Jeneral finds of the week: 2015-10-17

The Blue Jays, a great resource to up your presentation slide creation skills, a thoughtful explainer from a woman who traditionally votes Conservative and why she isn’t this election, and how efforts for inclusion will ultimately make Canada more successful – on this week’s Jeneral finds, 2015-10-17

  • Yes! The love affair continues!! On Wednesday the Blue Jays did the statistically improbable and beat the Texas Rangers 6 to 3 in the 5th and deciding game of the ALDS playoff series (after they had lost the first two games of the series). The city has just lost its mind. The thing that will be remembered is the crazy 7th inning. This piece by Cathal Kelly in the G&M sums up the game perfectly, “The Blue Jays have finally broken Toronto’s sports curse“. Yesterday’s result in the series opener against Kansas City wasn’t what fans were looking for (a 0-5 loss), but there’s still lots of baseball to go yet. Go Jays!
  • “Slidedoc (n.) a visual document, developed in presentation software, that is intended to be read and referenced instead of projected”. This term is coined by Nancy Duarte, and I am oddly gratified to now have a more appropriate term to describe what I generate at work for half my days. This free online resource/ebook created by Nancy Duarte is wonderful, and I am inspired to follow these principles to generate more useful and visually appealing slidedocs going forward. I highly recommend this for anyone who generates a lot of content-heavy work via presentation slides (aka slide jockeys).

  • This is a great post by an Albertan who traditionally votes Conservative, but is not for this election. “Lord help me, I just voted for a Trudeau”. May this resonate with other traditionally Conservative voters.
  • I am such a fan of Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi. I’ve been impressed with every encounter I’ve had with him via the media – he’s able to communicate in full paragraphs instead of merely soundbites. This piece in the Globe and Mail is an excerpt from a speech he gave earlier this fall, “Divided, Canada stands to lose what makes it great“. He starts with his own personal story as part of an immigrant Ismaili family and how the community’s acts of inclusion helped make him a successful today. This is in contrast to the divisive policies that are being spouted today to help “protect us” from radicalized Muslim youth. Such a worthwhile read, and inspires me to be optimistic and try to make my own small difference. This is what a great leader *should* do. So evaluate if the leader of the party you are voting for on Oct 19 does the same for you.

~Jen

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