On the go vlog :)

FISH TAIL VLOG :)

"Presentation Magic" (I love Ted Talks!)

     I really enjoyed the Ted talk video featuring speaker Hans Rosling.  Hans spoke with such passion and everything he said made a whole lot of sense.  I’m starting to become addicted to Ted Talks because all the speakers are such passionate experts in their fields.  It makes me believe that being a genius has a hell of a lot to do with passion.  Rosling first explained that there are 8 brilliant development goals founded by the UN.  These goals are all backed up by statistics and basically common sense as to what basic things need to change in order for a country to be both happy and healthy.  Rosling is so passionate about the goals because they really seem to get to the root of the problem unlike “political talking” which he clearly views as a bad thing.  I mean, you know what they say, talk is cheap.  There’s been so many times where I just clicked off the news because of political figures in our country giving people false hope that the world will magically be okay once they get a bill passed or a new law approved.  I don’t mean to be cynical but I guess I’m just a realist on the matter.  Rosling tries to prove that there are different ideas on how we can fix these worldly problems.  He backed up these ideas with the help of a presentation he created using organized research without compromising his passion on the subject.

     He first presented the main focus of the presentation in a way that sucked viewers in.  He had a hook.   He definitely hooked me in.  Maybe the audience initially didn’t really care about what the subject was but I think Rosling used his passion and confident opinion in order to make people interested.  He then supported his subject by using slides with data and graphs which we’ve learned this week is just PROOF when it comes to a good presentation.  We should keep the proof on the slides, like Rosling so nicely did.  If the graph had colors, he explained the colors.  He used his slides as being the back drop of the presentation rather the main focus.  His slides help compare, contrast, and tell an over all story.  His words were the main focus but at the same time his words would have meant nothing without the slides.  Good presentations need to have this sort of balance.  He explained hard statistics with the graphs.  He added symbols to these graphs as he was explaining the trends versus all at once.  Sometimes people see something like a graph on the presentation and its like "BAM" okay wow that’s confusing and then they just kind of drone off into space because they are no longer engaged.  I’m not speaking from experience or anything ;)  His animations were also used to help the audience understand his main point.  The animations were cool because they were used in a really effective way versus his animations only being cool because they were pretty and tech savvy.  

     He kept to the point without being boring.  I loved this talk, not only because I agreed with him, but mostly because of his passion.  He wanted people to understand what he was passionate about so he found the wisdom and inner genius to make it happen which resulted in the production of a great presentation.  He ends with a great conclusion too, one that makes you think which is the absolute key to a great presentation.  He summarizes the key notes of the presentation and than uses those key notes to branch out into bigger ideas.  A good presentation seems to follow the outline of a good research paper!  A presentation is just much more creative and fun :)

"Kindle me a Story"

     I never really understood the Kindle.  I mean its great and everything, sure, but what about reading a book?  There’s something magical about flipping through pages and holding the words between the palms of your hand.  Something more tangible about it.  It’s almost like staring at a screen rather then paper lack a bit of authenticity.  Paper reading seems to be going out of style.  I mean look at the newspaper.  People aren’t buying it because they can read it online through wonderful agate news sites.  The newspaper will never go completely out of style I don’t think; I mean its famous right?  I mean yah the kindle may save paper but I hope we aren’t entering an age where written text will be left behind in some sort of sacred dust.

     The first time I heard a book on tape I thought I was going to loose it.  I felt like it was equivalent to watching a movie.  I mean reading is brain exercise, that’s why some people just hate it.  I think reading is a really personal experience because what I get out of a book will be something totally different than what you get from reading the same book.   I’ve always felt this way so I really felt called to research more about the lawsuit over the Amazon Kindle 2.  According to an article, written by Jay Rivera, the Authors Guild put up quite the fight against voice recorded book “performances” claiming that they went against the copy right laws.  The Author’s Guild, partially the director Paul Aiken, claims that the voice recordings are “derivative works” which breaks the copyright laws.  Derivative works are basically re-makes of the original concept.  He claims “that allowing Kindle to use the audio feature without paying the copyright holders would be a legal violation.”  I get that but I mean I think this whole thing is much more over money than it is about protecting the authenticity of books.

     I think it’s a bit extreme to create lawsuits over such broad things like this.  I mean everyone has there own personal opinion which is why there are so many copy right lawsuits and just plain old law suits in general.  If it were up to me I would pass a law that would make it possible for each author to personally make up their own mind in regard to their original works.  If I were an author I wouldn’t want my book to become a book on tape because I would, personally, feel that it would be a derivative work of my original book.  Some books are meant for personal interpretation that you can’t gain from listening to a robotic voice over.  Some books you can though.  I get both points of view on the matter but I’ve decided that you can’t win when it comes to politics!  At the end of the day is it worth the legal battle… I don't know…

What would Obama do? Lawyers and politics should not be mixed with the message of hope and art.

Back in 2008 when this poster came out I had very little interest and knowledge when it came to politics.  I was only 14 and I had no clue who was running for president.  I boycotted politics all together for a lot of my teenage years (until I was 18 and brainwashed into voting for Romney...lets just say ignorance is not bliss).  Anyway, my point is that although I was blind and non-existent in the world of governmental politics, I did see one thing.  I saw, just like most people in the world, this poster.  I saw a poster of a black man with a message that promised hope for our country.  It popped.  It grabbed our attention.  When I saw this poster I thought that Obama was a creative, bright, and brilliant man who knew how to campaign for himself.  Based on this poster alone.

Little did I know that some dude just grabbed an image of Obama off Google Images and edited it and then BAM became famous.  Well I guess actually not famous really, I mean have you ever heard the name Shepard Fairey?  It's not like he made millions off this poster.  Here was a guy who clearly supported Obama in the Campaign and just wanted to show his support through being creative and promoting Obama's plans for the future: Obamas plans for change which reflected the word "hope" to the American people.  Making someone, like me, see this and think "hmmm a picture of a man running for president and the word hope??"  It grabbed my attention and made me think.

The Shepard Fairey Poster taken from google images

After reading this article (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090125/1907073531.shtml)  I was stoked to hear that Fairey didn't get in trouble over this picture in terms of Copy Right Law and plagiarism because the original photographer gave him a pat on the back for it.  He showed his support by saying, "I know artists like to look at things; they see things and they make stuff. It's a really cool piece of work."  I completely agree.  Fairey just got inspired by the photograph as well as the words from the mouth of Obama (You can't copy right words, am I wrong?? probably...) and used that inspiration to create the most famous campaign poster of 2008.

The Associated Press (the company who owns the picture, and seemingly the photographer) did end up suing Fairey, specifically his OBEY clothing company, for selling posters and clothing with the image. I think this is a perfect case where creative common laws should be used.  It would have saved a lot of trouble for Fairey and saved a lot of money for the Associated Press but it's not like they care about that.  I wouldn't expect the Associated Press to partake in having creative common laws over their photographs but I don't know.  The Associated Press stated that they will "continue to celebrate the outstanding work of its award-winning photographers and use revenue from the licensing of those photos to support its mission as the essential provider of news and photography from around the world."  http://www.obeygiant.com/headlines/the-associated-press-case-update

I interpret this statement of them having no interest in partaking in the creative common laws because they don't want THEIR work to be interpreted any other way than THEIR original intent of the photograph.  I admire Fairey and support his mission in regards to his sticker campaign, art, and his view on society.  He wants to break barriers.  :)