Five bookmarklets for improving website readability Simply drag one or more of the links below onto your Favourites Bar in Firefox, Edge or Chrome, and then use them as controls to make text more readable on any website. Font boost – increases font size and spacing, and line spacing. Comic boost – replaces typeface with… Continue reading Making websites more readable
Be like juror #8: essential management lessons from Twelve Angry Men
Twelve Angry Men is a courtroom – or rather, jury room – drama from 1957. It is a taut, claustrophobic thriller in which a jury debates the case of a young man from a slum who is accused of murdering his own father – which, if he is found guilty, would carry an automatic capital… Continue reading Be like juror #8: essential management lessons from Twelve Angry Men
What difference does language make?
I didn’t write this. Careful communication builds trust. My popular internal training course on effective writing spends a considerable amount of time discussing how to build empathy for the audience. It’s not just a matter of staying truthful and legal; it’s about connecting with a reader in a different place and time. The premise of… Continue reading What difference does language make?
Tools for audience interaction: Mentimeter vs AhaSlides
Update, November 2023: both services reviewed in this post have changed their subscription tiers and models. Mentimeter has adjusted the restrictions on each level, and AhaSlides no longer offers per-event pricing. I previously wrote about the critical need for adding audience interaction to presentations – particularly important for remote audiences, but also suited to larger in-person seminars… Continue reading Tools for audience interaction: Mentimeter vs AhaSlides
Broken links in Excel: down the rabbit hole
When somebody sends a spreadsheet that they have edited from their desktop, all too often it includes links to other spreadsheets in their personal area. Excel tries to get the data from those links, but inevitably fails. For some link types – particularly those connecting to a proper external data source, such as an online… Continue reading Broken links in Excel: down the rabbit hole
Organisational learning as artificial intelligence
A recent webinar by the APM was titled “Project knowledge management”, but took a very different approach to our regular understanding of that term. The speaker was Dr Atif Ansar, a specialist in understanding the performance of major projects. His lecture compellingly framed organisational learning as being akin to machine learning. As an experienced academic, the lecture was… Continue reading Organisational learning as artificial intelligence
Effective webinars (APM volunteering)
This week, the APM is running a virtual volunteering forum for participants in its outreach schemes. Their session on effective webinars was yesterday. Normally, I’d wait until they circulated the slides and supporting material before blogging about it, and especially to have time to reflect on the lessons. But the fact is, so many of our… Continue reading Effective webinars (APM volunteering)
One space or two: has the great debate finally been resolved?
In my Effective Writing training course, I pose a provocative question. After a full stop, should there be one space or two? It’s provocative because there’s no correct answer. Everyone will have been taught a particular way is correct, and many people get quite angry that not everyone else agrees. I then present this XKCD… Continue reading One space or two: has the great debate finally been resolved?
What’s the plural of OS?
By virtue of my ever-popular Effective Writing training course, and despite no formal education in English above GCSE level, I am somewhat known for being a style and grammar authority / pedant. This means two things: first, my mother is very proud; and second, I get the occasional request to arbitrate on particular language usage.… Continue reading What’s the plural of OS?
The extraordinary, everyday technology that’s making the lockdown bearable
Last night, a small group of my friends tried a virtual games night for the first time. The template was very helpfully set for me by a lunchtime social that a colleague ran last week. The key elements are: Video conference so that we can see each other and the game screen. Third-party hosted game that… Continue reading The extraordinary, everyday technology that’s making the lockdown bearable