somersault

Here’s a new page in the print-on-demand saga and its growing impact on book publishing (see our previous blogpost, “Mardel Acquires Espresso Book Machine"): 3D printing. There may be innovative applications for publishers to consider for print books, especially in light of the current capability to 3D print a functional human jaw and a working gun made out of resin.

Jonathan Zittrain (@zittrain), author of The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It (book) (blog), professor of law at Harvard Law School (@Harvard_Law), and faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University (@berkmancenter), says

Resin is the toner of the modern 3D printer. No doubt 3D printers will come to be able to commonly use other raw ingredients. There's no reason they couldn't be someday in the mainstream metals and all sorts of forms of porcelain, but in this case we're talking plastic.

Read this in full at Marketplace Tech (@MarketplaceAPM).

Another foray into the future is the possibility that smartphones will be fashioned into glasses, and the opportunities this may bring to publishers.

"This idea of wearing glasses and being able to see data as we walk around is where I think things are heading," says Brian Chen (@bxchen), columnist for The New York Times Bits blog (@nytimesbits) and author of Always On: How the iPhone Unlocked the Anything-Anytime-Anywhere Future—and Locked Us In. And once the interface for glasses is less intrusive, he noted, the potential use cases are wide open. “Say you were giving a speech," he said. "Glasses could serve as a teleprompter."

Read this in full.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you sort out the fast-changing world of publishing.

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Futurist news tab.

Chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers (@ThomasNelson), Michael Hyatt’s (@MichaelHyatt) new book is Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World (#PlatformBook). It offers practical advice for anyone who wants to effectively communicate any kind of a message in today’s media-saturated world.

He says properly building a platform for your brand (either you or an entity you represent) provides visibility (elevation above the crowd), amplification (extend your reach to people who want to hear you), and connection (engage people with relevant and valuable information).

Hyatt maintains an active blog and Twitter stream. He says it took him 4 years to attract more than 1,000 readers a month, but today he has more than 300,000 visitors (and 130,000 Twitter followers). Read his post, “4 Insights I Gleaned from Building My Own Platform.”

Hyatt also conducted a teleseminar for Platform. You can hear it here.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically and effectively build your platform.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Above Infographic (enlarge it) is by Course Hero (@CourseHero).

This article in Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) by Kent Annan (@kentannan) draws organizational communication lessons from a recent social justice viral video. He says, “We can all keep striving to better understand how to work toward justice not only with our actions, but also with how we tell people's stories. Jesus' so-called Golden Rule should serve as the overarching guide: ‘You should treat people in the same way that you want people to treat you’ (Matt. 7:12 CEB).”

His 6 principles are:

1.    People need a clear, compelling next step....

2.    The audience is who you're talking to—and who you're talking about....

3.    Be virally prepared....

4.    Take care when casting the hero and agent of change....

5.    The pitch is the message....

6.    Be attentive, not safe....

Read this in full.

Also see Ken Davis’ (@KenDavisLive) guest post on Michael Hyatt’s (@MichaelHyatt) blog, “4 Characteristics of Effective Communicators”:

1.    Prepare a message with a singular and crystal clear focus….

2.    Read an audience and customize the presentation to make that audience want to listen….

3.    Be passionate about the subject….

4.    Leave the audience no doubt about how to benefit from the talk’s objective….

Read this in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you tell your story.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

The Startup Daily (@thestartupdaily) highlights some of the elements of strong presentations by gleaning tips from 5 books:

·         Skip the stand-up, and start your presentation by talking about the audience (from How to Give a Pretty Good Presentation: A Speaking Survival Guide for the Rest of Us by T.J. Walker (@tjwalker))

·         Blank the presentation screen at key moments to force the audience to focus on you (from The Naked Presenter: Delivering Powerful Presentations With or Without Slides by Garr Reynolds (@presentationzen))

·         Effortless presentations are the result of deliberate practice (from The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience by Carmine Gallo (@carminegallo))

