#context is I made a pie chart in excel and I love it

[marsmagery]

my beautiful wife named pie chart

[allthemusic]

Week ending: 26th December

And thus 1962 rolls to an end, not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a Brenda Lee Christmas classic recorded all the way back in 1958, but only hitting the UK charts now, four years later. Honestly, it's a pretty good way to end a year. Listening to Christmas music in April is always a weird one, but if you're going to listen to Christmas music in April, this is a really solid pick, that's all I'm gonna say.

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree - Brenda Lee (peaked at Number 6)

It's great, from the get-go. I mean, what is there not to like? There's whoas, then that choppy guitar, all shimmery and distorted, and finally the moment the backing singers cut out, and the guitar gets a jauntly little trip down the scale. It's simple, it's iconic, it's great. And then Brenda, with that cheeky, interesting powerhouse of a voice. Whoever's mixed this one's made the excellent decision to let her voice float over the top of some quiet, pretty backing singers, some subtle piano tinkles from our old friend Floyd Cramer, and occasional bit of choppy, snappy guitar, and a fun wandering bassline. It's perfectly balanced, and the more you listen, the more you realise that the piano and the bassline are way more interesting than they have any right to be, especially given how far down in the mix the piano is. Like, I never even realised there was piano in this. But there is, and it's awesome.

All that said, it's clearly still Brenda's show. It's a song about a Christmas party, and there's something very 1950s, very wholesomely nostalgic about it, as Brenda describes people rockin' around the Christmas tree at the Christmas party hop. There's mistletoe hung where you can see, there's pumpkin pie, there's carolling. And of course, that great late-50s / early-60s preoccupation, fad dances. Hence the line about everyone dancin' merrily in the new old-fashioned way. I've never really thought too hard about it, but I kind of love the oxymoron here, the sense you get of people coming together, all ages, and doing some weird mish-mash of current dances and older ones. It makes me think of the old Kay Starr Rock and Roll Waltz song, about somebody's parents trying to waltz to a rock and roll number. It's a sweet, fun image.

Brenda's voice remains a highlight. From the little bit of emphasis she puts on "around" to the little flick up on "carolling", the lurch into "hear", the oomph and joy you can hear when she hits the "Deck the halls" line and everybody else joins in, there's always something a bit different going on, from one line to the next, some little bit of expression. There's a pleasantly warm, country twang to it all, and she ramps it all up very successfully towards the end, the backing singers and saxophone suddenly backing her up to deliver a final line that's a real punch-the-air moment.

Like I said, this bit of this project is very odd, usually. But honestly, there's a charm to it, too, and it does help you see the Christmas songs as just songs, divorced from the context you normally hear them in. Like, when did you last actually listen to this song and consider its merits as a song? Could you even have pegged it as a Brenda Lee song from 1959? I don't think I could have, reliably. And yet, it's an absolute banger, and bang on trend for the era it was released in. Also, Brenda is a powerhouse. Looking forward to hearing more of her in 1963, pretty please!

Favourite song of the surprisingly listenable even out of season bunch: Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

[performingonline]

Performance for Multi-User Online Environments (Before COVID-19)

I’m Angela Washko and I am currently teaching a course called Performance Art (In The Expanded Field) at Carnegie Mellon University and have recently had to switch to teaching remotely - a switch that comes maybe more naturally to me than others because of my experience participating in the net art community and operating as a performance artist specifically within online environments. Before everyone was forced to work remotely because of an international pandemic, many artists were already thinking about the internet as a context for performance art.  I wanted to put together a resource focused on artists who have been doing the work of thinking about the specificity of virtual spaces as sites for performance and making work mindful of the unique qualities of the contexts they operate in. I hope that this list of works could be a resource for educators and artists who are interested in looking at artworks by individuals who have been thinking very intentionally about performance in networked contexts.

This list includes artists performing for webcam, artists performing in virtual environments, and artists performing for social media. It specifically focuses on performance, and excludes works of net art that do not contain performance-for-the-internet.  The list also primarily focuses on performance works that are made without the use of expensive equipment or access to institutional spaces (although I know there are some exceptions on this list). Also - it is in no way complete or comprehensive! 

*This list does not include the many artists who perform for video and upload their performances online - UNLESS the artist is specifically thinking about engaging with the digital audience and not prioritizing the gallery as a context. 

**Sexually explicit or violent content that may be uncomfortable for some viewers and situations

Annie Abrahams and Emmanuel Guez, Reading Club (video conferencing)

Annie Abrahams, Daniel Pinheiro and Lisa Parra, DistantFeeling(s) (Zoom)

Annie Abrahams, Ruth Catlow, Paolo Cirio, Ursula Endlicher, Nicolas Frespech and Igor Stromajer, Huis Clos / No Exit (video conferencing)

Larry Achiampong & David Blandy, Finding Fanon 2 (Grand Theft Auto V)

Robert Adrian, The World in 24 Hours (networked happening)

LaTurbo Avedon, Visiting Artist Talk (multi platform)

Jeremy Bailey, various performances by Famous New Media Artist Jeremy Bailey (YouTube)

Jeremy Bailey, The You Museum (online advertising banners)

Man Bartlett, 24hr non-Best Buy (Twitter)

Genevieve Belleveau, Gorgeoustaps and The Reality Show (Facebook)

Wafaa Bilal, Domestic Tension (livestream website)

Wafaa Bilal, Virtual Jihadi (Quest for Saddam game)

Mary Bond, autodissociate me (4chan)**

Marco Cadioli, Remap Berlin (Second Life, Google Maps, Twinity)

micha cárdenas, Becoming Dragon (Second Life)

Ruth Catlow and Helen Kaplinsky, Sociality-machine (video conferencing, custom software)

Ruth Catlow, Marc Garrett and Neil Jenkins, VisitorStudio (custom software for online performance)

Jennifer Chan, factum/mirage (Chat Roulette)**

Jennifer Chan, factum/mirage III (Chat Roulette)**

Channel TWo [CH2], barelyLegal (Google Maps)

Corpos Informaticos, Telepresence 2 (telepresence project)

Petra Cortright, VVEBCAM (YouTube)

Jeff Crouse and Aaron Meyes, World Series of ‘Tubing (Competitive YouTube-ing)

James Coupe, General Intellect (Amazon Mechanical Turk)

Joseph DeLappe, dead-in-iraq (America’s Army)

Joseph DeLappe, The Salt Satyagraha Online: Gandhi's March to Dandi in Second Life (Second Life)

Joseph DeLappe, Howl: Elite Force Voyager Online (Elite Force Voyager Online)

Joseph DeLappe, Quake Friends (Quake III Arena)

Kate Durbin, Unfriend Me Now! (Facebook Live)

Kate Durbin, Cloud Nine (Cam4)**

Electronic Disturbance Theater, FloodNet (Java applet)

Entropy8Zuper! (Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn), WIREFIRE (Flash 5)

Entropy8Zuper! (Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn), skinonskinonskin (multi platform)

Jason Eppink, Kickback Starter (website, Kickstarter)

Cao Fei, RMB City (Second Life)

Mary Flanagan, [borders] (Second Life)

Foci + Loci, many projects (Little Big Planet 2)

Ed Fornieles, Dorm Daze (Facebook)

Carla Gannis, C.A.R.L.A G.A.N. (virtual environments and social media platforms)

Riley Harmon, Poser (Andy Warhol’s Grave Livecam)

Amber Hawk Swanson, Sidore (Mark) / Heather > LOLITA (livestream)**

Josh Harris, We Live In Public / Quiet (livestream)

Auriea Harvey, Webcam Movies (webcam)

Ann Hirsch, Scandalishious (YouTube)

Ann Hirsch, horny lil feminist (website)**

Faith Holland, Porn Interventions (RedTube)**

Shawné Michaelain Holloway, a personal project (XTube)**

Shawné Michaelain Holloway, b4bedwithurlbae (Periscope)**

Brian House, Joyride (Google Maps)

Brian House, Tanglr (Google Chrome extension)

E. Jane, E. The Avatar (YouTube, online store)

E. Jane, That time I sold my dreads online (ebay)

JODI, SK8MONKEYS ON TWITTER (Twitter)

Miranda July, Learning to Love You More (website)

Devin Kenny, Untitled/Celfa (webcam performance)

Laura Hyunjhee Kim, The Living Lab (social media, website)

Gelare Khoshgozaran and Nooshin Rostami, Just Like A Disco (webcam)

Gelare Khoshgozaran, Misscommunication (webcam)

Gelare Khoshgozaran, Realms of Observation (Chat Roulette)

Lynn Hershman Leeson, The Dollie Clone Series (webcam livestream)

Olia Lialina, Animated GIF Model (multiple webpages)

