Yesterday I finally realized why I didn’t have the energy to sit down and write anything for the last few days. I’ve had a cold for almost a week, but since it got worse last night, I decided to sleep in and catch up on my rest. I got a few extra hours of sleep last night, but I didn’t feel any better this morning, so I called in sick. I don’t get sick enough to stay home very often, so when I do, I might as well take it easy and let my body fight it off sooner.
I seem to have so much stuff going on lately that I’m sure stress played a big part in me getting a cold. I’m praying for a quick recovery since we’re leaving for La Crosse Wisconsin tomorrow afternoon for our nephew Matthew‘s baby dedication. We’ll be there until Sunday afternoon and then I drive to Minot on Monday for the NDATL Face-2-Face Conference, where I’ll be doing an afternoon session on computer security with a friend from the ND Information Technology Department. It’s an important topic, so hopefully we’ll be talking to a big crowd. I’m going for a minimalist PowerPoint presentation feel, with a simple black background, big white text, and an average of four words on each slide.
I’ve grown to despise most PowerPoint presentations in the last year because the tool is abused so often. A lot of people use it as a crutch, packing in so much information on each slide that not only is their impact reduced, their message is muddled. One of my pet peeves is presenters who read directly off their slides, one bullet point at a time. I can read, thank you very much. In fact, I can read a whole lot faster than you can speak, so what’s the whole point of this exercise? It’s very easy to write bullet after bullet, slide after slide. What’s not easy is taking the time to make the message clear and concise. That’s what I’m attempting to do for my part of the presentation. I hope I can pull it off.
Well, apparently my mini-case of writer’s block is over. It’s good to be back after a week!