to this type of diner..."


After the use case is agreed on, then feel free to share your sketches, brainstorms and mockups. At that point, the only question is, "does this execution support the use case we agreed on?"


Don't show me a project, a website, an ad buy or an essay without first telling me what it's supposed to do when it works properly. First, because I might not want that result. And second, how else am I supposed to judge if it's good or not without knowing what you're trying to do...


Too often, we're in such a hurry to show off what we'd like to build we forget to sell the notion of what we built it for."

Finnish Library Association

Finland leads the world in education. Maybe this is why. (From Steven's Lighthouse.com)

Brene Brown: The power of vulnerability

This is another excellent presentation from TED.  Well worth watching.

How do we do the right thing.

Folk og røvere i Kardemomme by

I just came across a wonderful children's book in Norwegian from the 1950's. Folk og røvere i Kardemomme by by  Thorbjørn Egner.  It's a fictional town where there is only one law: Kardemommeloven (The Cardamom Act). 

The law is simple:

Man skal ikke plage andre,

(One should not bother others,)

man skal være grei og snill,

(you should be nice and kind,)

og for øvrig kan man gjøre hva man vil.

(and otherwise you can do whatever you want.)

It's now a famous expression in Norway.  I love it.

Three Good Resolutions for the New Year from Daniel Pink

Here are Three Good Resolutions for the New Year from Daniel Pink:  The resolutions are from a new book Practically Radical: Not-so-crazy Ways to Transform Your Company, Shake Up Your Industry, and Challenge Yourself,  by William C. Taylor.
1. I resolve to help my organization (and me personally) become “the most of something” in my field. It’s not good enough to be “pretty good” at everything. The most successful organizations (and people) are the most of something—the most elite, the most affordable, the most elaborate, the most approachable. For so long, companies were content operating in the middle of the road. Today, with so much change, so much pressure, so many new ways to do everything, the middle of the road has become to road to nowhere. What are you the most of?
2. I resolve to embrace a sense of vuja dé. We’ve all experienced déjà vu—looking at an unfamiliar situation and feeling like you’ve seen it before. Vuja dé is the flip side of that—looking at a familiar situation (an industry you’ve worked in for decades, problems you’ve worked on for years) as if you’ve never seen it before, and, with that fresh line of sight, developing a distinctive point of view on the future. The challenge for all of us is that too often, we let what we know limit what we can imagine. This is the year to face that challenge head-on.
3. I resolve to look for new ideas in new places. The more I study innovation, the less enamored I become of “benchmarking” the competition. What good is it to compare yourself against “best practice” in your field, especially if “best practice” isn’t that great to begin with? The most creative leaders aspire to learn from people and organizations far outside their field as a way to shake things up and make real change. Strategies and practices that are routine in one industry can be revolutionary when they migrate to another field. Do you have new ideas about where to look for new ideas?