Dahle Communication

Combining Music with Imagery -- The Watchmen Trailer

I am not a big comic book fan.  I've bought a few here and there as a kid, but I never got into it.  The same thing with Graphic Novels, it just wasn't my thing.  However, a good friend of mine gave me 'The Watchmen' graphic novel about a year ago and I was amazed at how good the design, the literature, the imagry and everything about it was.  On 3-6-9 (hopefully) they will be releasing the movie version of the graphic novel.

If you haven't seen the trailer that is posted above, watch it and pay attention to the music that is used from about 1:20 into the trailer right up to the end.  The song, from one of my favorite bands Muse, was edited perfectly with scenes from the movie.  The combination of the visual and the music is very powerful and it makes me want to see the movie even more than I already did.  Having parts where the video is slowing down with the type of music playing, the phrase "You'll Burn in Hell" being repeated in the song with the images of fires being started and a mushrome cloud in the background and how it just stops before the last line is the perfect combination of video and music I have seen in a movie trailer for some time.

What does this have to do with communication you ask?  Good question.  What I want people to think about is this: are you effectively using your resources in your presentations?  While the trend has been going towards being as minimal as possible, there are times when an image or a combination of pictures and video or music can put an emphasis on your project.  Is it going to be movie trailer worthy?  No, and it doesn't have to be.  But think about when you are presenting, that sometimes you need more than just simple text and simple graphics.

I will say to be very cautious -- don't go overboard just to be flashy.  It's a thin line to tread, but it is definately worth looking at.

Travis

Solving Problems With Communication - President Obama Interviews With Al Arabiya

President Obama's first interview after he was sworn into office was with the Al Arabiya channel with people have been calling "Muslim TV" (which personally I think is in bad taste, we don't call CBS 'Christian TV' or anything like that).  This was a bold move for President Obama.  This is not a political blog and I don't want to get into the politics of should he or shouldn't he and what impact it will have.  From a communication aspect however it was a great move.  Too many times the problems we have in our workplace, our home lives and between nations is that we just don't communicate effectively with each other.  What President Obama did was reach out to the Arab community by granting them the first interview of his presidency.  Doing this is going to give him some good will and will hopefully bring in more dialouge with countries that have not been too keen on listening to us.

Do you do that in your business?  If you have had problems with a worker, a co-worker, a client or anyone else, do you reach out to them to try and solve the problem or do you let it simmer?  This is why effectively communicating with people from the start is so important.  We waste so much of our time trying to fix things that could have been prevented had we communicated our expectations from the beginning.  Take a look in the mirror this week and see if you are communicating effectively in your job.  If you are not, then think about what you need to do to improve it.  Believe me, it can only help you.

Travis

Life After Death by PowerPoint -- A Humorous Guide by Don McMillian

If you are like most people, humor is a great way to get your attention to something that you might have ignored previously -- like improving your powerpoint presentations.  Don McMillian presented a humorous look at what people do wrong in their presentations.  He covers everything from putting too many words on the screen to spell check.  While you won't be able to figure out exactly what to do with your presentations from watching this...hopefully you will learn what NOT to do in your presentations.  In some of the comments on youtube people have remarked that this should be required viewing for every presentor and I would have to agree with them.  I will note that the quality is not that great, however, the message is still good.

Travis