Olia Lialina, Self-Portrait (browser)

Olia Lialina, Summer (multiple webpages)

Jordan Wayne Long, Box Shipment #2 (Lord of the Rings Online)

Gretta Louw, Controlling Connectivity (Skype and others)

Low Lives, Virtual Performance Series (livestream)

Michael Mandiberg, Shop Mandiberg (ecommerce site)

Eva and Franco Mattes, Freedom (Counter-Strike Source)

Eva and Franco Mattes, Life Sharing (website)

Eva and Franco Mattes, No Fun (Chat Roulette)**

Eva and Franco Mattes, Re-Enactments (Second Life)

Eva and Franco Mattes, Synthetic Performances (Second Life)

Lauren McCarthy, Follower (artist-made app)

Lauren McCarthy, LAUREN (livestream surveillance)

Lauren McCarthy, Social Turkers (Amazon Mechanical Turk)

Lauren McCarthy, SOMEONE (webcam)

MTAA, 1 year performance video (aka SamHsiehUpdate) (livestream)

Jayson Musson / Hennessy Youngman, Art Thoughtz (YouTube)

Martine Neddam, Mouchette (website)

Mendi and Keith Obadike, Blackness for Sale (ebay)

Marisa Olson, Marisa’s American Idol Training Blog (blog)

Randall Packer & Systaime, #NeWWWorlDisorder (Facebook Live and website)

Sunita Prasad, Sunny & Benny Together Forever (My Free Implants website)

Jon Rafman, Kool Aid Man in Second Life (Second Life)

Bunny Rogers, 9 Years (Second Life)

Stephanie Rothenberg, Invisible Threads (Second Life)

Stephanie Rothenberg, Best Practices In Banana Time (Second Life)

Annina Ruest, A Piece of the Pie Chart (Twitter, webcam)

Annina Ruest, Rock N Scroll (Skype)

Nicole Ruggerio, AR Filters (Instagram)

RaFia Santana, #PAYBLACKTiME (Facebook and Paypal)

Anne-Marie Schleiner, Joan Leandre, Brody Condon, Velvet Strike (Counter-Strike)

Leah Schrager, Sarah White - Naked Therapy (video chat)**

Skawennati, TimeTraveller ™ (Second Life)

Molly Soda, various projects (multi platform)

Georgie Roxby Smith, Fair Game (Grand Theft Auto V)

Georgie Roxby Smith, 99 Problems [Wasted] (Grand Theft Auto V)**

Eddo Stern, Fort Paladin (America’s Army)

Eddo Stern, Runners (Everquest)

Tale of Tales, ABIOGENESIS (Endless Forest)

Third Faction, Demand Player Sovereignty (World of Warcraft)

Toca Loca, Halo Ballet (Halo)

Amalia Ulman, Excellences and Perfections (Instagram, Facebook)

VNS Matrix, Corpusfantastica MOO (MOO - multi-object oriented multi user dungeon)

Addie Wagenknecht & Pablo Garcia, Webcam Venus (sexcam sites)**

Angela Washko, BANGED: A Feminist Artist Interviews the Web’s Most Infamous Misogynist (Skype)

Angela Washko, The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft (World of Warcraft)

Angela Washko, The World of Warcraft Psychogeographical Association (World of Warcraft)

Brett Watanabe, San Andreas Deer Cam (Twitch, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas)

[purplesurveys]

942

“ar_”

ARB Have you ever had strawberry rhubarb pie? Do you like it? I have not. I’m afraid I don’t even entirely know what rhubarb is; I wouldn’t call it a part of Filipino culture. I don’t know if I would like this kind of pie; I prefer my pies more savory than fruity. Do you like carbs a little too much? Yes ma’am. I can’t exist without heaps of rice in every meal. Last garb you wore? The last fancy/formal thing I wore was my business casual look for last Thursday’s interview. I felt a little overdressed arriving at the office because the other applicants just wore a shirt and jeans...but ultimately I think it was better that I looked more prepared than they did lol. Do you know anyone named Barb? There’s a teacher in my old school named Barbie but the other teachers call her Barb. ARC Would you like to see the Arc de Triumphe? Sure.

Are you a narc? That’s not a common slang where I live, but I’m gonna say no. ARD Have you ever read “The Tales of the Beetle and the Bard”? Nope, I’ve never heard of it. Do you have a credit or debit card? Debit. I don’t exactly know how credit cards work just yet, so my dad has kept me from getting one hahahaha. What’s the last card you received? For which holiday? We don’t really exchange cards over here. We tend to go ahead and give physical gifts, no matter how simple it is. I think the last one I received was a birthday card from Athenna, five years ago. That was a different time. What’s something that is hard for you? Letting go. I have serious issues with abandonment and I always feel like it’s the end of the world when someone leaves my life or something I’ve been accustomed to abruptly ends. I’ve never been good at handling all of that. Do you ever feel like a tub of lard? I am almost positive that I’ve never felt like one before. What is in your front yard? How is it landscaped? Just a few plants and a tree that my grandpa planted for my mom shortly before he passed. Last piece of meat that you’ve charred? I’ll get back to this question in a few years where I’ve hopefully learned how to cook a few things, including meat. Have you ever lived with barred windows? No. That sounds awful. Is it easy for you to let your guard down? Just with the right people. Otherwise I prefer keeping a wall up; no one else needs to know who I am behind closed doors. Have you ever cut yourself on a shard of glass? No. Again, sounds like my worst nightmare. This happened to my mom a year ago and I remember being unable to help her because I would’ve proceeded to just faint anyway lmao Favorite barnyard animal? Cows. What do you like to do in your backyard? Cooper loves our backyard, so I bring him there to play and run. He loves staying there so much more than actually walking around the neighborhood, which is a little confusing but still endearing. What do you think of people who use the word “retard”? They’re stuck in the late 2000s and early 2010s and need to be schooled on Twitter as soon as possible lol. Last person you sent warm regards to? The HR person who hooked me up with my internship. What do you tend to disregard? Fake news or people who routinely share fake news, for obvious reasons. Have you ever worn a leotard before? For what? I’ve worn a swimsuit as a leotard, but I’ve never owned a leotard that was meant to be that.

ARF Last time you barfed? I kept hurling last week when I did a lot of crying and had a few breakdowns, but nothing ever came up. The last time I puked would be over a year ago when I was at Pop-Up with friends. Last food you scarfed down? My mom’s burger from last night. Do you rock a fashion scarf? Nah, not really my article of choice. What does your winter scarf look like? I don’t own one. ARK What pair of animals would you like to bring on Noah’s ark? I would try to save as many of them as possible; but in the cruel circumstance that I only have limited choices, I would prioritize stray cats and dogs first as well as cats and dogs in animal shelters. Did you used to watch Arthur the aardvark? I did not watch the show – I’m not sure if they ever aired it here – but I liked reading Arthur books. Those were one of my favorites to read at the library. Have you ever been to a ballpark? No. Well baseball is not a popular sport here so it’s not like we’ve got lots of those, and the few that we have are a little dilapidated due to a lack of interest or support in the sport...we do have a field in my old school that’s designated for our softball games, but it’s hardly a legit softball field. Is your bark worse than your bite? If this is a saying or slang, I don’t know what it means. What’s a personal benchmark of yours? Hmm I know what a benchmark refers to, but I’m not exactly sure of the context in this question. Where is your birthmark? My most distinguishable birthmark is on the upper left region of my back, but I also have one by my butt. I used to have one on my right arm that was green-blue when I was an infant, but now it’s nothing more than a super slight discoloration that is only noticeable if you look hard enough. Do you fold book pages over, or use a bookmark? I remember the page number. I don’t like the gaps that bookmarks create, and I like keeping the pages of my book pristine. Are you afraid of the dark? Only if the context is meant to be scary, like how abandoned houses or forests are dark. I like the dark when I’m trying to fall asleep though. Do you prefer dark or light colors? I prefer neither extreme. I like muted and pastel tones. Last time you disembarked a ship? 2016. Last time you embarked on an adventure? End of February, 2020. Do you celebrate any of the hallmark holidays? Some of them, but I take them seriously a lot less than the actual holidays. I celebrate them primarily because I have people in my life who value those Hallmark holidays, so I greet them so they don’t feel forgotten, like greeting my parents on Mother’s/Father’s Day. If I had it my way I’d ignore those holidays completely, though. Do you watch the Hallmark channel? No. I don’t think we even have that channel here. Do you like the song “Hark The Herald Angels Sing”? I have nothing against it. Which landmark would you like to visit? The pyramids at Giza. Last mark you made on a paper? I made random scribbles because I was just checking if my pen had ink. Do you know anyone named Mark? I don’t think so. No Marks are coming to mind. Have you ever heard a lark sing? Nope. Do you know how to parallel park? Yeah but I’m kind of cheating a bit because I own a really tiny car that fits nearly anywhere ha. What’s your favorite activity to do at the park? We don’t have any public parks...if we did, I imagine I’d have picnics and take my dogs there for long walks. Last postmarked piece of mail you received? I don’t really receive mail of my own. Last person you left a remark for? Idk maybe my dad when I remarked how spicy the sisig he made for dinner was. Do you speak with a lot of snark? Only in private or with my closest friends. I try not to be snarky with workmates. Do you ever have the Baby Shark song stuck in your head? That does happen sometimes, yes. Until today ha. Last time you went around your house stark naked? Oof, I never walk around the entire house naked. I only do so in the bathroom and within my own room. What’s your signature trademark? Everyone knows me as loving Paramore, so maybe that. Does it bother you when there’s a watermark on an image that you want to use? Sometimes yes, sometimes I realize someone took effort for that image and probably just needs to earn a little bit for it. ARL Who did you snarl at last? I don’t snarl a lot these days. Are your fingers gnarled? No. I don’t actually know what this means but my fingers are pretty healthy so I’m guessing it’s not whatever gnarled is. ARM Have you ever broken an arm? Nopes. Do you keep people at an arm’s length? In some ways, like how I refuse to talk about the things I’m going through and I don’t like showing most people that I struggle.

