Russell Davies

August 2020

August 2020 from russelldavies on Vimeo.

Music by Elite Panic

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One (1) person has asked me if it's possible to receive the feed from the blog as an email. So, Dan. this post's for you.

I can't get the RSS to actually feed into substack, so I'm going to have to do this manually until I can work that out. I guess I won't put this post in the email, that'd be a bit recursive.

I will work out how to make this not a post, too, because it's going to disappear isn't it. I'll make it 'a page' if I can remember how to do that.

(Music and Love) Will See Us Through

It's been a while since I updated you about the music I've been making.

The basic plan hasn't changed and I'm managing to stick to it. One new piece of music a month, no more than a day to make it, stick it on all the channels, see how it feels and what I can learn.

How it feels and what I've learned:

1. I'm a long way from having a 'style'. All the music services ask you to tag your music with a genre when you upload it and I haven't a clue what to say. And whatever it is I might say seems very different for each track. It's interestingly different to writing. I can only write one way - like this. But the music I make is more varied, not especially because of my sensibility but because of the place I start or the tool that I'm using.
2. No one is listening. The Spotify listening figures (for instance) could all just be me making sure it's been uploaded right and seeing how it actually sounds a couple of days after I've made it. The random bits of promotion I've done produce no listeners either. I've been advertising in The Wire (more to support a publication I love than as a piece of genius marketing) but that has no effect either.
3. I'm no producer. I think I'm alright at a lot of musical stuff but I'm a very poor listener. I don't have the patience or aptitude to pay that much attention to the music I've made. I can't hear the difference that mastering makes, I can't be arsed to make everything 'sit right' in the stereo (and couldn't hear it even if I did). EQ, reverb, compression, all that, is a closed book to me.
4. It's still massive fun. Forcing myself to finish things and make them public is really useful. It is very like blogging - it doesn't matter that no one listens, it's enough to know that they could.

Actual music since the last update:

(Music and Love) Will See Us Through. It's pretty easy to come up with titles for tracks that feel cynical and clever but I wanted to do something more sincere. And I (really) enjoy playing with the effects of brackets (in titles) (and what that does to meaning). This is a prime example of not-being-a-producer disease. I just enjoy the groove and don't have the discipline to make it stop. So it goes on forever. Spotify. Bandcamp. Soundcloud.

Landline. This isn't too long! (Your mileage may vary...) It was the product of mucking about with a Keith McMillan BopPad and various Ableton Live configurations that made random hits of the pad seem pleasant. I couldn't work out how / be bothered to make it change key though, so it's a bit of a single mood outing. Still, quite gentle and inoffensive. Music for spreadsheets. Spotify. Bandcamp. Soundcloud.

 

July 2020

Slide crime

This is fun. Here's another opportunity for you to give me content that I can monetise. What slide crimes can we think of other than..?

Word clouds

Pictures of money when you're talking about money (and the unthinking use of clip art generally)

Pie charts (and 3D charts generally)

I think we can take for granted too-many-words, type-too-small, all those kind of things.

I guess I'm thinking of a slide type which is almost always unhelpful. Got any others?

 

Ten Decks That Shook The World

People were very nice about the book news. That's very kind. Thank you.

So, while people are paying a little attention here's a question where I could do with some help.

I'm trying to write a section called (something like) Ten PowerPoints That Shook The World. You can imagine the kind of thing. Semi-serious / because no PowerPoint has ever really shook the world / loose definition of PowerPoint (any presentation with a screen?) etc.

I guess what I really mean is famous/important/notorious presentations. ie not just speeches, or just diagrams.

I've got some candidates below but it's not a brilliant list, not least because they're mostly men. And because they're from a particular slice of the world: tech/commerce/government etc. I guess that might be because of the Power bit of PowerPoint. But can anyone suggest any others?

Colin Powell at the UN

Challenger/Tufte

Steve Jobs, iPhone launch

Stay Home. Protect the NHS. Save Lives

Mary Meeker internet trends

Al Gore / An Inconvenient Truth

Andrew Cuomo / COVID briefings

PowerPoint - Columbus demo

Hans Rosling TED

Patty McCord / Netflix Culture Deck

UPDATE

People have also suggested:

Snowden (especially) (thank you Matt and Tom)

Netanyahu to Trump 

YouTube pitch (thank you another Tom)

Not all of these exactly fit the criteria at the top but that's not a big deal. I can change that. These all need writing about.

I'm very struck by how many of the actual authors of these presentations are anonymous, secret or unknown. Presentations do tend to erase authorship and there's not a Writer's Guild or something to regulate the credits. That's worth fixing. (As Ella says "attribution is a revolutionary activity")

The 48 Laws of PowerPoint

At least two people in the past week have noticed my lack of blogging and wondered if I'm OK. So, before social services are alerted, I thought I should explain myself.

I'm good thanks.

I've not been blogging because I'm trying to write a book about PowerPoint.

Long-time readers will point out that I've been, sort of, doing that for about 20 years but this time I've got to put it all in one place and actually check the spelling because I've got a proper contract.

And, most excitingly of all, Stef is going to design it. ie it's legit, it's a proper thing.

Even just typing this now makes me realise that I should share more of my progress on here. That'll make it better. I'm going to do that.

In the meantime, here's an outtake. I assumed someone would already have done 'The 48 Laws of PowerPoint' based on, but it seems they haven't.

So here's one:

The 48 Laws of PowerPoint

1.    Don’t read the screen*
2.    Lists
3.    Use lists
4.    Lots of lists
5.    But 48 items is way too many - who thought this was a good idea?
6.    Start with a story
7.    End with an ask
8.    Fill up the rest with ideas and images
9.    Repeat the important things
10.  Remove the word ‘key’
11.  Make it shorter
12.  Repeat the important things
13.  Don’t read the screen
14.  Arrive early
15.  Respect the AV people
16.  Be a bit bigger
17.  Make it clear, concise and catchy
18.  Or freewheeling, unpredictable and magical
19.  Just be sure which one you’re doing
20.  Repeat the important things
21.  Arrive early
22.  Double-check the tech
23.  What will you do if your slides don’t work?
24.  Press B
25.  Make something very big
26.  Make something very small
27.  Make something rhyme
28.  Finish on time
29.  Actually, finish early
30.  Never outshine the master
31.  Sorry, wrong list
32.  One hour of prep per one minute of talk
33.  Repeat the important things
34.  Demand change
35.  Make it readable
36.  Make it accessible
37.  Make it memorable
38.  Make it bigger
39.  Remove the word ‘holistic’
40.  No 3D
41.  No pies
42.  Slow down
43.  Speed up
44.  Repeat the important things.
45.  Start with a story
46.  End with a bang
47.  Don’t read the screen
48.  BANG

*But make sure that people who can't see the screen know what it says. See point 36.

Thank you for the nudge Christian : "...it was just that the common wisdom about presenting is to not read the slides but talk around them, but often that does lead to information just staying up there on the screen but not being spoken"

 

June 2020

May 2020

Nothing to see here. New music!

April 2020

Her Immunity (as featured above) is now live on Spotify. Riches await.

I was chatting with Richard today. He pointed out how so many of the music industry's tools are designed for the 'upper classes' of musicians. (And he's going to try and do something about it, which will be interesting...)

He has a point. Spotify certainly isn't writing copy for unsuccessful hobbyists like myself. I appreciate the excitement of 159% growth but I'm not sure 13 listeners constitutes 'high notes'.

Ah well.

(I imagine most of the 13 are reading this. Thanks for listening!)