How to Communicate to Innovate: Networking to Individuals, Presenting to Groups, and Online to the World

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Darin Eich

Here is a new workshop zeroing in on what is important to managers, leaders, and change agents: Saving time, being clear & memorable, gaining buy-in, and reducing chance of failure by communicating for innovation.

How to Communicate to Innovate: Networking to Individuals, Presenting to Groups, and Online to the World

+ Gain tools and techniques to help you be successful communicating in different important settings. Join our interactive peer focused lab to work on communicating your challenge, gathering ideas for innovative solutions, and collaborate with others so you may more smoothly get buy in and implement new ideas with others.

+ Practice communicating who you are, what you are working on, and a challenge you could use insight on. Gain helpful feedback to improve your efforts quickly. Test it out in our workshop.

+ Learn simple techniques that will allow you to communicate in ways that are engaging and memorable using involvement, story, visuals, and metaphors.

+ Develop individual professional relationships and a group of peer leaders that you can give and receive with on an ongoing basis to help you innovate in your work projects.

+ Save time and energy by learning how to communicate quickly and succinctly. We will help you craft your elevator speech and write “tweet-size” so you can free up time.

This is an innovative, highly engaging, interactive approach to communicating as a manager. This is connection-making learning, where you will make connections, get ideas for your own projects, and offer ideas to others that can help them make progress on their own initiative. Below is a large group presentation the workshop leader, Darin, has done that will give you an idea of some of the skills we will teach and do interactive activities with. View the a visual online sample webinar version to see this content in a different way.

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40 research based actions for leadership development program impact

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Darin Eich

These 40 research grounded high impact practices of student leadership programs can enhance leadership development and education efforts:

Cluster I: Participants Engaged in Building and Sustaining a Learning Community

1.    Utilize an application and selection procedure to select students who are invested in their own and others’ development and are committed to engaging fully in the program.
2.    Recruit from many sources and bring together a mix of students from a variety of backgrounds to create a diverse learning community.
3.    Hire student-centered educational practitioners as teachers and administrators to facilitate students’ leadership development.
4.    Create opportunities for leadership practitioners from a variety of fields and careers to serve as guest leaders, sharing their experiences through panels, discussions, and conversations with students.
5.    Reduce status differences, be open and accessible, empower students, demonstrate integrity, care, and model exemplary leadership practice through your interactions with students.
6.    Tell your stories, share real experiences, and ask thought-provoking questions.
7.    Mentor and support students outside of program meetings.
8.    Make the large learning community enrollment smaller through a structure that places students within smaller groups in the program.
9.    Allow students to shape and share in a group identity and work together to develop the small group, cluster, or team to which they belong.
10.    Utilize the small group as a laboratory to learn about leadership where students teach each other, engage in activities, work on projects, overcome challenges, and bond through developing as a team.
11.    Challenge participants to risk and learn from mistakes, ask difficult questions, and think for themselves all within a safe encouraging atmosphere.
12.    Set community standards and encourage participants to be approachable, encouraging, and willing to help fellow participants outside of the program as well as within.
13.    Facilitate participants giving and receiving feedback to one another in critical instances after they have had time observing each others’ leadership style.
14.    Utilize a wide variety of teambuilding activities and structures at the beginning of the program and throughout to allow participants to meet and connect on a one to one basis.

Cluster II: Student Centered Experiential Learning Experiences
15.    Engage students in practicing the leadership skills and concepts they are learning through group development processes within the program, in class projects, and with individual leadership plans.
16.    Engage students in practicing leadership in various out of class projects in the community and on campus.
17.    Engage students in practicing leadership through assuming positions and roles within the program to share responsibility in operating the program and teaching fellow students.
18.    Create opportunities for students to become involved in tangible ways outside of the program in the community, campus, and within other organizations.
19.    Engage students in written reflection activities in the form of journals, essays about readings, and other projects.
20.    Engage students in verbal reflection in reaction to discussions, questions posed, and current events.
21.    Formally engage students in completing vision and goal setting activities and other projects to personalize the concepts to the individual.
22.    Engage students in a variety of curricular activities designed to help them gain a greater understanding of themselves, including personality, strengths, style, skills, and values assessments.
23.    Engage students in simulations to give them practice with specific leadership skills, including strategic planning, ethics, and decision making.
24.    Engage students in group discussions, debriefings, and dialogues stimulated by events, activities, readings, and presentations.
25.    Engage students in making meaning and connections to readings through discussing their out-of-program experiences.
26.    Expose students to different situations, contexts, cultures, groups, and people through their stories and program activities.
27.    Give students opportunities to practice different ways of leading, leadership roles, and engage with others with different leadership styles.
28.    Provide opportunities for students to practice leadership and learn through service learning in groups and individually.
29.    Expose students early to a wide breadth of multiple service sites, people, and organizations.
30.    Allow students to have increasing responsibility and devote significant time for in-depth service to the site in which they are most interested or the cause about which they are most passionate.
31.    Bring groups of students away from the routine of the campus for an accelerated and in depth exploration of themselves, their fellow participants and leadership.
32.    Use alternative, group based, and experiential teaching methods such as a ropes courses, challenges, or intense exploration into a particular theme or issue.