Last time you went to a farm? I’m not sure if I’ve been to one. We drive through fields and farms all the time, in the provinice; but we’ve never actually stopped over and went to a farm. Do you self-harm? Yes. Surprisingly, I haven’t done so this month. But yes, I have in general. What time is your alarm set for? For a while it wasn’t set to anything but now that I have an internship I’ll probably need to set it to at least around 8 AM. Do you own any firearms? No thanks. Would you get a tattoo on your forearm? Sure. Do you have a certain charm about you? Don’t you kind of have to ask other people when it comes to possessing charm? I certainly wouldn’t endorse this myself, lol. Do you need to be disarmed? I have nothing on me, so no. ARN Were you raised in a barn? I was not. I grew up in a house in a suburban-ish neighborhood. Do you use “damn” or “darn” more often? Damn. I’ve never used darn...or if I have, it would’ve been well over a decade ago. Do you knit or crochet with yarn? I don’t crochet or knit. ARP Have you ever caught a carp while fishing? No, I’ve never gone fishing before actually.

Do you like harp seals? I’ve never heard of them until now but it’s an automatic yes for me because they are animals. Would you like to learn how to play the harp? Sure. Name something in your house that is sharp? Keys. Is anything you own covered by a tarp? No. ART Last time you fell apart? This morning. Well, it’s 2 AM now so it’s more accurate to say yesterday morning. Are you good at any sort of art forms? Not at all. I like coloring and painting, but with painting I like those that come with paint-by-number guides. I’m not very creative myself and don’t know for the life of me what colors work together and I’m terrible at creating images. Last place you used a shopping cart? Grocery store, ages ago. Have you ever created a chart in Microsoft Excel? Yes but it’s not my favorite thing in the world to do. Who is your other counterpart? I dunno if I have anyone. Angela, I guess. Do you like to play darts? I’ve never played it but it looks fun and I’m always up for a friendly game. Who’s the last person you departed from? My family, when I left the living room where we were all staying at to go back to my bedroom to resign for the evening. How often do you fart? Never. I don’t like the sensation and if I feel one coming I suppress it lol. No one has heard me do it before, and I don’t plan on making it heard hahahaha How’s your heart been feeling lately? Not well. Is there a K-Mart or a PetSmart where you live? No. Is it easy for you to outsmart a child? Idk man, they can be a little surprise at times. Where is the part in your hair? It’s on the left side. Have you ever gotten a part in a play? No, because I’ve never auditioned for one. Not interested in that kind of activity, either. Last time you had to restart your computer? It’s been a while. Would you consider yourself to be smart? In some ways, like in academics. What trend would you like to start? I don’t feel like starting one. Do you like tarts?     Not very much, but my old school has this trademark tart that I love so much. [a-zebra-is-a-striped-horse]

[ralphlayton]

How to Power Marketing Presentations With Data Visualization & Win Over Your Audience

We’ve all been there. We’re five minutes into (what we thought would be) a riveting, data-driven presentation, yet a quick scan of the room reveals the audience is staring blankly at our data tables as we drone on. Or worse, someone asks a pointed question about what they do or don’t see and the discussion goes completely of course. Yikes. Perhaps the best advice I ever received in this regard was so simple yet incredibly smart: “Try it as a line graph.” I had presented a data-backed presentation and robust recommended next steps, but whether it was boredom or data suspicion that crept in, I failed to make my case. After the weeks I spent looking at a spreadsheet, I took that visionary advice. When the day came to remake my case, that line graph immediately won my critics over. When done thoughtfully, data visualizations have the power to change perspectives, far more quickly than a spreadsheet or bullet points on a slide. Data visualization allows us to take complex or even simple data sets, and present them in a way that allows us to see context, make comparisons, and enable decision-making.  The good news? Giving your data a visual identity is easier than you think.

The Case for Data Visualization

This is going to sound cliché, but we marketers really do have more data at our fingertips than ever before. And visualization is key in order for us to really leverage that data to tell a story and win over our bosses, colleagues, and customers. Here’s a simple example. First, the spreadsheet version: What can you take away from this example in just 5 seconds? 10 seconds? 30 seconds? July 2018 and December 2017 seemed to be big months. There was definitely some growth in the last two years. But how much? Is it consistent? How are we trending? Now, let’s look at this data as a line graph: Whoa! 2018 outperformed 2017 by quite a bit overall. However, 2017 traffic was on the up and up, and that momentum slowed in 2018. With the exception of a mid-year spike, 2018 traffic was flat, and dipped below year-over-year totals by the end of the year. The beauty here? As we prepare to deliver the data to our audience, we can draw some pretty important conclusions at a glance, helping us quickly arrive at what we need to find out next: What caused that big spike in July 2018? Is it an outlier or did we have an effective campaign running? What did the tactical mix look like throughout 2017? What were the top pages contributing to steady growth? Did we make major changes at the beginning of 2018? This not only helps us dig deeper into our data to understand trends and opportunities, but also prepare us to craft a narrative and answer the questions our bosses, colleagues, or clients will undoubtedly have about performance. After all, flashing a spreadsheet and then telling someone traffic is up year-over-year overall but flat month-over-month for the current year is not going to deliver much wow.

How to Get the Storytelling Started with Data Visualization

Creating a narrative, choosing your data set, perfecting your visualization, and adding context are essential for being able to persuade any sort of action or reaction with data. But whether you are using a simple Excel graph or a custom data visualization tool, here are some great tips to get started. 

Tip #1 - Start with your story and frame it for your audience.

Let’s say you’re presenting the results of your most recent marketing campaign to your internal stakeholders. It can be tempting to throw up any data point you can get your hands on, trying to see what sticks. Don’t do that. Your boss probably doesn’t care about how many shares you got on that one blog post or how many seconds someone spent on a video. They care about new prospects, re-engaged prospects, or advocacy. 

Stay laser focused on your objective: What are you trying to achieve with this presentation? A bigger budget? A promotion? A shift in tactics internally? Every data visualization included should tell that story. Too many data points can muddy the narrative and reduce your impact. 

Use your audience’s lens: Focus on the data you know is most important to your audience. Think of previous presentations you’ve done with them. Was there a particular data visualization they loved or one they pushed back on? Edit accordingly. If it’s your first time presenting to this audience, then use what you know based on job titles or culture in your office. 

One mistake it can be easy to make as marketers, is slipping into marketing lingo (e.g. sessions, shares, click-through-rate, bounce-rate). One simple shift if you’re presenting outside of your team, is shift your language to focus on meaningful business metrics. For example:  Instead of saying visitor, say potential prospect. 

Tip #2 - Design for comprehension.

Data visualization is so awesome because it’s able to allow humans to quickly make comparisons and decisions quickly, even with a complex data set.  So create charts with comprehension in mind. If your audience is staring at a graph trying to figure out what it means, they’re probably not listening to your supporting narrative. So make it easy for them to understand. Here are a few things to keep in mind:  Label Everything: This seems straight forward, but nothing is worse than when someone pauses you mid sentence to ask you to clarify your data set. So, label your chart, axes, legend, and so on. Also include a note on time frame and data source. Make sure all labels are visible and not obstructed by other text.  Chart Type: Choose the chart type that most efficiently illustrates your point:

Bar charts are best for comparing discrete values. 

