Off to the ANLA Mgmt. Clinic

Early tomorrow today I head off the Louisville for 3 good days, of learning, networking, and sharing. This is one of the best parts of the job.

The chance to hang out with like minded colleagues, and find out what the challenges are in other parts of the country. The chance to sit in on some great lectures and hear what the experts are saying. To prime the pump.

I’ve been at this a very long time and a lot of folks remark that there’s not much more that I could learn-this is where I say something along the lines of “if I ain’t learning then I’m done”.

Another thought on PowerPoint Presentations

I just came across a post by Seth Godin on the problems with PowerPoint presentations, and some suggestions on how to correct them. Last week I was really cracking down hard on a lot of presenters at the CENTS Show in Columbus, there were some bad ones . . . really bad ones.

Even sadder, most of those were by folks who had PhD after their name.

Seth makes some really good points, including this one:

PowerPoint could be the most powerful tool on your computer. But it’s not. Countless innovations fail because their champions use PowerPoint the way Microsoft wants them to, instead of the right way.

He’s right, I think its a great toll that is wasted, as much as I dig into PowerPoint the more I find. I’m sure I’m a rank amateur using this technology, but in the landscape field I look like a techno-wizard, and believe me I’m not.

Seth lays it out including tips to reinforce your topic/discussion/product:

The Hurricane Tree

This stunning photograph was taken by Swedish Photographer Jocke Berglund he was on a different assignment and came across this scene. This is part of the article from the British Natural History Museum.

Flying over Småland photographing the devastation, Jocke – who specializes in aerial photography – saw this ‘remarkable oak tree print’. It formed partly by the storm brush of nature and partly by the impact on the soil of the forestry machines retrieving logs. ‘It’s as if the heavens had sent a message to the forest industry reminding them that, in this area, deciduous trees would have withstood the winds much better than pine.

The irony here is really something, that the only way such an incredible photograph can be taken is by clear-cut logging, heavy machinery, and destructive winds.

This photograph has won several awards but the Shell wildlife photographer of the year (category) The World in Our Hands appears to be the most prestigious of the bunch. This site I have linked to is not the one most Bloggers have linked to, I’ve done this because there are some other great images to look at here.

I looked for some other images by Jocke to see if he was just a flash in the pan and nope, he’s not.

Mr. Berglund . . . you can take a serious picture. Please take a look at some of those images on that site they are remarkable.

I just had to had this one from the plants category-it was the winner taken by Dirk Heckmann from Germany

ANLA, Management Clinic 2007, starts Tuesday

The Mike Lin 2 day workshop starts on Tuesday and ends on the afternoon on Wednesday-making it . . . . two days. Man my brilliance at explaining the obvious just scares me sometimes, it really does. Of course there is early-bird registration, and a welcoming reception Wednesday night.

A comment on the early-bird registration, almost everyone registers the day before and I mean almost everyone. This crowd is fired up and ready to go on the opening morning of the conference.

Back to Lin’s workshop, this is what I wrote in an earlier post on his workshop:

One other thing about the Mgmt. Clinic for 2007, Mike Lin is coming back and doing another of his (sure to be terrific) 2-day graphic workshops immediately preceding the festivities. Mike is the man when it comes to teaching graphics in the field of Landscape Design. I mean he is the man. If you want to pick up your game in rendering technique, coloring skills, or drawing speed these 2 days would be worth your time with philosopher Mike. (Do you think this plug will get me in the session???).

Hey! “Old-timers”

If you’re reading this you know who you are. some of us even talked at the CENTS show. You were asking about commenting to a post. So here we go.

1. Look to the bottom of the post on the bottom right in bold letters it will say no comment, or 2 comments-whatever.
2. Click on that
3. You will be asked to enter a name, e-mail adress, and a web-site (if you so choose).
4. In the dialogue box, type in your comment, rantings, ravings, questions.
5. Hit the big submit button.

Now we know some of you guys are luddites can be luddite-like when it comes to computers, but don’t let that scare you You’ll be just fine. This here technology is a wonderful thing to behold. What’s a shame is, we were put so far behind the 8-ball on this one.