Cluster III: Research Grounded Continuous Program Development

33.    Offer a variety of themes, service sites, group & individual project choices, and team memberships to allow students to choose their leadership context and skills to develop.
34.    Incorporate a wide variety of delivery methods to appeal to different student learning styles.
35.    Integrate the various components students can choose into a common, coherent, larger whole curriculum that students experience in unique ways.
36.    Develop and offer program content based on previously established desired leadership development outcomes for the students.
37.    Explicitly state the mission and values of the program and model the values through the curriculum and participant action.
38.    Develop content that infuses student leadership and college student specific issues to make the curriculum real and have utility for the individual student.
39.    Create programs utilizing current leadership, student development, leadership development, curriculum, teaching & learning, quality program development, and education research and models.
40.    Improve programs continually led by both practitioners and students, involving multiple assessment and feedback systems.

Additional articles:

Eich, D. (2008). A grounded theory of high-quality leadership programs: Perspectives from student leadership development programs in higher education. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 15(2), 176-187.

Eich, D. (2009). Using leadership education research and assessment to positively impact leadership program outcomes. Concepts & Connections: A Publication for Leadership Educators, 16(3), 7-10.

Eich, D. (2008). 40 practices that enhance student leadership development. Student Affairs Leader. 36(16), 1-3.

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Reflection and Strategy Activities for Personal Innovation Journey

Posted on May 30, 2011 by Darin Eich

This personal innovation journey program guides participants through a number of deep reflection and life assessment projects to help them make meaning of the past and present as well as strategize for the future. The activities are deep, creative, and visual. Participants will leave with “maps” they can put on their walls to keep their strategy at the top of their mind and be motivated to act.

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The Innovation Destination: Create it, Collaborate on it, & Communicate it – Keynote Conference Speech

Posted on May 9, 2011 by Darin Eich

Innovate yourself and what you are doing in your life and work! Get ready to point yourself in the direction of your destination and find the vehicle to get you there in this energizing and interactive keynote designed to accelerate your experience at this conference and then into your life! During this fast paced program you will connect fast and often with other participants. A variety of engaging activities will be facilitated to get you connecting & creating with each other and catalyze yourself to a new level of motivation, innovation, and learning!

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Speech on Developing and Communicating Innovative Ideas

Posted on April 10, 2011 by Darin Eich

I had been blogging about the process of creating a visual keynote speech. I recorded a final prototype version of a speech on “developing and communicating innovative ideas” from my home studio and posted the video here. I did this speech live for a group of 300…plus an overflow room for the live stream of the event. They also recorded the live stream of the event and you can view it at Showcase 2011 to see how it looked live. My keynote on developing & communicating innovative ideas starts at 32:15.
Developing and Communicating Innovative IdeasCreating a new visual keynote speech takes a lot of iterations. It is worth the effort though because then you can keep giving this speech, do it as a webinar, or even transform it into an article. Think of it an innovation process of creating quality content and you can then use this content in different ways.

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The Growth of Social Media: Believe it & Engage.

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Darin Eich

Amazing visual portrayal of stats related to social media usage on this video. I am a believer in the power of videos like this because it got one of my last hold out friends onto Facebook! Maybe this new video will get him on Twitter? We should devote more energy to finding better ways to engage with LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and other social media sites. I know they have been tremendously valuable for me. I’ve developed a workshop to help others simply get started or dive deeper.

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2011 National Leadership Symposium

Posted on March 18, 2011 by Darin Eich

The National Leadership Symposium is one of my favorite professional conferences. It is a smaller, deeper, and more personal learning experience. If you are a leadership educator in higher education you should try to attend one. Here is the info on the 2011 NLS from the National Clearinghouse for Leadership Programs.