Line charts are intended for a continuous data set.

Pie charts show the element something else is made up of, and are not ideal for comparing values.

Stacked bar charts are best to compare different items and show the composition.

For example, while the pie chart allows us to see a breakdown of traffic sources, the placement of legend, the close color families, and a similar proportion of the individual pieces make it difficult for a true comparison. With the bar chart, however, you can easily see how the traffic sources stack up next to one another.  Color: Incorporating color to help tell your story can be very powerful, but can also lend confusion. A few practical things to consider: 

Don’t choose colors that are low contrast. Consider the fact that you may be presenting on a different monitor and the audience will be further away from the screen. 

Use the same color to represent data from the same grouping or data set (e.g. all points from 2018 are in green and 2019 in yellow.)

Be careful about using colors that have significant meaning on their own (e.g. bright red is always going to set off an alarm bell, whereas green tends to indicate something is good.)

Use accent colors to highlight really key data points. This can draw your audience’s eye immediately and increase comprehension. 

A couple final thoughts here: 

Add call-outs to your slides so you can help your audience understand a data set really quickly (e.g. Sales reached an all time high in June 2019).

Keep your data ordering intuitive such as ordering by value, time period, or alphabetically.

Tip #3 - Create for context.

We should always anticipate, any presentation we create, can and will be passed along for others to consume, without the benefit of our verbal narrative. So, it’s important that your data visualizations have enough context so the impact can be understood with or without verbal support.  What do we mean by context? Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Is this good or bad? What would you expect? This is definitely a frequently asked question from marketers as we are evaluating campaign or channel performance. One of the most important contextual markers you can add to a performance slide is a benchmark from previous data or third-party industry data. 

Why? Data visualization can help us understand the current situation, but they can also help us answer the “why” behind a data set. Context in this situation can reveal hidden insights, which can really change the minds of our audience. For example, let’s say you are charting MQLs over time, now plot that against another variables which may drive fluctuations in MQLs, like website traffic, paid investment or frequency of events. This might help you determine whether overall web traffic is irrelevant, but paid investments are critical.

What should we do next? Now that we understand the context for our data and what is driving it, the next question is what should we do next? Always include next steps related to your data visualization. 

Finally, looking at the same data as in our previous visualizations. This example dives into July 2018, with the added context of 2017. In this graph, we can easily see a spike in social caused our July 2018 increase. Now, we can add a call out to shout out to testing a paid social campaign or a contest that was running at that time. 

Tip #4: Be careful not to mislead your audience.

Data can be really powerful, if used wisely. But if we don’t understand or interpret it properly, it can also drive bad decision making. So as a presenter, definitely do these things to keep your data representation free of misleading information:

Start your key at zero (and keep it consistent): It can be tempting to make that 3% increase look like 50%, but don’t change your scale unless it’s really pertinent to the data set, and then call it out. 

Understand your data: If you (or your team) is pulling data from a tool like Google Analytics or Hubspot, be sure you understand the nuance or context of your data points (e.g. what’s included in that site conversion rate, how you’re categorizing a new user, what is the criteria for SQL versus MQL.)

Include context: Be careful not to omit the context or drivers of the data set you’re aware of, even if they don't necessarily fit your narrative. For example, if you had a great Q3 for leads, but the first half of the year was down, don’t omit that context, just to make Q3 appear better. That context will probably change your tactical mix, investment levels, and next steps. 

Show Don’t Tell

To be really effective marketers, we must review and analyze data in order to make our own decisions about a tweak in tactics or a strategy overhaul. Our ability to illustrate to our colleagues, bosses, and customers how data insights inform our decisions ultimately impacts our ability to move forward with our plans.  So practice! Find that colleague who can review your latest graph and see what their first takeaway is. Do your presentation with a smaller group before you bring to your boss. See what they respond well to or question, and edit accordingly.  Data is power. Data visualization is powerful. [bctt tweet="Data is power. Data visualization is powerful. @Alexis5484 #datavisualization #marketing" username="toprank"] Many marketers aren’t using the data they have to its full potential. Set yourself on a path to better data and analytics utilization with these tips for overcoming common barriers.

The post How to Power Marketing Presentations With Data Visualization & Win Over Your Audience appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

How to Power Marketing Presentations With Data Visualization & Win Over Your Audience published first on yhttps://improfitninja.blogspot.com/

[samuelpboswell]

How to Power Marketing Presentations With Data Visualization & Win Over Your Audience

We’ve all been there. We’re five minutes into (what we thought would be) a riveting, data-driven presentation, yet a quick scan of the room reveals the audience is staring blankly at our data tables as we drone on. Or worse, someone asks a pointed question about what they do or don’t see and the discussion goes completely of course. Yikes. Perhaps the best advice I ever received in this regard was so simple yet incredibly smart: “Try it as a line graph.” I had presented a data-backed presentation and robust recommended next steps, but whether it was boredom or data suspicion that crept in, I failed to make my case. After the weeks I spent looking at a spreadsheet, I took that visionary advice. When the day came to remake my case, that line graph immediately won my critics over. When done thoughtfully, data visualizations have the power to change perspectives, far more quickly than a spreadsheet or bullet points on a slide. Data visualization allows us to take complex or even simple data sets, and present them in a way that allows us to see context, make comparisons, and enable decision-making.  The good news? Giving your data a visual identity is easier than you think.

The Case for Data Visualization

This is going to sound cliché, but we marketers really do have more data at our fingertips than ever before. And visualization is key in order for us to really leverage that data to tell a story and win over our bosses, colleagues, and customers. Here’s a simple example. First, the spreadsheet version: What can you take away from this example in just 5 seconds? 10 seconds? 30 seconds? July 2018 and December 2017 seemed to be big months. There was definitely some growth in the last two years. But how much? Is it consistent? How are we trending? Now, let’s look at this data as a line graph: Whoa! 2018 outperformed 2017 by quite a bit overall. However, 2017 traffic was on the up and up, and that momentum slowed in 2018. With the exception of a mid-year spike, 2018 traffic was flat, and dipped below year-over-year totals by the end of the year. The beauty here? As we prepare to deliver the data to our audience, we can draw some pretty important conclusions at a glance, helping us quickly arrive at what we need to find out next: What caused that big spike in July 2018? Is it an outlier or did we have an effective campaign running? What did the tactical mix look like throughout 2017? What were the top pages contributing to steady growth? Did we make major changes at the beginning of 2018? This not only helps us dig deeper into our data to understand trends and opportunities, but also prepare us to craft a narrative and answer the questions our bosses, colleagues, or clients will undoubtedly have about performance. After all, flashing a spreadsheet and then telling someone traffic is up year-over-year overall but flat month-over-month for the current year is not going to deliver much wow.

How to Get the Storytelling Started with Data Visualization

Creating a narrative, choosing your data set, perfecting your visualization, and adding context are essential for being able to persuade any sort of action or reaction with data. But whether you are using a simple Excel graph or a custom data visualization tool, here are some great tips to get started. 

Tip #1 - Start with your story and frame it for your audience.

Let’s say you’re presenting the results of your most recent marketing campaign to your internal stakeholders. It can be tempting to throw up any data point you can get your hands on, trying to see what sticks. Don’t do that. Your boss probably doesn’t care about how many shares you got on that one blog post or how many seconds someone spent on a video. They care about new prospects, re-engaged prospects, or advocacy. 

Stay laser focused on your objective: What are you trying to achieve with this presentation? A bigger budget? A promotion? A shift in tactics internally? Every data visualization included should tell that story. Too many data points can muddy the narrative and reduce your impact. 

Use your audience’s lens: Focus on the data you know is most important to your audience. Think of previous presentations you’ve done with them. Was there a particular data visualization they loved or one they pushed back on? Edit accordingly. If it’s your first time presenting to this audience, then use what you know based on job titles or culture in your office. 

One mistake it can be easy to make as marketers, is slipping into marketing lingo (e.g. sessions, shares, click-through-rate, bounce-rate). One simple shift if you’re presenting outside of your team, is shift your language to focus on meaningful business metrics. For example:  Instead of saying visitor, say potential prospect. 

Tip #2 - Design for comprehension.

Data visualization is so awesome because it’s able to allow humans to quickly make comparisons and decisions quickly, even with a complex data set.  So create charts with comprehension in mind. If your audience is staring at a graph trying to figure out what it means, they’re probably not listening to your supporting narrative. So make it easy for them to understand. Here are a few things to keep in mind:  Label Everything: This seems straight forward, but nothing is worse than when someone pauses you mid sentence to ask you to clarify your data set. So, label your chart, axes, legend, and so on. Also include a note on time frame and data source. Make sure all labels are visible and not obstructed by other text.  Chart Type: Choose the chart type that most efficiently illustrates your point:

Bar charts are best for comparing discrete values. 

