The Illinois Model

This week, as with most weeks, I followed some professional conferences via Twitter. This live-tweet phenomenon has attendees using event hashtags to share quotes from the speakers, pithy commentary, and of course...photos of presenters' projected slides. 
And yet again, I see a trend: Terrible slide design. Terrible. As in violating a list of the so-called rules of PowerPoint. Or Keynote. Or whatever software is used.
When I posted the following tweet:

We need “Evidence-Based Slide Design.” 🤣 https://t.co/peIhjizTVa — Lou Hayes, Jr. (@LouHayesJr) June 21, 2018
I was only half joking about evidence-based slide design. It did seem to be the bulk of crappy slides were from smart university academic-types. The slides were filled with small text, photo collages, cluttered graphs, and raw data. 
Then Sara Wood replied:

You rang?https://t.co/XKXWQvnxS1pic.twitter.com/WZqNtRM8jr — Sara Wood (@SaraSaysData) June 21, 2018
I follow Sara because of her posts about slide design, formatting, chart…

Few want to talk about this. Probably because it violates a mantra we've heard since we were kids:
Do your best. But there is a trap in seeking excellence. A dark side in hunting for perfection. An unintended consequence for working to be the best you can be. 

What's the cost associated with seeing excellence?

We have to talk about tradeoffs and compromises. In order to be the best at Skill A, you are neglecting Skill B...or Skill C...or Skill Z. To excel, it means you are becoming a specialist in a narrow skill or topic or silo. Therefore, your cost in seeking excellence in Skill A is measured in the loss of growing some other skill.

As a police tactical firearms instructor, I continually run into resistance with other instructors when I argue that a shooter is "good enough.' As trainers, we are inundated with the same mantra as kids: Do your best. And through it, get our student shooters to do their best.

But that may be doing our people a great disservice. The cost …

I spent yesterday in a surgical center with a family member. After months of diagnostic and prep work, it was finally time for the operating room. Between the office staff, the nurses, the anesthesiology team, the surgical team, the rehab equipment rental agent...they have it down to...well...a science.

Before the patient was rolled under the bright lights over the operating table, the situation was quite known. Variables were inspected, checked, and double-checked. Contingencies were in place for darn near everything that could happen. But how?

It seemed as though everything they did along the journey, in the surgery itself, and planned for recovery was done with purpose...as if they'd done it before. And they have. Multiple times per day. And not just this particular group of medical professionals. But thousands like them across the country and the world. They have established a collection of successes and failures - from each and every step along the way.

A person who experien…

I've written before about the perversion of US Air Force Colonel John Boyd's OODA. In the context of American policing, the application is highly tactical - overly focused on responding to physical threats to a police officer's life. As such, this application of OODA stresses:
conflict, speed, and disruption. And that's not only narrow. It's kinda wrong too. And if not wrong, at least incomplete.

Whether I am dealing with a violent criminal or a person with a mental illness in a state of crisis, I contend with and confront adversaries. These are people who might do harm to me or others. I prepare myself for physical combat - as it can happen in the blink of an eye.

But there is another invisible adversary here: Perception.

The psychological and emotional components of policing deeply involve perception. Sometimes I want to distort another's perception - to disrupt or confuse their mental processing. But more often, I want to bring another's perception close…

I attended a funeral today where I knew very few of the fellow mourners. As I walked towards the church doors, from the crowd, I picked out The Undertaker.

How is it that you can scan a crowd of strangers and in the snap of your fingers have your focus drawn to one particular person in one particular role? What is it that makes them an anomaly? 

For me, it used to be a subconscious recognition of The Undertaker at a funeral service. There wasn't a conscious thought that went into it...that is until I made mention of this among friends a few years ago. They soon agreed that they too could subconsciously spot The Undertaker. (And I bet you can too!) 

Think about the characteristics of a funeral director at a wake or memorial service. Close your eyes and list observations that would make The Undertaker stand out from the rest of the mourners. Then come back to this blog...

[Seriously. Close your eyes and image that.] 

You may have not have ever consciously or purposely considered the va…

When I attend a presentation and get handed the projected slides as a handout, I cringe. Is the presenter lazy? Disinterested? Thoughtless? Ignorant? Unaware?
Sure, PowerPoint has a quick feature to print various handouts from the slide deck. Most popular seems to be the format of three (3) slides alongside conveniently lined space for notes. But with a little additional effort, we can do so much better!
Projected slides provide for visual supplement or "eye candy" to your presentation. They serve as a backdrop to set the tone, emotion, or setting of a story, concept, stance, or idea. I've long recommended a Spartan design philosophy - where photos, logos, or diagrams are simple, clear, large, and void of large blocks of text. I'm even against most uses of bullet points, except for those most brief, bare, and significant. Your charts and graphs should be of such simple design that you could recreate them with chalk on a blackboard in front of your audience (Think: Ho…