About the Symposium

Advancing Leadership Education:
Connecting to High Impact Practices
July 7-10, 2011
University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia

The National Leadership Symposium is a professional development experience designed for faculty members, student affairs professionals and other educators involved with promoting college student leadership education. The program is coordinated by the National Association for Campus Activities (NACA) and the National Clearinghouse for Leadership Programs (NCLP).

Given the intense learning environment of the Symposium (included required reading prior to attending), it is advised that participants have significant professional experience in leadership education. Registration is limited to 50 people.

Symposium Theme

This year’s National Leadership Symposium will invite leadership educators to engage in rich dialogue and reflective discussion about what it means to be a leadership educator. Participants will enhance their own individual insight about their commitment to leadership education, and then explore larger questions related to the purpose of leadership education and how we best create space for gaining knowledge and fostering student learning. Evolving from why we do this work, to what is this work about, the symposium will turn toward what are we really ‘doing’ through leadership education. Research about high impact practices related to learning will be discussed. Scholar authors will provide theoretical frameworks and practical considerations for this exploration. Scholars and participants will engage in thoughtful discourse about what it means to educate or develop students and ourselves in leading and leadership. The overall goal of the 2011 National Leadership Symposium is to envision how the future of leadership education can promote increasingly complex ways of being, knowing, and doing.

Participants in the 2011 National Leadership Symposium will:

* Envision the future of leadership education to promote increasingly complex ways of being, knowing, and doing.
* Examine high impact practices for leadership development and their connection to enhanced learning and quality.
* Investigate the intersection of leadership education and human development.
* Unlock the potential of leadership educators through engagement in their own development.
* Create a network of practitioners, educators and scholars that explores and informs a current understanding of leadership education.

Symposium Scholars:

* Dr. Susan Albertine
Vice President for Engagement, Inclusion and Success, Association of American Colleges & Universities
* Dr. Lisa Boes
Allston Burr Resident Dean of Pforzheimer House, Lecturer on Social Studies, Harvard University
* Dr. Ron Riggio
Henry R. Kravis Professor of Leadership and Organizational Psychology, Former Director of the Kravis Leadership Institute, Claremont McKenna College

Program Chairs:

* Dr. Marilyn Bugenhagen
Assistant Professor of Leadership Studies, Marian University
* Dr. Julie Owen
Assistant Professor of Leadership & Integrative Studies, New Century College, George Mason University

Membership:
To register, join NCLP, or renew your membership, please go to http://www.nclp.umd.edu/

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How to create a visual keynote speech

Posted on March 17, 2011 by Darin Eich

I’m doing a pecha kucha keynote speech for an event called Showcase at the University of Wisconsin. This is my story of how I’m developing it. A pecha kucha is a structured framework for a presentation. It consists of 20 visual slides that advance after 20 seconds. It is only a 6:40 long speech! Some benefits of this are that the audience gets a lot of visuals and you have to get to the point quickly. It is a bit more challenging to present but could be a good model for you to use, especially if your presentations tend to look too “texty” or you don’t wrap up soon enough.
Let’s apply an innovation process to developing a keynote speech or presentation at a conference or other event. The key elements we can work with to do this are:
1. Create rapid prototypes of the speech
2. Use feedback from your target audience or clients
3. Iterate and redevelop your speech
Most of the work happens before the work. It is conversing and thinking. I exchanged emails, phone calls, and had a meeting with the organizers of the conference. I wanted to know what they wanted to achieve and why I had been recommended to them. Was there a particular content area I should include that they were expecting?
After working with them to nail down a title it was time to build the speech. Here is the innovation process I used:
The first thing I did was work just with the visuals. I narrowed down and laid out 20 images that I wanted to use. I then took it to the audio level and just talked over these images while they were on my computer screen. This mattered a great deal. By actually doing it I gained insight on how it could be better organized and how to tell the story. I found where I needed more time. This was the biggest challenge.
Next, we use the innovation tools, I built a rapid prototype to share. It went from being just a series of images or a slide deck to an actual video. The 20 second transitions were recorded as a powerpoint quicktime movie. I played this and then spoke over the slides transitioning and recorded the audio. I turned this into a YouTube video and shared with people who were organizing and attending the conference. The purpose was to show them what I had developed and to get feedback and insights from them on how to make it better. This is engaging your users & clients in co-creating the speech with you. This was the first prototype speech video I created.

