Thinking on your feet: Improv and Business

Do you feel stuck when clients ask you tough questions? Do you get anxious when presenting in front of a group? If so, then join me at a really fun event I'm moderating called Thinking on Your Feet: Improv as a Presentation Skill-Builder. I've been taking improv comedy classes for over a year and it's helped me immensely with pitching new clients, interviewing and making presentations. This event is lead by Lloyd Ahlquist, a fantastic improviser and teacher. He'll show us how to use "hyper-listening" and "yes, and" to overcome that feeling of hesitation that makes presenting so tough. Come on down and get creative with your communication skills.

When and Where
Saturday May 3rd, 9:30-noon at Westside Eclectic

To Register
Call 818.558.3968 to reserve your seat
First 15 free tickets are free to AIGA members
Non Members are $40
More info at AIGA

Ideas for ideating online

For the past 2 weeks I've been ideating mashup concepts for my UX design for web class. The students have been sharing links and observations through our class Google Group. Some of us use IM and phone to discuss each other’s projects. But the one thing that we haven't shared much of outside of class is our actual sketches. This has proven a challenge, as the kind of feedback you can give and receive from sharing sketches is much different, and better, than sharing ideas strictly with words.

Here's some interesting tools we could explore in our quest for online collaboration:

Cozimo
It's a real time multi user whiteboard! One of my clients recommended this to me and says it works like a charm on Mac and PC.

Flickr Photo Groups and SlideShare Groups
Flickr is the ubiquitous forum for viewing and commenting on images. SlideShare is like the multipage cousin of Flickr. And how great is it that there's a group that's collecting slide shows about Web 2.o tools for effective teaching? I did a quick scan and thought this one about Web 2.0 educational applications had a lot of great resources, some of which we've experimented with in our class, like Zoho and Google Docs. Personally, I found Google Docs to be more stable and robust than Zoho Writer, but there's a whole suite of tools that look worthy of exploring, such as web conferencing and project management software.

VoiceThread
"A VoiceThread is an online media album that can hold essentially any type of media (images, documents and videos) and allows people to make comments in 5 different ways - using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam) - and share them with anyone. A VoiceThread allows group conversations to be collected and shared in one place, from anywhere in the world." Think of the potential this has not only for our critiques, but for client presentations and online portfolios. My first (quick) impression is that it's also a great example of a user friendly GUI.

Who wants to test drive these tools with me?

LA UX Meetup: Tools of the Trade

Join in the conversation about your favorite UX tools of the trade (software, crafty supplies, methods) in a speed-dating style event. There will be small groups/topics that will switch up quickly throughout the evening, so you'll get to share your experience with many people. It looks like a fun and engaging way to learn more about UX and connect with fellow designers. Hope to see you there!

Thursday, Mar 20th, 7:00 PM
Hosted by LA Times Interactive (downtown)
Max attendance set at 80, so sign up soon - details here

The first IxDA Interaction Conference

I recently joined IxDA, The Interaction Design Association. IxD is "the branch of user experience design that defines the structure and behavior of interactive products and services". The heart of IxDA is the online forum where members discuss everything from tools and methodologies to books and educational resources. This is the first year that IxDA had a conference. Fellow UX designer Pat Lang just sent me a link to the conference videos, which I'm pleased to share here. Thanks Pat!

Serious Play

I'm seriously considering shelling out $1,350 for Serious Play, a 3 day conference featuring the innovative minds of Irene Aum (User Experience Designer at Google), Tim Brown (President & CEO of IDEO), John Maeda and Philip Rosedale (Creator of Second Life). More than just a bunch of typical lectures, the conference speakers will lead 3 hour hands-on studios. The site doesn't say much about the studio topics yet, only that they range from "new creative strategies to product development and much more." If the studios are with any of the people I just mentioned, I may seriously have to go.