“When a man imagines, even after years of striving, that he has attained perfection, his decline begins.�
Sir Theodore Martin (1816 - 1909) Scottish poet

This week I was attending a seminar on presenting and pondering the idea of “mastery� and the well established ideas of improving in a skill from ‘unconsciously in-competent’ to ‘unconsciously competent’ in the following stages:
 
Unconsciously in-competent
Here the student is unaware that they are unskilled, possibly unaware that there is even a skill to develop. Most of our presenters initially fall into this category; they are all extremely well practiced at using bullet points and are unaware that there is a better method. They are not stupid people, they just haven’t been exposed to the ideas or seen a presentation using Visual Cognitive Dissonance™ and therefore have the wrong scale for comparison.
 
Consciously in-competent
In this stage are those people who have seen a really good visual presentation and are finally aware of their own short comings. Often they know what they want to achieve but do not understand the skills needed for it. Most of the delegates on our training courses are in this category.
 
Consciously competent
In this stage the student knows what to do but it needs practice, this is why our training course includes so much standing up and presenting. We are teaching new skills and they need practicing until they become second nature. There is no quick fix, we can make a clients presentation 100 times better by structuring the content and then designing the information flow to maximise the Mnemonic properties of the presentation but at the end of the day it’s the presenter not us who has to stand up and use the slides.
 
Unconsciously competent
The final stage of the original model developed by the Noel Birch of The Gordon Training Organisation in the 70’s called ‘The Four Stages for Learning Any New Skill’ is when the student has mastered the skill so completely that it is second nature to them. They no longer have to think about performing the skill.
According to the seminar I attended last week the 5^th stage is “Mastery� which is presumably total familiarity with all the nuances of the skill. But the debate about the 5^th stage of the learning model rages long and loud in education circles, is the 5^th stage Mastery and is it desirable?
The arguments on the blogs and discussion forums seem to poll around either total mastery is a good thing since it shows total competence or that this breeds complacency and is the antithesis to Continuous Improvement.
I am in the later camp, part of the reason I attendee a presentation seminar given by somebody else and not using our techniques (or for that matter based on any of the recent theory pertaining to presentation techniques!). But even though the 3 hour seminar was based on 30 year old ideas, it has made me think, which is the reason I went in the first place. Nobody can stand still, we can always use a refresher, we all need to make sure we are improving.

Mastery is arrogance, learning lifelong.!
Master joke
A small boy was walking thru’ town when he came across an old man drinking coffee. The small boy shouted, ‘Who’s the smartest in the town?’, and the old man replied, ‘Oh, you are, Master.’ The boy walked off pleased. Soon he came across an old woman walking towards him. Again, he shouted, ‘Who’s the smartest in the town?’ the old woman replied, ‘You are, master.’ The boy walked of pleased. Then he came across tall muscular man. ‘Who’s the smartest in the town?’, he shouted again,. With that, the man threw the boy to the ground and jumped on him. The boy scraped himself up off the ground and said, ‘Ok, ok, there’s no need to get mad just because you don’t know the answer!’

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I received this nice e-mail today and it made me wonder if anybody else has these kinds of issues and that the advice I gave Carolyn may in fact be useful to others….

Hi Nick
Great presentation yesterday.
Just a line to say thanks for your tip re the Windows Media Player problem I was having. I’ve asked no less than 7 techie people about it and all were flummoxed. I did what you suggested and it did the trick - huge relief, thanks, as it was contained in a new keynote I needed to deliver this Friday! In the Nick of time then (sorry, couldn’t resist dreadful pun!)Thanks and best wishes.
Carolyn
Carolyn Dallaway Ltd

Carolyn’s problem was that her presentation included some movie files that worked perfectly on her desktop but didn’t run on her laptop. When she clicked on the movie file outside of PowerPoint it ran ok but when player embedded in a slide it would only run with sound showing a black screen.
If you have this problem it is almost certainly NOT PowerPoint but Windows Media Player. PowerPoint uses this software to play movie files and if you do not have the latest version al sorts of minor little bugs can occur.
Thankfully the solution is really easy. If you visit www.msoffice.com on the top right hand corner of the page is a button that says “Check for updates� if you click on this the website will query your PC and tell you what updates you need. They are all free and you should install them all, in order. If you do most of the issues you are having will disappear.
Very clever people Microsoft! Really good at fixing problems they create!

Computer Programme’s Dictionary:
Alpha Test
All systems under go Alpha Testing when they are first operated by users (see definition below). The phrase Alpha Testing comes from the Latin Word “Alphaâ€?: meaning Over aggressive male and the word “Testingâ€? which clearly means Irritating. Used in this context the Phrase “Alpha Testingâ€? means “doesn’t work.”
Beta Test
A Beta test is a pre-release version of the software that does exactly what the marketing department said it would, but not using the keys or buttons described in the manual. Non-computer programmers often incorrectly assume that Beta Testing is about testing the software, when it is clear that actually Beta Testing is about testing the users, most fail the test.
User
A four letter word rarely heard in software development labs.
Help
A useful tool for discerning the difference between Alpha Users and Beta Users, Alpha’s won’t use it, Beta’s can’t. Anyone asking for it or attempting to access online Help is deemed to stupid to own a computer.
Error message
Terse, baffling remark used by programmers to place blame on users for the program’s shortcomings. Interestingly most programmers now add a function to the software that sends a message back to the development lab every time an error message is generated. Prizes are awarded to the programmer who can generate the most in any one software release with secondary prizes for “Best Errorâ€? “Most incomprehensible error message and the ultimate “Error 69 Programme Terminatedâ€?
Blue Screen
The ultimate programmer joke, the goal of every secondary school nerd who was every picked on for played Dungeons and Dragons, and memorized Star Trek episodes. Writing software that causes a fatal shutdown of the whole PC without warning and without laying blame at the programmer’s feet. The best Blue Screens occur during high profile presentations.