Line charts are intended for a continuous data set.

Pie charts show the element something else is made up of, and are not ideal for comparing values.

Stacked bar charts are best to compare different items and show the composition.

For example, while the pie chart allows us to see a breakdown of traffic sources, the placement of legend, the close color families, and a similar proportion of the individual pieces make it difficult for a true comparison. With the bar chart, however, you can easily see how the traffic sources stack up next to one another.  Color: Incorporating color to help tell your story can be very powerful, but can also lend confusion. A few practical things to consider: 

Don’t choose colors that are low contrast. Consider the fact that you may be presenting on a different monitor and the audience will be further away from the screen. 

Use the same color to represent data from the same grouping or data set (e.g. all points from 2018 are in green and 2019 in yellow.)

Be careful about using colors that have significant meaning on their own (e.g. bright red is always going to set off an alarm bell, whereas green tends to indicate something is good.)

Use accent colors to highlight really key data points. This can draw your audience’s eye immediately and increase comprehension. 

A couple final thoughts here: 

Add call-outs to your slides so you can help your audience understand a data set really quickly (e.g. Sales reached an all time high in June 2019).

Keep your data ordering intuitive such as ordering by value, time period, or alphabetically.

Tip #3 - Create for context.

We should always anticipate, any presentation we create, can and will be passed along for others to consume, without the benefit of our verbal narrative. So, it’s important that your data visualizations have enough context so the impact can be understood with or without verbal support.  What do we mean by context? Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Is this good or bad? What would you expect? This is definitely a frequently asked question from marketers as we are evaluating campaign or channel performance. One of the most important contextual markers you can add to a performance slide is a benchmark from previous data or third-party industry data. 

Why? Data visualization can help us understand the current situation, but they can also help us answer the “why” behind a data set. Context in this situation can reveal hidden insights, which can really change the minds of our audience. For example, let’s say you are charting MQLs over time, now plot that against another variables which may drive fluctuations in MQLs, like website traffic, paid investment or frequency of events. This might help you determine whether overall web traffic is irrelevant, but paid investments are critical.

What should we do next? Now that we understand the context for our data and what is driving it, the next question is what should we do next? Always include next steps related to your data visualization. 

Finally, looking at the same data as in our previous visualizations. This example dives into July 2018, with the added context of 2017. In this graph, we can easily see a spike in social caused our July 2018 increase. Now, we can add a call out to shout out to testing a paid social campaign or a contest that was running at that time. 

Tip #4: Be careful not to mislead your audience.

Data can be really powerful, if used wisely. But if we don’t understand or interpret it properly, it can also drive bad decision making. So as a presenter, definitely do these things to keep your data representation free of misleading information:

Start your key at zero (and keep it consistent): It can be tempting to make that 3% increase look like 50%, but don’t change your scale unless it’s really pertinent to the data set, and then call it out. 

Understand your data: If you (or your team) is pulling data from a tool like Google Analytics or Hubspot, be sure you understand the nuance or context of your data points (e.g. what’s included in that site conversion rate, how you’re categorizing a new user, what is the criteria for SQL versus MQL.)

Include context: Be careful not to omit the context or drivers of the data set you’re aware of, even if they don't necessarily fit your narrative. For example, if you had a great Q3 for leads, but the first half of the year was down, don’t omit that context, just to make Q3 appear better. That context will probably change your tactical mix, investment levels, and next steps. 

Show Don’t Tell

To be really effective marketers, we must review and analyze data in order to make our own decisions about a tweak in tactics or a strategy overhaul. Our ability to illustrate to our colleagues, bosses, and customers how data insights inform our decisions ultimately impacts our ability to move forward with our plans.  So practice! Find that colleague who can review your latest graph and see what their first takeaway is. Do your presentation with a smaller group before you bring to your boss. See what they respond well to or question, and edit accordingly.  Data is power. Data visualization is powerful. [bctt tweet="Data is power. Data visualization is powerful. @Alexis5484 #datavisualization #marketing" username="toprank"] Many marketers aren’t using the data they have to its full potential. Set yourself on a path to better data and analytics utilization with these tips for overcoming common barriers.

The post How to Power Marketing Presentations With Data Visualization & Win Over Your Audience appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

from The SEO Advantages https://www.toprankblog.com/2019/07/data-visualization-marketing-presentations/

[bestseller01]

7 Steps to Creating a Sales Report Your Bosses Will Enjoy Reading

We've all been in gatherings where the team lead exhibits an excessively unpredictable and confounding deals report. Before the finish of the gathering, you by one way or another have less of a thought of how the business group is performing than when the gathering met.

 Since you are a project lead, your organization's officials anticipate that you should keep them informed of how your group is getting along. All things considered, the business division is apparently the motor of the organization. The data you pass on in your business report will, in substantial part, fuel real choices, for example, regardless of whether to cease certain items, increase employing, pay rewards, and that's only the tip of the iceberg. As indicated by Suzanne Paling, creator of The Accidental Sales Manager, "The data in these reports has a basic impact in helping an administrator supervise the accomplishment of the business group and basically the entire organization."

 It is significant that you make clear, brief deals reports that feature the most imperative data your supervisors need to direct your organization far from potholes and on a smooth street to proceeded with development and achievement. Here's the way to do it.

 1. Know Your Audience

 As a project lead, you most likely sit on a pile of data that becomes greater continuously. The majority of this data is applicable to you, yet is it essential for or helpful to your supervisory crew? Before you start to construct your business report, you should initially think about your gathering of people and ask yourself what data they need. This viewpoint will control you as you pick what information to give.

 For instance, the data that premiums your VP of showcasing will be boundlessly not the same as what your CFO searches for. Your VP of promoting needs to know how well your business reps are changing over the leads her group is giving. She will likewise need subtleties on which showcasing efforts are prompting the most elevated transformation rates and have the best ROI. Interestingly, you CFO will need the majority of the significant deals numbers, alongside your costs. He likewise needs precise deals gauges so he can ensure everybody gets paid and the lights remain on.

 Your business report must mirror the requirements of your specific group of onlookers. In the event that it appears as though a ton of work to overhaul your reports for various individuals, the privilege CRM framework can make that procedure simple. (More on this somewhat later.)

 2. Pick the Right Info to Share

 When you distinguish the essential gathering of people of your report, you next need to choose what information will give them a precise picture of how your group is performing and help them settle on the choices to keep their area of expertise or the whole organization on track. Most reports, particularly to upper administration, should respond to these key inquiries:

 Is it accurate to say that you are meeting your business objectives?

 What is your income versus costs for the picked timeframe?

 How did your group's business contrast with past periods (ex: past quarter, earlier year)?

 Which items and administrations are selling the most?

 Which items and administrations are not meeting desires?

 What is your business estimate for the following month/quarter/year?

 What are key territories for circumstances? Do you have to separate a region or request official help to close a major record?

 What are key difficulties? Is it an opportunity to pull over from a domain or product offering?

 The majority of this data may not be essential for each report you make, particularly in the event that you are introducing to a solitary division head who may just be keen on a thin field of data. In any case, offering an increasingly extensive picture of offers execution is frequently superior to giving too little data.

 3. Settle on a Time Period

 Is it true that you are going to share every one of your business numbers from the origin of your organization? That would be a quite robust report. Rather, make sense of what timespan you need to concentrate on. Is this a week by week report, a month to month report, a quarterly report, or a year-end survey? The period of time will help decide the focal point of the report.

 For instance, a yearly report will enable you to audit bigger patterns in your industry, client purchasing propensities, just as the aftereffects of significant promoting activities, new item move outs, and regular variances. Picking a particular timespan will likewise enable you to perform progressively exact period-to-period examinations.

 4. Pick the Right Visuals

 In each heap of information you can mine numerous imperative, noteworthy diamonds, however you can't expect your supervisory group to snatch a pickaxe and begin burrowing. The manner in which you choose to pass on data is similarly as vital as the data itself. The essential capacity of a decent deals report is to pass on data in a way that is effectively reasonable, absorbable, and noteworthy.

 When you start aggregating numbers, ask yourself, "In what manner can I grandstand a vital point in the most ideal way that could be available?" A reference chart may complete a superior occupation of appearing much offers of your lead item have expanded in the course of the most recent five years than basically putting the numbers into a table. Or on the other hand, possibly a pie diagram is the clearest method for appearing every item adds to your general deals numbers.

 Outwardly making your information isn't just about making your business report look lovely. It's tied in with making the data drawing in and straightforward. Your supervisory crew doesn't have room schedule-wise to filter for jewels of data, so don't make them.

