[Update: the final entries are here.]
In the spirit of Chicago Graduate School of Business’ recent announcement, we’d like to see how well you can sell yourself in four (4) picture-only slides. No audio, no video, no hyperlinks, no multimedia miscellany. Just pictures and text. Make us want you. You have a week.
Instructions
- Design your slides. Use Keynote, PowerPoint, Photoshop, a discarded tray liner from Whitecastle, whatever. Just keep the size below 1920×1080, a constraint which will affect none but the most diehard designers.
- E-mail your name and blog address (if applicable), to dan [at] mrmeyer [dot] com. Attach your slides.
- Post any reflections on the process in the comments below.
Deadline
- Friday, August 10, 23h59, Pacific Standard Time
Judges
- Christian Long (think:lab)
- Scott McLeod (Dangerously Irrelevant)
- Dan Meyer (dy/dan)
Prize
- A subscription to rockin’ good design periodical Before & After magazine.
Legal
- You own your slides, though we’ll post them here (attributed) and, in all likelihood, pick several apart.
How We Got Here
- The Dizzying Chasm, Michael McVey
- Misunderstanding Chicago, Dan Meyer
53 Comments
Christian Long
August 4, 2007 - 8:50 am -Design-smisign. It’s about standards and content and you sitting there taking notes from my bullet points, buddy-boy!
This is CRAZY business.
A contest? To demonstrate that teachers have design instincts? That the aesthetic/content mash-up on a PPt slide actually matters when we force our kids to look at our best work, or are forced to review what they submit, too?
What are you going to do next? Suggest that our ‘teaching style’ matters also?
Absolutely crazy business, Dan. You oughta be drawn-n-quartered for pushing beyond the 2.0 rim shot and the content-is-king battering ram.
I got content. I got bullet points. And you gotta sit there and take notes. That’s the arrangement. For hundreds of years. And made better by bullet points on PPt slides, in my opinion.
And now you want me to be a designer? I shop at Target. Let them be designers.
You’re a crazy man, Dan. Absolutely 100% crazy.
How this design fru-fru business helps your kids learn the Asquared + Bsquared = Csquared detail is beyond me.
Maybe I’ll bullet point my argument on a Microsoft template slide and tell you just how crazy you are.
***
(psst, Dan.
Seems awfully quiet after the announcement of your contest.
Must be the weekend. Sure it’ll pick up a frenzy of steam come Monday.)
A. Mercer
August 4, 2007 - 6:48 pm -Hey, I have another question are we selling ourselves to employers, or to our students?
Here is what I mean…
Look at this from Mr. Moses video (I know it does fit the format, but it makes you ponder the idea of audience): http://mrmoses.org/?p=129
Whereas mine (http://mizmercer.edublogs.org/2007/08/02/if-you-can-write-a-twitter-why-cant-you-come-up-with-an-elevator-speech/) was saying “Hey, here’s why you use technology in the classroom!”
I’m getting LOTS of ideas from this.
jackie
August 4, 2007 - 7:42 pm -Perhaps the reason for it being quiet is that everyone is concentrating on design. Personally, I feel you’re a tough act to follow Dan.
Sadly, I’ve put more thought into this “assignment” than I did for many of my papers for my ed. program — and I haven’t even begun creating anything.
H.
August 5, 2007 - 6:32 am -Like Mercer, I’m wondering about audience and purpose. For the CGBS applicants, the goal was admission. What’s ours? We need more constraints!
dan
August 5, 2007 - 7:19 am -The goal here is acceptance to a second-round interview at whatever college/job you want. If you want to angle this towards a business college, we’ll adapt. If you want to angle this towards a teaching college, we’ll adapt. If you want to angle this towards a school where you’d like employment, we’ll adapt.
John Pederson
August 5, 2007 - 8:40 pm -I submit.
http://www.ijohnpederson.com/ijohnpederson/2007/08/four-slides.html
diane
August 6, 2007 - 9:05 am -Here’s my effort, very low-tech, just like me (but enthusiastic and well-intentioned…also like me)
http://dmcordell.blogspot.com/2007/08/four-slides.html
Chris Duke
August 6, 2007 - 9:14 pm -(previous comment, URL’s picked up the trailing periods).
Blog post re: the contest at http://tinyurl.com/24ffzg
Image directly available from http://tinyurl.com/yq2qfw
-Chris Duke
http://edtechatouille.blogspot.com
http://www.muveforward.com
SL: Topher Zwiers
Kevin H.
August 8, 2007 - 7:17 am -Hi
Thanks for doing this. I also wondered about audience but just figured I was making a pitch to my students to let them know who I am. I know that isn’t quite what you had in mind, but I did find it interesting to limit the slide format to the bare essentials.
Sincerely,
Kevin
superdestroyer
August 8, 2007 - 2:09 pm -The example slide above would be referred to as a”quad chart” in the Pentagon. You can ask for ten’s of millions of dollar with a single quad chart.
dan
August 8, 2007 - 2:18 pm -Gonna fax mine along then. Oughtta be able to pick up at least a fifty-spot for my trouble.
Tracy Rosen
August 9, 2007 - 5:40 pm -I’ve joined the competition!
I’m glad I found out about this (thanks Scott!) – it was fun. It gave me a chance to practice using my ‘new’ technology. I switched from Windows to Linux (Ubuntu) a little while ago and spent some time this evening playing with different programs in an attempt to make something fancy.
I opted to go for the traditional slide show since there’s only a day before the deadline!
Here it is:
http://leadingfromtheheart.edublogs.org/2007/08/09/78/
Cheers,
Tracy
Neil Winton
August 10, 2007 - 4:13 am -These things always make me wish I was
moretalented… Ah well, at least it’s given me a lesson plan for some of the classes I’m teaching next year!Cheers…
Neil Winton
August 10, 2007 - 4:16 am -Curses… foiled again! I can’t enter because dan’s mailbox is full! Looks like there’s been a mass entry at the last minute — which is just soooo like the kids in school do — you’d think we’d learn!
dan
August 10, 2007 - 6:04 am -Yeah, sorry about that. My mail settings are looking good now so feel free to resubmit.
H.
August 10, 2007 - 10:09 am -Can anyone help with this copyright question?
H.
August 10, 2007 - 6:19 pm -Mine’s here.
Jennifer
September 3, 2007 - 3:42 am -Great looking site so far!! I’m just starting to look around it but I love the title page! panama city florida map
nGfCp96zvieAVPG7Y3bN