I sent the video to a few key people and the feedback I received from them was excellent. I found out what was working well and also gained ideas for improvement. I received validation on what I thought I should change (slow down, allow more space and focus) and found out things that I couldn’t have found out on my own…namely that another speaker was focusing on collaboration in innovation and that they really wanted me to go deeper and show them an idea generation tool. I also heard that I should stick the “SAM V” point harder. While I was getting this feedback I was in Austin, TX and saw a really engaging exhibit as South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi). It was a circus theme series of Mashup art that was funny…concepts like a Spork (spoon + fork) & El Camino (car + truck). Seeing this exhibit gave me the idea of taking something from the tech world (Mashups) and creating an idea generating tool out of it. I could show some photos of the Circus Mashimus exhibit and use story to explain an ideation tool they could use…mashup or combining. To add new though I had to cut. I was spending the most time in my first speech iteration on a Mastadon hunting metaphor story to tell the tale of collaborating to innovate. As much as I loved this story I decided to cut it to focus on this new mashup story which also integrated the feedback I received (more depth on a tool, less collabation, more time focus). Cutting that story helped me integrate three key feedback insights. It is worth it.
It was time now for a new iteration of my presentation prototype. I winged a second version of the speech and turned it into a YouTube video:

As you can see developing a visual keynote speech is an iterative process that uses your own ideas at all stages and the ideas of your target users. Each iteration brings you closer to the bullseye but it takes going through this process to hit it. It is like taking a paper from a 1st draft to a 4th draft. There will definitely be at least 1-2 more iterations for me before going live with this speech at Showcase. I hope this story has helped you learn how to develop a speech or presentation using an innovation process. Above all else, like you’ve learned in the video, remember to communicate with SAM V: Stories, Analogies-Metaphors, & Visuals.

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Do Not Create Alone: How to Develop a Title Using 2 Question Surveys

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Darin Eich

I am finishing a book based on my dissertation research of high quality leadership programs. The purpose of the book is to help people innovate their own leadership programs and teach leadership in a way that works with how people learn and develop as a leader. I spent a lot of time thinking about titles for the book. Then I decided to use an innovation process for this. I decided to co-create the title with my target audience, the people who would be buying and reading the book. It makes sense doesn’t it, let them develop the title they want with you. I created a two question surveymonkey survey and floated it to my network on Facebook through a status update.


I have a number of friends who are the target audience-leadership educators. I received a number of responses, great ideas, and direction validation from this super short survey. It also prompted me to do more research on what makes a great non-fiction book title. I developed more ideas based on this research and the insight I received from my target audience. Next, I did a second and a third short two question survey to help them co-develop, narrow in, and select the title.

Lesson I learned: Use innovation practices for anything that is important…like a book title. Quick practices like engaging your target audience in co-creation, co-development, and selection work and they motivate you to do important research, idea generation, and iteration to develop a better idea. You uncover the problems and opportunities that can make your creation more innovative through doing this! This is a valuable way to use free web tools like surveymonkey in conjunction with social network status updates on sites like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

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Advice for Conference Speakers on their Presentations

Posted on March 4, 2011 by Darin Eich

This advice holds true for both the speaker and the conference organizer advising the speakers on their presentations. A killer presentation is like a killer product. It takes some time to develop and involves many prototypes and iterations. If the presenter is giving their speech or facilitating their program for the first time, it will probably not be as good as the speeches or programs they have done numerous times. You learn how to do it better and get ideas and valuable feedback from doing it. So if you want a great program, make sure it isn’t one that is being done for the first time. Ask for and give the most polished and practiced stuff. If it is imperative that you do a new presentation, find a small event in your area to first practice or prototype it. You get great feedback and ideas from that first run-through.

The general advice I give people for creating a first presentation is SAM V. (Stories, Analogies, Metaphors, and Visuals) Tell your personal Stories. Use Analogies and Metaphors to help people get what you are talking about. Show them Visuals.

Even if what you are doing is a speech or presentation don’t make it a one way lecture. Mix it up and build in a lot of activities for participants to interact with each other, within small groups, and internally with their thoughts. Lectures don’t work for learning & engagement as much as something personal and interactive for the participant.

It has taken me many years of speaking, program development, and facilitation to learn these things and practice them in ways that become intuitive. I’ve been intentional about this approach for the past few years and I’m doing the most speaking/facilitation events (10) around the country this month that I’ve ever done so I feel that this approach is paying off. The programs go better and that equates to getting invited back and expanding to other conferences/events/organizations. Highly interactive SAM V presentations is my tip.

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