Just as before you can contiue to write to the address over on the right, but if you are too lazy to look over therehere it is again rick(at)whisperingcraneinstitute(dot)com, hopefully you know what to do.

Water.

It’s great for me that I live in a area of the World where I have access to safe, clean drinking water. Not only do I have access but the odds of me running out is about the same for me as spending a weekend with Nicole Kidman in Sydney-it aint gonna’ happen.

But for others; maybe as many as 2 Billion, water is more important than just about anything. The idea of a clean, cool crisp glass of drinking water is just a dream.

I Didn’t know Landscape Design was so easy!

Here’s a tutorial by the Natural Land Trust on Landscape Design. Here’s a gem from the article:

Or just plant what you like—that’s what’s most important.

Here’s some more good stuff:

Don’t forget to place a few flat rocks in the garden to use as stepping stones when you weed; they create a space to put your foot and keep you from compacting the garden soil.

And, finally . . .

Then, voila! Plant your garden and you’re finished!

Wednesday talks at the CENTS Show

There were no tracks dedicated to Landscape Design or Land. Architecture-absolutely nothing. So I went to a couple of talks in the “Containers” track. Containers, that’s right. Now this is a good thing to run but to have nothing at all for the entire day on design doesn’t quite make sense . . . especially when they had conflicting tracks on Monday.

Jim Nau from Ball Horticultural had two sessions today; one on the unusual, and the other on: Colorful Containers—How to Use Them. Both of Jim’s talks were very well done. Excellent presentation, great knowledge on the subject, and his images were very good to spectacular. Moreso they reinforced his talk, the images really helped with his presentation. Well done I would recommend him highly if you are looking for a speaker on this subject area.

Tuesday Talks at the CENTS Show

The Tuesday talks were really uneven they went from the really well done. To completely missing the mark and leave the audience wanting more.

The 1st thing I attended was a talk by Dr. Charles Hall on the Economic Worth of the Industry, the information was well presented, well laid out, and Dr. Hall turned what could have been a very dry talk into a good informative presentation. This study he spoke on, I would guess you could say the numbers and the facts need an entirely different post and I hope to speak to that later this week. Dr. Hall is from the Univ. of Tennessee.

CENTS show, Monday

The best educational talk for me on Monday morning was Peg Carney of Liberty Landcrafters and Pond Plants. She focused on a list of marginal and bog plants, then went into some real depth on growing, propagating, and thriving with Lotus. What impressed me about this was the time spent on Lotus. In all the years coming here I came away thinking . . . never has anyone gone into such detail. I thought it was good. Well thought out, professionally presented.

On the average side were Eric Sauer of Envision Works out of Dayton, Ohio. Eric is still doing PowerPoint presentations the way they were done in the mid-90’s, small font, small images-on same screen, and the most dreaded . . . reading from the screen. Hey if you put it up there for us to read, why are you reading it?

Opening night at the CENTS show.

Jim Gardiner the curator of RHS Garden Wisley was the Sunday night speaker for those who arrive early. His topic was to speak on the Wisley Gardens and entertain us early birds.The first thing I noticed was the crowd it was smaller than last year’s crowd for Allen Armitage.

Does this mean anything? I don’t know. Maybe it was the topic, I mean how much more can we take on the English Gardening assault? Enough, already.

The “CENTS” show; Columbus, Ohio

Tomorrow it’s time to make the yearly trek to the CENTS show, hosted by the Ohio Nursery and Landscape Assoc.

This is one of the biggest, if not the biggest trade shows in the industry. While I greatly admire the breadth, and scope of this show on the exhibition floor. I cannot say the same for the educational component. It’s just not that good. The talks are still done the same way talks were given 30 years ago-the only difference . . .. more people, in bigger rooms.

We all get herded in, then the introduction, a speaker appears . . . down go the lights. Oh; wait, there is one other change (and not for the better) PowerPoint, yes PowerPoint, instead of fuzzy slides, or beautiful slides of gardens, conifers, beetles, bugs, disease, etc. We get all those but they are now formatted in bad PowerPoint talks. Lecturers can now read their slides . . . whoopee! I just love it when a Professional speaker looks to the screen and reads the slide verbatim, oh I just love it.