Posts Tagged ‘brain’

Tips to Handle Your Multitasking Audience

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

By Tara Denton – Synapse; Tara Denton at LinkedIn

You know they’re doing it. If you’re delivering a webinar, giving a presentation, leading a seminar or presenting in a meeting: they’re multitasking.

Someone is checking her email. Someone is making a grocery list. It’s a natural thing that the brain does. Call it what you like — multitasking, daydreaming — the brains of your listeners are thinking about something other than what you’re saying.

How can you encourage people to stay engaged as you impart vital information?

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Focusing on the Truth of the Message (Objectives)

Friday, September 25th, 2009

By Tara Denton – Synapse; Tara Denton at LinkedIn

In an August 09 “Morning Edition” radio interview by Steve Inskeep, the writer Steve Russo brought up a vastly important point about the importance of focusing on learning objectives while teaching a course or delivering a message. Let me share a small bit of the transcript so you can see what I mean (taken from NPR’s Morning Edition archive posting):

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Book Recommendation: How to Get Ideas

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

By Tara Denton – Synapse; Tara Denton at LinkedIn

I’m reading the most fabulous book:  How to Get Ideas by Jack Foster (ISBN: 978-1-57675-430-6).

The book is a guide to finding and cultivating creativity. After reading How to Get Ideas, you’ll be able to practice 10 ways to ”idea condition” your mind. Just reading the techniques, like “have fun” and ”rethink your thinking” gets me in the mood for brainstorming. Part II of the book introduces a 5-step method for producing ideas. For those of you familiar with PDCA (plan, do, check, act) or Six-Sigma’s DMAIC process, a 5-step process to generate ideas is a welcome structure to frame creativity.

So go ahead — check out the book and become an idea-making machine!

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Music's Lasting Impact on Human Development

Friday, June 26th, 2009

By Tara Denton – Synapse

With the passing of pop icon Michael Jackson, I deemed it fitting to write about how music has impacted life and learning since the beginning of time.

An archaeological team in Germany recently found bone-carved flutes that date between 35-40,000 years old. The flutes were not crassly made. It took care, time and craftsmanship to build these flutes, which suggests they were important to early humans. What can we infer from this discovery about the importance of music to human development?

Tara Denton at LinkedIn

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The Twitter Craze: Lessons from 140 Characters or Less

Friday, June 19th, 2009

By Tara Denton – Synapse

Everyone is tweeting.  Twitter has changed the way we organize, comunicate and share information. Look at the current situation in Iran. Protest rallies are organized, meeting places determined and news is shared on the fly. What’s the attraction? I think three elements of Twitter’s appeal are also keys to engaging and effective information delivery.

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Flex your memory muscles and choose retention

Friday, May 15th, 2009

By Tara Denton – Synapse

If we can choose what we’d like to learn, can we choose the level to which our brain holds information?

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"Who Are You Calling Left-Brained?!" Thinking Outside the Box of Hemisphere-based Stereotype

Friday, May 8th, 2009

By Tara Denton – Synapse

I’m happy to make my first appearance as an LCE blogger. As my blog manifesto states, my postings will relate to new information and best practices about how people learn and change in major and minor degrees. I hope you find my blogs entertaining and thought-provoking.

Let’s jump in and talk about the brain. At one time or another, each of us has heard the terms “left-brained” and “right-brained”. I’d like to share an article with you — “Who are You Calling ‘Left-Brained?!’ Thinking Outside of the Box of Hemisphere-based Stereotypes” — an article that discusses the science behind the brain’s two hemispheres and their impact on learning.

If we adapt learnings from brain research to transfer information and ideas, we can help people process information and more effectively reach them in a presentation, during a meeting, while training a class, or in day-to-day interactions. First, we have to overcome the pervasive stereotypes about hemispheric preference.

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