Imagine you are lost in the middle of a magnetic storm. You glance at your compass, but the needle rotates furiously. You take some steps in one direction, then you change your mind. Where are you going? You notice something you’ve seen before and you suddenly realize you’re just walking in circles. How would you [...]

For those of you using the Open Space approach to run self-organizing conferences, I created a set of fun cartoons to illustrate its four guiding principles and “law of two feet”. The drawings are vector-based, so you can print them as big as you want. At the formidable Agile Coach Camp Italy 2011, we printed [...]

It’s a matter of time. Time I don’t have. I once learned that Alfred Hitchcock used to sketch on storyboards to pre-visualize the shots of his movies. What if I could apply cartooning and storyboarding techniques for my Zen-style presentations? With acceptable results, I thought, I could use those sketches as first-class citizens and incorporate [...]

This is brief post to share with you a short video clip I just published, based on my latest talk: “Crafting Outstanding Presentations”. Other clips will follow. I’m developing decent video editing skills, so I hope you’ll like my “cinematic” intro. Why story? Well, if you read my previous posts, the answer is pretty obvious. [...]

“What do you do?” I’m asked. “I am a Lean and Agile software development consultant.” My reply is patently inadequate. It is my first conference since I officially started my freelancing adventure a couple of months ago – and it shows. The small business entrepreneur in front of me has no idea of what I just said. [...]

A new dream is taking shape. It all started three weeks ago, while presenting in front of a group of entrepreneurs. On the surface, the slides below illustrate pretty pictures and practical storytelling techniques. Look beyond the means, however, and you’ll discover how a single presentation can powerfully influence people and, maybe, even change someone’s [...]

In my previous post I revealed that, to craft a great (technical) presentation, I deliberately use storytelling techniques borrowed from contemporary screenwriting. I leverage the power of story to stimulate an emotional response, even a new behavior, in the audience. This approach comes from the realization that, although important, rational thinking has its limits. Even [...]

A few days ago, Chris Hedgate asked me to join him in a little experiment that he called duoblog. A duoblog is about writing on a shared subject in “parallel” with another blogger. Since the agreed subject is broad and we don’t see each other’s work until we both publish it (@16:00 UTC), we should [...]

With unconcealed trepidation, I’m counting the days until Thursday, when the first official gathering of the newborn ALT.NET Dublin group will take place (go here for details). How does it feel to take part in a local user group right at its launch? New people come together for the first time, full of curiosity, enthusiasm [...]

The organizers of my beloved Swedish conference have released the full video of my Agile Tales presentation. The audience appears to be really quiet, but it is purely because the audio comes from my “Britney Spears”-style microphone only. In other words, people laughed at my silly jokes, honest! Last week, I also presented at the [...]