Fourteen-year-old Dev Shah is our newest National Spelling Bee Champion. He bested a field of 288 competitors and 10 finalists. Being on a national stage, competing in front of television cameras is enough to make anyone anxious. What is Dev’s formula?Not surprisingly, Dev’s way is...
Being around great authors at the Santa Fe Literary Festival stimulated our imagination. We especially enjoyed determining which authors connected best with the audience. It depended upon the skills of their interviewer. Kathleen McCleery interviewed Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl and other books. Granted she is a...
Last week, we attended the second Santa Fe International Literary Festival. We listened to first-rate authors including Ed Yong, Gillian Flynn, John Irving, Yvon Chouinard, and Jennifer Egan. While we enjoyed hearing how the authors created their books, we were also seeking insights into the...
Pulitzer Prize winning author Ed Yong is one of the young lions of scientific journalism. His new book is An Immense World: how animal senses reveal the hidden realms around us. Yong states that many of our old theories about animal communication are bunk because they were...
We live in the high desert north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Our internet service is one step above smoke signals. This obviously impacts the quality of our video conferencing with clients, whether we are training or delivering webinars and keynotes. After a recent lightning...
There is great virtue in seeking inspiration from hikes, foreign travel, and fields unrelated to your own. A recent segment on CBS Sunday Morning featured Alexander Liebermann, a composer/musician who was locked down in Berlin during COVID. When the world opened up again, he took...
Humans have been speaking for most of our existence. However, writing is only 5,200 years old, a gift from the Sumerians. Historically, writing skills bestowed prestige, while speaking was perceived as more casual.In “Speaking vs Writing” Josef Essberger states that in the modern era, speaking...
Last week, we extolled the merits of infusing your presentations with creativity and unique insights. Use machine learning systems to perform mundane tasks, but employ your strongest asset, imagination, when it counts. Many studies, including one from the Dept. of Psychology and Neuroscience at Colorado University...
TIP OF THE WEEK: AI or I AM?Today’s view of machine learning systems like ChatGPT, Bard, and Sydney is either “Bots will destroy humans,” or “Our glorious future is here.” In our humble opinion, neither will prove to be true. Machine learning systems are statistical...
One of the most botched business ventures is the casting and performance of a pitch team. When everything is riding on the outcome, how your team delivers is critical.First, cast off the time-worn model of “Enter the room, engage in brief small talk, do introductions,...