·         If a slide is not contributing to the main argument of your presentation, take it out (from The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business by Peter Coughter (@Coughter))

·         Each slide should be simple enough to be processed in 3 seconds (from Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences by Nancy Duarte (@nancyduarte))

The following slide deck by Alexei Kapterev (@kapterev) explains (and shows) the components of a compelling PowerPoint^® presentation.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you clearly communicate your message (your content) to your audience.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Author, pastor, and speaker Charles R. Swindoll (@chuckswindoll), broadcaster on the syndicated radio program Insight for Living, has penned a new book about his childhood speech impediment and how he was able to overcome it. The Christian Post (@ChristianPost) asked Swindoll about his life, his stuttering speech as a boy, and the inspiration and drive behind his new book, Saying It Well.

If anyone has ever seen the movie The King's Speech…they will see something of the struggle that I went through. There’s nothing more fearful for the average person in our society than to stand before a group of people and speak. When you add to that the battle of stuttering, your problem is exacerbated beyond words.

So when I began to learn how to speak [publicly], I still had the fear, because I always had my speaking interrupted with the impediment. So it took some time to gain confidence over that. I am thankful that over time I have been able to conquer that battle though admittedly there are still times that I go back to the principles that were taught by my speech teacher....

...when it was at its worst, I think my mind was racing ahead of my ability to put it into words. I had to learn to pace my speaking. The use of pauses was really helpful. Knowing that some words come more difficultly than others, I have found it helpful, when I get to some of those words, that I pause, say it in my mind, and then I speak it more deliberately.

...if you can find ways in your life to conquer the fear of falling on your face or in some ways appearing foolish in front of an audience it would be helpful. I found several things come to my rescue; one is a good sense of humor. I am often the brunt of my own humor. People feel comfortable when you share stories like that.

...it’s important to begin with a statement in your speech that grabs the attention of the audience. I try to make my opening line 15 words or less. It’s the only part of my speech that I memorize and it doesn’t have to be profound, but if it carries with it something that breaks the “ho-hum” of the audience, then I think that is a great way to start.

After you’ve begun with that opening statement, you need to have an introduction that helps the audience know what you’re saying is important....help convince them of the value of what you are talking about.

...then you move into the body of your speech.... You move from one point to the next and on to the next, perhaps to four or five points, and along the way you do a little review of what you just presented. Then you bring up a new point to develop. As you’re moving along through the speech you’re moving towards a conclusion; this is the part many people leave out. Just as you need to have a good takeoff, you need to have a good landing. If you’ve done everything except land well you haven’t succeeded. So instead of just bouncing on the ground when you land, you need to have a smooth landing.

...remember to quit while [the audience is] still wanting more.

Read this in full.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you represent your brand well in any public venue, including public speaking.

Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

In time for the beginning of the centuries-old tradition of Lent on Ash Wednesday (Feb. 22), churches, bloggers, and others can now share the season’s official and coordinated Bible readings in a free PowerPoint® presentation consisting of vivid color photography of nature scenes combined with Scripture verses from the new bestselling Bible translation Common English Bible (http://CommonEnglishBible.com).

The presentation (http://CommonEnglishBible.com/CEB/LentDownloads and http://slideshare.com/CommonEnglishBible) is comprised of 9 Bible readings to observe Ash Wednesday, each Sunday of Lent, Good Friday, and Easter. It’s flexible enough to display only portions from it or all the slides, and to present them prior to or during church services, embed in blogs and other websites, or email to friends. Verses are selected from the Revised Common Lectionary (Year B).

“On the church liturgical calendar, Lent is the Christian season of preparation 40 days before Easter,” says Paul Franklin, PhD, associate publisher of the Common English Bible (Twitter @CommonEngBible – http://twitter.com/CommonEngBible). “This presentation beautifully helps church leaders and others guide viewers into scripture verses they can quickly comprehend in 21st century English so they can enjoy a time of personal reflection, prayer, and a change of heart and life.”