 5. Accumulate Your Data

 You can't manufacture a strong deals report or act without solid data. Notwithstanding the span of your organization or your specific industry, you need a hearty CRM framework to catch, track, channel, and help you break down the majority of this data before you can place it into your report. Ensure your CRM framework has abilities explicitly intended to help you rapidly and effectively assembled exceptionally engaged and convincing deals reports.

 For instance, utilize a dashboard format that mechanizes the association of your most critical deals measurements, including a Sales Executive Dashboard. You should structure and customize your dashboard to make reports custom-made for various office heads. Get a bird eye perspective in your group's business execution after some time, or delve down into the quick and dirty.

 Regardless of whether your CEO needs you to exhibit a 10-minute year-to-date audit of offers for another financial specialist, or your VP of advertising requests multi day-long plunge into the subtleties of the most recent showcasing effort results, utilize your CRM to rapidly and effectively plan the reports you need.

 6. Cut Out the Fluff

 When you receive a strong CRM, you access a remarkable measure of data. It will be anything but difficult to audit each part of your business mechanical assembly with absolute attention to detail. These are ground-breaking capacities for you, the team lead, however your CEO most likely doesn't have to know what number of calls every one of your business reps made yesterday.

 It might entice stuff your business report with however much data as could reasonably be expected, yet fight the temptation to suffocate your managers in the subtleties. You will probably give the supervisory crew a reasonable and brief report that gives them just the data they really need to make a move.

 7. Include Context

 Numbers can never recount the full story, and information can likewise be controlled or confused. Your duty to your supervisory group isn't simply to hand over information; it is likewise to put the numbers into setting. Did by and large deals go down a month ago? That could be an unnerving measurement to your CEO—until you clarify that a noteworthy typhoon discouraged deals in your best selling region and that you anticipate that those clients should purchase this month. Ensure you include setting in your report with the goal that your group can accurately distinguish genuine patterns.

 Master tip: Your supervisory group doesn't have so much understanding into your business task as you do. Consider including a couple of useful or positive contextual investigations to your answer to demonstrate your chiefs what's going on the ground or to feature incredible work by colleagues.

 A New Kind of Sales Report

 The developing intricacy of the business world, alongside the expanding abilities of CRM frameworks, implies that you can't get by with similar deals reports your ancestors utilized. Nowadays you approach a tremendous measure of information, and you should figure out how to come it down into a useful and helpful deals report for your bustling official group.

 It might appear to be a major errand, however make sure to consider first who the report is for. Consider the data they have to act, and place that into your report. Pick a timeframe and make sense of how best to plainly pass on the data. Your CRM framework will help you rapidly maneuver your data into a smooth report. Take out information that isn't fundamental, and include any extra setting that recounts the story behind the numbers. Also, there you have it: An excellent report that educates, clears up, and awes your higher-ups.

[careergrowthblog]

Saffron Walden County High School: An exemplary school. The Learning Rainforest made real.

Last week I spent a day visiting Saffron Walden County High School in the North-West corner of Essex.  This was the result of a conversation with Head and CEO, Caroline Derbyshire who suggested that I should consider writing a ‘Learning Rainforest in Action’ follow-up book.  Having read the original book, Caroline felt that SWCHS embodied many of the ideas in it – so I went along to see for myself.

It wasn’t the first time I had been to SWCHS – I’ve had the pleasure of visiting several times in the last 10 years, including the visit that resulted in writing one of my all-time most-read blogs ‘Making Feedback Count: “Close the Gap”   which features the feedback system the school was developing at the time.  A key element of that visit was a superb CPD session with a carousel of departmental workshops coordinated by Polly Lankester who is now Associate Headteacher.

On my latest visit I had the privilege of observing 21 different lessons on a day-long tour supported by various members of the leadership team.  It was wonderful.  I can safely say that SWCHS is one of the best schools I’ve ever seen, in any sector.

It would be tempting to attribute this to the advantages the school enjoys:  it’s an extremely nice part of the country to live in; teachers want to live in the area, they stay and invest in the community; it’s near Cambridge so there’s a pool of fresh talent from the PGCE courses there; the school has had a benefactor who funded building an exceptional concert hall facility, Saffron Hall, run as a professional arts venue on site.  The school’s size and locality enables it to recruit a very large Sixth Form of 600 students (impressively, the school has only recently started taking about moving from  GCSE 4s to 5s as the entry requirements: strive for 5 is the mantra! ; It’s a very comprehensive Sixth From compared to many schools and their ALPS 2 suggests they’re doing a great job!).

But these advantages don’t come close to explaining the quality of the experience students are getting there.  Dare I say, the reasons align with the elements of my Learning Rainforest analogy:

Establishing the conditions:  I’d say that the school provides optimum working conditions for staff.  It feels like a wonderful place to work. The physical environment is fabulous but there’s a palpable spirit of professional trust, extensive investment in CPD and the best in-school coffee shop you’ll ever see! Certainly in a state school.  Stability in staffing is very high – but this has been crafted, worked at – it doesn’t just happen.  Recruiting and retaining great teachers isn’t taken for granted and a lot of effort goes into supporting the teaching school and other alliances.  They also offer a superb curriculum with a clever blend of breadth and depth, using Year 9 as a bridging year leading into a wide range of options.

Building Knowledge:  The quality of teaching is brilliant.  It’s rare to see such sustained quality over a day visiting lessons; each teacher brimming with subject expertise; each presenting a sense of drive and purpose, matching very high expectations of students with expert lesson structures engaging all students in a rigorous, inspiring learning process.

The school’s emphasis on research-engagement has yielded superb practice linked to retrieval practice, modelling and feedback.  At a lunchtime meeting with curriculum leaders, I was struck by the thoughtful evaluation of their practice and the way they’re seeking to continually develop their curriculum and pedagogy to embrace the learning from research, reading and their own enquiry work.

Exploring the possibilities:  The school provides exceptional extra-curricular opportunities through trips and visits, visiting artists and so on – but the possibilities are largely evidenced in lessons.  I saw some of the best drama lessons I’ve ever seen, probably the best KS3 technology work I’ve ever seen and multiple examples of A level teaching where students were firmly in the driving seat.  The sixth form is big because its quality attracts students to join – there’s a virtuous spiral of success fuelling success.

All of this emerges from a deliberate blend of systems and culture. There’s a rigour to everything with intelligent systems – including the assessment regime I described in an earlier post: The Ideal Assessment Tracking Regime? The school has high expectations of staff, for sure. But the culture allows the systems to deliver. It’s the kind of school you want to be in to teach, to lead, to express yourself.   Of course, it’s not perfect. They have some achievement issues to address; some further gaps to close.  Not everything lines up perfectly at once and, despite their successes, they’re fully aware of where further improvements lie.  That’s the sign of a great school: always ambitious for further success.

To bring all this alive, here are some nuggets from the lessons I observed:

English Y7:   Students were engaging with a range of new words such as indolently, impertinently .. used in sentences. The task was to infer their meaning from the context. There was a superb follow-up Q&A where the teacher explored their answers and consolidated the correct meanings.

Physics Y12:  A classic demo lesson and whole-class experiment:  measuring bullet velocity with an air-rifle and air track, applying conservation of momentum. I used to do this one myself over 30 years ago – I love how stable the physics curriculum is!

Computing. Y9:  In a bookwork lesson,  away from computers, students were working on code for a PIN number verification routine, explaining and checking each other’s solutions. The peer supported problem-solving going on around the class was impressive.

Drama Y9: An exceptional lesson featuring a devised piece rehearsal:  three groups formed circles rotating to bring each student to the front in turn, with everyone else mimicking the central speaker –  a range of accents, characters, personal stories. This was followed by a machine/rap ‘families’ choral piece and other elements with students working towards an imminent performance.  I was so impressed by the discipline, expectations, trust, rigour… and the time given to repetition and practice.  Notably, the drama teacher was about to head off to a 2-day residential theatre trip with her A level students to see three shows in London.

Maths Y9:  Applying area in problem solving using algebra.  A well-pitched balance of stretch and practice; modelled and checked in the detail.  Great maths teaching.

History GCSE:  Planning for source question on suffragettes:  There was a big focus on securing the relevant knowledge and on retrieval practice: knowing the facts.  A3 sheets of annotated pie charts were used cleverly as a device to identity the relative effects of different factors.  I also loved the macro timeline reinforcement….students had impressive recall across the Power and People theme: 1170 to present; Magna Carta to Brixton Riots.

  Art Y11:  Students were making superb clay heads or teapots… extended pieces using a range of new 3D skills, working towards their mock exam.  Supporting portfolios were excellent and the ambition, high expectations, support for creative exploration and the intensity in the process/work rate were hugely impressive.  The ‘close the gap’ feedback system was still going strong.

