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Yesterday I shared examples of some interesting ways to visually present complex ideas or concepts. When presenting or sharing your ideas with others it’s often necessary to give a speech or presentation at the same time. Having a great idea is the first step, but getting others to understand and appreciate it is when the ideas really gets its power.

I don’t know about you but giving a presentation is not everyone’s favourite activity. I’ve done a few and with enough time for preparation and practice I do get kick out of it. Here is a great little video (4 minutes) from Francisco Dao for INC.com that give some really great tips on giving the best presentation you can. I also subscribe to Lisa B Marshall’s The Public Speaker Quick and Dirty Tips podcast through iTunes. This is a great resource and Lisa offers really good practical advice.

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All thinkers, creators and innovators need to be able to share their ideas with others in order to give them value and life.

As the saying goes: “A picture is worth a thousand words”. Yes, mostly true. Here are ways of communicating complex ideas that have caught my eye recently.

• Complex concepts explained in a few words. NEW MATH by Craig Damrauer

• Telling one story well (though this may be a case of using statistics to suit a purpose…).

• And finally, explaining REALLY big things such as the US Stimulus package. See the full series of illustrations at Life of HOK

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• Give your ideas power
• An Archive for Ideas
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In my last post a suggested some ways to innovate in a down economy. Two suggestions I made was to Observe and to Collect Ideas, but I should’ve  also added Share.

In that spirit I’d invite you to take a look at the following article which presents 10 actions for better (sustainable) design.

Allan Chochinov, editor-in-chief at Core 77, was a speaker at Compostmodern on Saturday, and presented some great steps for designers. He calls them “Denting an Impossible Design Problem in 10 Sustainable Steps.”

While these are intended to apply to sustainable design I think that they are equally applicable to any project requiring creative thinking. Allan’s steps were:

1. Acknowledge the privilege you have as a designer.
2. Use the word “consequence”.
3. Question authority.
4. Surround yourself with the awesomest people you can.
5. Don’t play fair.
6. Be intentionally dumb.
7. Redistribute – then reduce, reuse, and recycle.
8. Broaden your market.
9. Indulge in discursive design.
10. Talk to anyone who will listen.

For an expanded commentary of the ten steps take a look at the TreeHugger article.

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