An example is from the readings for Ash Wednesday: “Purify me with hyssop and I will be clean; wash me and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and celebration again; let the bones you crushed rejoice once more. Hide your face from my sins; wipe away all my guilty deeds! Create a clean heart for me, God; put a new, faithful spirit deep inside me!” Psalm 51:7-10 (CEB).

In addition to the PowerPoint presentation, a Lenten blog tour is being planned and a Lenten Bible reading marathon is being coordinated with churches, schools, and civic organizations (to participate, email jpetersen@somersaultgroup.com).

Along with embedding the presentation, bloggers can also embed a new 60-second video (http://vimeo.com/CommonEnglishBible), showing how the Common English Bible is an uncommon translation that clearly communicates in today’s terms God’s message of love to everyone, no matter what age, gender, station in life, or other personal outlook.

The Common English Bible’s popularity has soared since it was first released last September. It’s a bestseller in Christian retail stores; people are printing its verses in calligraphy when they LIKE the Facebook page http://facebook.com/LiveTheBible; and churches are using it to read through the Bible in a year (e.g. http://www.fourthchurch.org/bibleyear.html).

The Common English Bible text, including the Apocrypha, is available to search for free online at Bible Gateway (http://www.biblegateway.com/versions/Common-English-Bible-CEB/), YouVersion.com, and the translation’s website.

The Common English Bible is a collaboration of 120 Bible scholars and editors, 77 reading group leaders, and more than 500 average readers from around the world. The translators – from 24 denominations in American, African, Asian, European, and Latino communities – represent such academic institutions as Asbury Theological Seminary, Azusa Pacific University, Bethel Seminary, Denver Seminary, Princeton Theological Seminary, Seattle Pacific University, Wheaton College, Yale University, and many others.

The Common English Bible is written in contemporary idiom at the same reading level as the newspaper USA TODAY—using language that’s comfortable and accessible for today’s English readers. More than half-a-million copies of the Bible are already in print, including an edition with the Apocrypha. The Common English Bible is available for purchase online and in 20 digital formats. A Reference Bible edition and a Daily Companion devotional edition are now also available. Additionally, in the coming year, Church/Pew Bibles, Gift and Award Bibles, Large Print Bibles, and Children’s Bible editions will be in stores, joining the existing Thinline Bibles, Compact Thin Bibles, and Pocket-Size Bibles, bringing the total variety of Common English Bible stock-keeping units (SKUs) to more than 40.

Visit CommonEnglishBible.com to see comparison translations, learn about the translators, get free downloads, and more.

The Common English Bible is sponsored by the Common English Bible Committee, an alliance of five publishers that serve the general market, as well as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (Chalice Press), Presbyterian Church (USA) (Westminster John Knox Press), Episcopal Church (Church Publishing, Inc.), United Church of Christ (The Pilgrim Press), and The United Methodist Church (Abingdon Press).

For a media review copy of the Common English Bible and to schedule an interview with Paul Franklyn, please contact Audra Jennings, ajennings@tbbmedia.com at 1.800.927.1517.

Because Somersault (@smrsault) is interested in effectively communicating messages, whether it’s a subject line on an email message, a day-long seminar, or a long-term branding campaign, we’re sharing with you this video that poignantly demonstrates what NOT to do when attempting to reach an audience during a presentation. It’s produced for Habitudes For Communicators by Tim Elmore (@TimElmore), president of Growing Leaders (@GrowingLeaders). Can you relate to it? ☺

Let Somersault help you clearly communicate your message (your content) to your audience.

iPad storyteller Joe Sabia (@joesabia) introduces his TED (@tedtalks) audience to Lothar Meggendorfer (Lothar Meggendorfer at University of North Texas Libraries), who created a bold technology for storytelling: the pop-up book. Sabia shows how new technology has always helped tell stories.

Also see our previous blogpost, “Infographic: The Periodic Table of Storytelling.”

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you tell your story and promote your brand.

Do you have Writer’s Block? Consult this Infographic to break through. ☺

Click for a larger version.

By the way, today is the National Day of Listening (@StoryCorps).