fundamental strategies of analytical design
Early registration is suggested; these are large courses which often fill up quickly.
Most of you know of Tufte and his attack on PowerPoint; I wrote about it here on my blog several years ago and in fact I have been dubious about his work: here
Nevertheless, I am thinking of taking one of Edward Tufte's course.
For one reason, maybe I was wrong about him. Tufte is a star and his book and seminars are extremely popular. I have two of his books though I have never connected with them. Nevertheless, he is famous and on the very subject, today, which interests me: how to present information in person. I understand that he has much to say about not only communicating information in a general sense but specifically about presentations before groups, which is a skill I would like to improve. (my Three Rules of Main Street talk.)
Moreover, Tufte seems to be an example of his own lessons: His seminar is $380/person (though that includes his four books.) Presented all across the USA and he has been doing this road show for years. It's from 10AM - 4PM, lunch on your own. I assume that it must be very popular which means it is probably good. (Yes. I still believe so, when it comes to decisions where there is no government compulsion, fraud or mass psychosis lead on by media.) How far his lessons can be learned by another? No idea.
Beyond the substance of Tufte's work I want to see how he puts on a show, which is what such a seminar — done a few dozen times a year — must be an event, to keep his audiences' attention — and his own.
So any opinions? Worth the money?
I attended a session a few years back. Worth it from an entertainment perspective (he is a great speaker style-wise), but the content was really just the books, which I don't think are that great.
Posted by: billm | Jan 16, 2011 at 04:26 PM
thank you. i love to read this type of information posts. again thank you...
Posted by: kiralık devremülkler | Mar 19, 2011 at 11:52 AM
Attend once and you're good. He has not changed up his presentation one letter over the years. It's a good session if you fear the evil PowerPoint, but PowerPoint does not make bad slides, people make bad slides. He needs to move on. Has he gotten a look at Publisher lately?
Posted by: Smavitz | May 16, 2011 at 05:09 PM
I have never attended a one day course but I'm sure it would be something interesting to do. If you ask me honestly, this does seem like too much of information to grasp within one day. However, I'm sure this thing was put into consideration before the duration of the course was finalized.
Posted by: diploma courses | Feb 27, 2012 at 03:26 AM
I just went to a seminar yesterday in Seattle. I am an Industrial Engineer and make charts, graphs, and quick presentations every day.
He is unnecessarily harsh on PowerPoint, and spoke nothing about Excel, the driver of graphs. PowerPoint is just a blank paper for displaying something. He recommends all sorts of open software, but my company rigidly controls all software. At one point he praised Apple, then slammed the Ipad after he tried to get his book published on it. The is very proud of his achievements and you will know about them in detail after this class. There were many tangents that he just abruptly left, as if to realize he was off topic again, and overall it seemed the seminar never had structure. At one point he even sat down and spoke to his mic for 30 minutes while looking at the carpet.
It was very academe-focused and in my opinion the vast majority of points do not apply to the working world.
I would not recommend it for the time and money. Many left at or soon after the lunch break. The books are ok, but are not for application purposes.
Posted by: Joshua | Jul 25, 2012 at 01:14 PM
I wish I had read Joshua's post before attending a seminar in August 2013. He absolutely hit the nail on the head with his evaluation!
Posted by: Gary | Aug 26, 2013 at 11:29 AM