Graphics Y11:  Interestingly, a recent switch to the Art and Design spec moving from old-style DT design portfolios to art portfolios was making it more much more creative. Students were exploring shapes with a link to natural forms to inform a design brief for an outdoor structure.  I remarked on the quality of an exemplar project displayed on the wall.  It belonged to the student next to me who was beaming.. it was stunning.

PE: Y7 basketball : An expert blend of group practice, whole class instruction with student modelling, then more practice –with all students involved! One student’s enthusiastic demo of a dribble technique was lovely – in answer to the question ‘why do we need to use that method?’, he showed how it could go wrong if you didn’t use it. Metacognition in PE – brilliant.

Drama Y7…This lesson showed how a curriculum platform is built enabling the Y9 lesson seen earlier to be so good.   Here, one group was in the centre with everyone acting as audience offering critique. Again the lesson was characterised by challenge, structure, expectation with tons of feedback; a blend of disciplined creative thinking.

Psychology Y13 : An essay planning  lesson; highly synoptic, with the teacher guiding discussion, bringing together different points, modelling how to make links.  The was excellent probing questioning (my favourite thing in teaching)  linking knowledge to essay technique i.e. linking specific studies to the particular question.  It was notable how students had the option to use laptops for notes in a high-trust grown-up manner.

History Y13: Russia: A  small group activity to prepare a set of annotated images of Soviet art to share as a revision tool – the question being the extent to which the images represented reality.  There was  impressive harnessing of student agency, discussing ideas, making notes, sharing.. collaborating with links to the bigger question about the success of establishing a socialist society 1917-41. Again, I was impressed with what students knew and how the task supported them in probing deeper.

Percussion Workshop:  Part of the day included observing the visiting So Percussion ensemble who were there to run a workshop with a  group of 20+ Year 9s  for three days. In the workshop students were involved in a rule-based composition activity taking turns for a practical hands-on marimba lesson, the plan being for them to contribute to a public concert on the Friday.

Geology Y13:  So great to see Geology A level going strong! Here the class were going somewhat off-piste, using desks to model a geological event– making a fissure and linking this to the pressure/forces and the flow of magma.  Great stuff!

English Y13:  A fascinating discussion of gender, with students forming a schema around polarities, organising ideas on standard gender characteristics as students volunteered them.  This fed into a process contrasting and applying these identities to central characters in The Duchess of Malfi: a superb blend of teacher instruction and group discussion.

Business Y13: The topic was critical path analysis.  Students were using the idea of making tea to explore how far you can go to specify step by step processes. As elsewhere, the teacher-student rapport was wonderful.

English Y11:  Lord of the Flies. Revisiting the text for the first time after studying it in Year 10, students were looking at how to deploy quotations, reviewing prior knowledge and undertaking a keyword check:  eg microcosm, allegory… – a great example of allowing all students to think, explore their own recall and understanding and then check.

Textiles Y8:  A double lesson forming part of a week on/week off rotation with food tech and wider rotation with resistant materials.  For a relatively short dose of textiles, the expectations and outcomes were fabulous.  Very well structured booklets drive the curriculum with ‘close the gap’ improvements shown.  In the lesson all students were at sewing machines making batik cushions and the mini-portfolios made for homework were superb.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen KS3 DT homework this good.

Spanish Y10. This lesson exemplified so many aspects of what I regard as great MFL teaching.  The activities got everyone speaking; the key structures were being repeated, reinforced, practised. All class instructions were given in Spanish, with lots of teacher talk in Spanish. The focus was on revision of the language to develop opinion and included the retrieval practice game: Quiz, Quiz, Trade… cleverly allowing all students to be involved simultaneously in practising and checking each other’s understanding.  Magnífico!

French Y10:  Another great MFL lesson featuring a tic-tac-toe game to rehearse pronunciation.  Again instructions were predominantly in French for a task that supported the rehearsal of vocabulary; the teacher intervened to reinforce key pronunciation. Attention to detail!  Students had an impressive knowledge organiser booklet with all the key phrases organised lesson by lesson; they explained how they learn phrases by a combination of practice and testing themselves.

Y9 Physics:  Great teacher demo of Newton’s laws involving with trolleys for people to stand on moving in opposite direction;  good emphasis on making sure students distinguish weight vs mass.  This was followed-up with remote control car on a surface moving in opposite directions. Here we had a term one NQT doing a great job balancing developing skills of behaviour management with developing the teaching of the subject. And it says a lot about SWCHS that they have such confidence in their NQTs and the support they get to allow visitors in to see their lessons.

Y8 Geography:  Students were looking at GDP/capita  vs life expectancy.  The graph plotting is challenging providing an important reminder of the attainment range in the school; students operate within a palpable ‘teach to the top’ ethos that permeates the school. In classic Rosenshine style, there was lots of supervised guided practice as the teacher circulated.

I hope the details shared here go someway to illustrate the Learning Rainforest: superb conditions, deep knowledge, exciting possibilities.  Culture and systems. Rigour. Teaching to the top.  Teaching for memory and recall.  And Joy, Awe and Wonder in plentiful supply.  SWCHS is a truly wonderful school that many could learn from.  I hope they’re prepared for the visit requests! Thanks to Caroline, Polly, Cathy, Matt, Angela and Graham for your hospitality.  I know how proud you and your colleagues are of the school and everything you’ve achieved.  And thanks especially to all the SWCHS teachers who welcomed me into your classrooms so openly.  Excellence like this doesn’t happen by magic. You’ve all created something very special.

Rainforest Image:  Taken from SWCHS corridor art display. 

Saffron Walden County High School: An exemplary school. The Learning Rainforest made real. published first on https://medium.com/@KDUUniversityCollege

[careergrowthblog]

Saffron Walden County High School: An exemplary school. The Learning Rainforest made real.

Last week I spent a day visiting Saffron Walden County High School in the North-West corner of Essex.  This was the result of a conversation with Head and CEO, Caroline Derbyshire who suggested that I should consider writing a ‘Learning Rainforest in Action’ follow-up book.  Having read the original book, Caroline felt that SWCHS embodied many of the ideas in it – so I went along to see for myself.

It wasn’t the first time I had been to SWCHS – I’ve had the pleasure of visiting several times in the last 10 years, including the visit that resulted in writing one of my all-time most-read blogs ‘Making Feedback Count: “Close the Gap”   which features the feedback system the school was developing at the time.  A key element of that visit was a superb CPD session with a carousel of departmental workshops coordinated by Polly Lankester who is now Associate Headteacher.

On my latest visit I had the privilege of observing 21 different lessons on a day-long tour supported by various members of the leadership team.  It was wonderful.  I can safely say that SWCHS is one of the best schools I’ve ever seen, in any sector.

It would be tempting to attribute this to the advantages the school enjoys:  it’s an extremely nice part of the country to live in; teachers want to live in the area, they stay and invest in the community; it’s near Cambridge so there’s a pool of fresh talent from the PGCE courses there; the school has had a benefactor who funded building an exceptional concert hall facility, Saffron Hall, run as a professional arts venue on site.  The school’s size and locality enables it to recruit a very large Sixth Form of 600 students (impressively, the school has only recently started taking about moving from  GCSE 4s to 5s as the entry requirements: strive for 5 is the mantra! ; It’s a very comprehensive Sixth From compared to many schools and their ALPS 2 suggests they’re doing a great job!).

But these advantages don’t come close to explaining the quality of the experience students are getting there.  Dare I say, the reasons align with the elements of my Learning Rainforest analogy:

Establishing the conditions:  I’d say that the school provides optimum working conditions for staff.  It feels like a wonderful place to work. The physical environment is fabulous but there’s a palpable spirit of professional trust, extensive investment in CPD and the best in-school coffee shop you’ll ever see! Certainly in a state school.  Stability in staffing is very high – but this has been crafted, worked at – it doesn’t just happen.  Recruiting and retaining great teachers isn’t taken for granted and a lot of effort goes into supporting the teaching school and other alliances.  They also offer a superb curriculum with a clever blend of breadth and depth, using Year 9 as a bridging year leading into a wide range of options.

Building Knowledge:  The quality of teaching is brilliant.  It’s rare to see such sustained quality over a day visiting lessons; each teacher brimming with subject expertise; each presenting a sense of drive and purpose, matching very high expectations of students with expert lesson structures engaging all students in a rigorous, inspiring learning process.

The school’s emphasis on research-engagement has yielded superb practice linked to retrieval practice, modelling and feedback.  At a lunchtime meeting with curriculum leaders, I was struck by the thoughtful evaluation of their practice and the way they’re seeking to continually develop their curriculum and pedagogy to embrace the learning from research, reading and their own enquiry work.

