Cube Grenades

This is why I love the web so much.

Recently I was digging around Seth Godin's site for the post I made a couple of days back when I came across a reference and link to Hugh McLeod's blog. Hugh is an artist who, amongst other things, revisited the design for the cover for Purple Cow, one of the books by Seth Godin.

I was initially attracted by the art, but then some of his posts started to grab my attention. In particular his post on Cube Grenades fizzed it's way in to my brain. Cube Grenades are little thoughtful or challenging pieces that you can hang by your desk to provoke conversation with your co-workers and team members. In part he’s building on an earlier thought that he had, that social networks develop around social objects. And that these social objects can be the starting points for really interesting conversations and interactions. As Hugh says;

“This, I believe, is where my cartoons work the best - “Cube Grenades” - small objects that you “throw” in there in order to cause some damage – to start a conversation, to spread an idea, etc.”

I can't find the words to express just how much I love this idea, a lot of us will have come across pictures or quotes or objects that have resonated with us for some reason or another, that have generated ideas that we’ve wanted to share with others or given us insights that we might not have reached otherwise. A lot of people will have a Dilbert Cartoon or something similar on their wall which feeds the world-weary, cynic in all of us (confession: I start every day with a visit to the Dilbert website. It has just the right amount of world-weary cynicism to set me up for the day) but how much more powerful would the message you send out be if you had something that engaged on an emotionally or intellectually positive level.

Most of the art on Hugh’s site is free to download, on the sound principle that if you enjoy it then you might come back and purchase one of his high quality prints. Some of his Cube Grenade cartoons are here and there is loads more on his site for you to benefit from, including some really interesting thoughts on the subjects of advertising and marketing. I've included the free widget he has made available in the sidebar of this blog.

Oh, and Suz, if you're reading this, I really, really want one of his Moleskin notebook pieces.
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Communication

A couple of sites with useful resources about body language and communication.

The Art of Communication
A useful look at the art of communication from Spearhead Training. A good starting point for anyone who is investigating this area.

Body Language Expert
A site that specialises in features and articles about body language

The Myths of Training

There are a couple of interesting articles on Trainingzone about the way in which facts, figures or statistics can be introduced in to training programmes without checks on their authenticity. Two of the most commonly used studies are exposed.

Firstly, the proposition that the retention rates for different presentation methodologies are:

10% read
20% hear
30% see
90% do

It would appear that these figures have no basis in fact.

More here

Secondly, the the oft quoted communication statistics of...

55% Body language
38% verbal
7% words

...needs to be couched in very specific terms, in particular we need to be aware that the study by Professor Albert Mehrabian identified preferences in the context of feelings. He explains that,

"this and other equations regarding relative importance of verbal and nonverbal messages were derived from experiments dealing with communications of feelings and attitudes (i.e. like-dislike). Unless a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable."

And yet in many cases these statistics are used to explain communication in a more general context.

More here

It's very hard to find the time to track down the source of every statistical reference that we use, but examples like these only serve to highlight the importance of making sure that we are aware of the limitations of the information that we quote in our training.