If you know me, you know that I am a fairly curious individual, (which is a polite way of saying I’m nosy). I like to know things. I like to know about things. I am, you could say, a student of stuff. Although studying is not required of me by my hospital, or the university where I teach, or the organizations for whom I work (or my dad, who had a terrible time making me into a student), I spend a chunk of my day, every day, doing just that.
I am a voracious reader, but like so many of you, I no longer have time to read a lot of books (particularly books solely read for pleasure). What I do have time for, though, are my RSS feeds. Magical bits appear in my Google Reader throughout the day that inspire and challenge me. The blogs to which I subscribe send their content effortlessly to my computer with useful information about clinical updates, nonprofit business management, fiscal responsibility, green home improvement and making the perfect chocolate sauce (because if you know me, you also know chocolate–really good chocolate–is central to my existence). I am a student of all of it.
I have alluded to my general wonkiness in past posts, and true to my nature, one of the things I most enjoy studying is the art of presenting. Specifically, how to convey information effectively and compellingly. Too often, we attend events where someone gets up and drones on and on from their PowerPoint presentation, reading verbatim from every slide. Fortunately, there are some really smart people in the blogosphere who want to improve the quality of presentations everywhere. And they’re willing to teach us, if we’re interested.
If you make even a fraction of your living giving presentations (whether for teaching, raising capital or pitching why your program really needs the hospital to support that full time coordinator position), perhaps you might be interested in becoming a student of the art of presenting, too:
Try one or two out and see if there’s information you can get behind. The beauty of turning to blogs is how frequently they get updated and how immediately relevant the information often is. And they’re bite-sized and easy to chew. Plus they can be delivered to one central spot so you don’t have to seek them out. Blogs: the ultimate convenience food for your brain.