Exploring the possibilities:  The school provides exceptional extra-curricular opportunities through trips and visits, visiting artists and so on – but the possibilities are largely evidenced in lessons.  I saw some of the best drama lessons I’ve ever seen, probably the best KS3 technology work I’ve ever seen and multiple examples of A level teaching where students were firmly in the driving seat.  The sixth form is big because its quality attracts students to join – there’s a virtuous spiral of success fuelling success.

All of this emerges from a deliberate blend of systems and culture. There’s a rigour to everything with intelligent systems – including the assessment regime I described in an earlier post: The Ideal Assessment Tracking Regime? The school has high expectations of staff, for sure. But the culture allows the systems to deliver. It’s the kind of school you want to be in to teach, to lead, to express yourself.   Of course, it’s not perfect. They have some achievement issues to address; some further gaps to close.  Not everything lines up perfectly at once and, despite their successes, they’re fully aware of where further improvements lie.  That’s the sign of a great school: always ambitious for further success.

To bring all this alive, here are some nuggets from the lessons I observed:

English Y7:   Students were engaging with a range of new words such as indolently, impertinently .. used in sentences. The task was to infer their meaning from the context. There was a superb follow-up Q&A where the teacher explored their answers and consolidated the correct meanings.

Physics Y12:  A classic demo lesson and whole-class experiment:  measuring bullet velocity with an air-rifle and air track, applying conservation of momentum. I used to do this one myself over 30 years ago – I love how stable the physics curriculum is!

Computing. Y9:  In a bookwork lesson,  away from computers, students were working on code for a PIN number verification routine, explaining and checking each other’s solutions. The peer supported problem-solving going on around the class was impressive.

Drama Y9: An exceptional lesson featuring a devised piece rehearsal:  three groups formed circles rotating to bring each student to the front in turn, with everyone else mimicking the central speaker –  a range of accents, characters, personal stories. This was followed by a machine/rap ‘families’ choral piece and other elements with students working towards an imminent performance.  I was so impressed by the discipline, expectations, trust, rigour… and the time given to repetition and practice.  Notably, the drama teacher was about to head off to a 2-day residential theatre trip with her A level students to see three shows in London.

Maths Y9:  Applying area in problem solving using algebra.  A well-pitched balance of stretch and practice; modelled and checked in the detail.  Great maths teaching.

History GCSE:  Planning for source question on suffragettes:  There was a big focus on securing the relevant knowledge and on retrieval practice: knowing the facts.  A3 sheets of annotated pie charts were used cleverly as a device to identity the relative effects of different factors.  I also loved the macro timeline reinforcement….students had impressive recall across the Power and People theme: 1170 to present; Magna Carta to Brixton Riots.

  Art Y11:  Students were making superb clay heads or teapots… extended pieces using a range of new 3D skills, working towards their mock exam.  Supporting portfolios were excellent and the ambition, high expectations, support for creative exploration and the intensity in the process/work rate were hugely impressive.  The ‘close the gap’ feedback system was still going strong.

Graphics Y11:  Interestingly, a recent switch to the Art and Design spec moving from old-style DT design portfolios to art portfolios was making it more much more creative. Students were exploring shapes with a link to natural forms to inform a design brief for an outdoor structure.  I remarked on the quality of an exemplar project displayed on the wall.  It belonged to the student next to me who was beaming.. it was stunning.

PE: Y7 basketball : An expert blend of group practice, whole class instruction with student modelling, then more practice –with all students involved! One student’s enthusiastic demo of a dribble technique was lovely – in answer to the question ‘why do we need to use that method?’, he showed how it could go wrong if you didn’t use it. Metacognition in PE – brilliant.

Drama Y7…This lesson showed how a curriculum platform is built enabling the Y9 lesson seen earlier to be so good.   Here, one group was in the centre with everyone acting as audience offering critique. Again the lesson was characterised by challenge, structure, expectation with tons of feedback; a blend of disciplined creative thinking.

Psychology Y13 : An essay planning  lesson; highly synoptic, with the teacher guiding discussion, bringing together different points, modelling how to make links.  The was excellent probing questioning (my favourite thing in teaching)  linking knowledge to essay technique i.e. linking specific studies to the particular question.  It was notable how students had the option to use laptops for notes in a high-trust grown-up manner.

History Y13: Russia: A  small group activity to prepare a set of annotated images of Soviet art to share as a revision tool – the question being the extent to which the images represented reality.  There was  impressive harnessing of student agency, discussing ideas, making notes, sharing.. collaborating with links to the bigger question about the success of establishing a socialist society 1917-41. Again, I was impressed with what students knew and how the task supported them in probing deeper.

Percussion Workshop:  Part of the day included observing the visiting So Percussion ensemble who were there to run a workshop with a  group of 20+ Year 9s  for three days. In the workshop students were involved in a rule-based composition activity taking turns for a practical hands-on marimba lesson, the plan being for them to contribute to a public concert on the Friday.

Geology Y13:  So great to see Geology A level going strong! Here the class were going somewhat off-piste, using desks to model a geological event– making a fissure and linking this to the pressure/forces and the flow of magma.  Great stuff!

English Y13:  A fascinating discussion of gender, with students forming a schema around polarities, organising ideas on standard gender characteristics as students volunteered them.  This fed into a process contrasting and applying these identities to central characters in The Duchess of Malfi: a superb blend of teacher instruction and group discussion.

Business Y13: The topic was critical path analysis.  Students were using the idea of making tea to explore how far you can go to specify step by step processes. As elsewhere, the teacher-student rapport was wonderful.

English Y11:  Lord of the Flies. Revisiting the text for the first time after studying it in Year 10, students were looking at how to deploy quotations, reviewing prior knowledge and undertaking a keyword check:  eg microcosm, allegory… – a great example of allowing all students to think, explore their own recall and understanding and then check.

Textiles Y8:  A double lesson forming part of a week on/week off rotation with food tech and wider rotation with resistant materials.  For a relatively short dose of textiles, the expectations and outcomes were fabulous.  Very well structured booklets drive the curriculum with ‘close the gap’ improvements shown.  In the lesson all students were at sewing machines making batik cushions and the mini-portfolios made for homework were superb.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen KS3 DT homework this good.

Spanish Y10. This lesson exemplified so many aspects of what I regard as great MFL teaching.  The activities got everyone speaking; the key structures were being repeated, reinforced, practised. All class instructions were given in Spanish, with lots of teacher talk in Spanish. The focus was on revision of the language to develop opinion and included the retrieval practice game: Quiz, Quiz, Trade… cleverly allowing all students to be involved simultaneously in practising and checking each other’s understanding.  Magnífico!

French Y10:  Another great MFL lesson featuring a tic-tac-toe game to rehearse pronunciation.  Again instructions were predominantly in French for a task that supported the rehearsal of vocabulary; the teacher intervened to reinforce key pronunciation. Attention to detail!  Students had an impressive knowledge organiser booklet with all the key phrases organised lesson by lesson; they explained how they learn phrases by a combination of practice and testing themselves.

Y9 Physics:  Great teacher demo of Newton’s laws involving with trolleys for people to stand on moving in opposite direction;  good emphasis on making sure students distinguish weight vs mass.  This was followed-up with remote control car on a surface moving in opposite directions. Here we had a term one NQT doing a great job balancing developing skills of behaviour management with developing the teaching of the subject. And it says a lot about SWCHS that they have such confidence in their NQTs and the support they get to allow visitors in to see their lessons.

Y8 Geography:  Students were looking at GDP/capita  vs life expectancy.  The graph plotting is challenging providing an important reminder of the attainment range in the school; students operate within a palpable ‘teach to the top’ ethos that permeates the school. In classic Rosenshine style, there was lots of supervised guided practice as the teacher circulated.

I hope the details shared here go someway to illustrate the Learning Rainforest: superb conditions, deep knowledge, exciting possibilities.  Culture and systems. Rigour. Teaching to the top.  Teaching for memory and recall.  And Joy, Awe and Wonder in plentiful supply.  SWCHS is a truly wonderful school that many could learn from.  I hope they’re prepared for the visit requests! Thanks to Caroline, Polly, Cathy, Matt, Angela and Graham for your hospitality.  I know how proud you and your colleagues are of the school and everything you’ve achieved.  And thanks especially to all the SWCHS teachers who welcomed me into your classrooms so openly.  Excellence like this doesn’t happen by magic. You’ve all created something very special.

Rainforest Image:  Taken from SWCHS corridor art display. 

Saffron Walden County High School: An exemplary school. The Learning Rainforest made real. published first on https://medium.com/@KDUUniversityCollege