Month: December 2007

I Can Draw


I Can Draw

Originally uploaded by Choconancy1

And you can draw.

Yesterday at the IDRC sponsored pre-meetings, I ran a small 2.5 hour workshop on Graphic Recording 101. With the support of my friend and colleague Allison Hewlitt, we planned a quick hands-on tour of using graphics with a focus on recording sessions at meetings like GK3.

We started by drawing graphic self introductions. This example is from Dimage (I don’t think I am spelling that correctly) from Cambodia. His intro is in the lower left of the image. We then toured each others pictures around the room and had a chance both to get to know each other and appreciate the talent we brought into the room. In 8 introductions, we could spot a clear quality of graphic recording, even amidst the disclaimers of “I can’t draw.”

So many of us as adults have lost touch with the innate skills we cultivated as a child. My request at that point was to let go of this inner self censor.

The next thing we did was loosen up with some big circle drawings, then dove right into lettering. I asked them to write the headline “I Can Draw.”

I don’t know how they felt, but I felt joy at seeing them write this. It was a declaration. We have the power to make our mark.

Then we practiced fast lettering, lists and played a bit with color. After that we sat in a circle on the floor and experimented with different pens, looked at samples of other people’s (amazing!) work and shared basic icons on our sketch books. We had a strong emphasis on options for quickly drawing people – which seems to intimidate a lot of us.

Finally, everyone went to a clean sheet of large paper on the walls and we did a practice session. I made up a short, disorganized 5 minute speech and they recorded. WOW, what talent. Everyone created compelling and useful images. (You can see some more photos here..)

Over the week at the meeting, everyone will record a session. We are meeting at lunchtime to share stories, tips and coach each other. By the end of the event the hope is we capture digitally all our images, and then share them via email for final critiques and coaching.

Images are powerful allies. Finding our ability to create and share them, to make our mark, is a powerful act.

Yes, I can draw. So can you. After this workshop, I’m even more convinced that this is a learnable practice.

Petronas Towers, Mist and KM


Petronas Towers at Night in the Rain
Originally uploaded by Choconancy

I can’t resist sharing this one shot. This mist is lovely.

I am back in my room, preparing for my participation on a panel about the “Future of KM” here at GK3. I have been thinking things like “the culture of love,” Juanita Brown’s “conversation as a radical act,” communities, connection and the challenges of multimembership and simple overwork. In other words, not focusing on the technical. I was revisiting the advice Dave Pollard (via email) and Jack Vinson offered me, and Jack reminded me to visit Dave Snowden’s blog. Lo and behold, I found this….

 

 

[we must] rethink the relation between knowledge and emotion and construct conceptual models that demonstrate the mutually constitutive rather than oppositional relation between reason and emotion. Far from precluding the possibility of reliable knowledge, emotion as well as value must be shown as necessary ….

Jaggar 1989:157 “Love and Knowledge in Feminist Epistemology” in Jagger & Bordo Gender/Body/Knowledge quoted in Smith & Jenks Qualitative Complexity

Posted by Dave Snowden on November 30, 2007 11:15 PM |

 

Whoa, there’s that love again. Dave Pollard, in email was right in the same flow:

“My strong recommendation to you is to shake ’em all up by doing what I did in San Jose this month – focus on the holy trinity (which you helped me discover) of love, conversation and community.”

The mist is lifting!

Itsthomas from Twitter




Itsthomas from Twitter

Originally uploaded by Choconancy1

I have “met” Thomas online – he works at Omidyar and we have a lot in common in our work. We’ve spoken once on the phone because Thomas replied to a twitter that I was looking for people interested in thinking about how an non profit might use FaceBook. Through those interactions, I found out Thomas was also coming to the GK3 meetings here in Kuala Lumpur. We have been exchanging tweets since we arrived. This afternoon I saw a tweet that he was stepping out to the Central Market. I asked if I could go so we ended up going with another colleague of Thomas’. I bought sarongs and a beautiful shirt.

Crazy, that Twitter even half way around the world.

More from GK3 later. Photos here and here (the latter are from the workshop we ran this morning on graphic recording 101!)

Promoting awareness or crossing the line?


Crossing the line

Originally uploaded by Aeioux

 (Edit at noon: Make sure you read Jay Fienberg’s post in the comments. He takes this deeper and really hits the important points.)

Yesterday while messing around with my Feedblitz account (part of this whole blog update/move project) I activated something that automatically posts a tweet “from” me each time I post to my blog. Then I promptly forgot about it.

Today I was browsing my tweets and saw this post from me that I did not recall posting. Oh yeah, that automatic thing. It didn’t feel quite right to me, so I asked my Twitterfriends what they thought. This is what they said. My “unease” seems to be validated by my network. So I went and undid that bit of technology. No more autoposts to Twitter. It feels like the cost of promoting awareness, for me, transgresses my relationship with my network. This is a very personal reaction, but I don’t want to cross the line.

@NancyWhite good for notificication purposes but is it really twittering?
catspyjamasnz (catspyjamasnz) via TwitBin at 10:20

@NancyWhite auto post of blog entries are fine for bots but work badly for humans, at least until post software gives you more control
Edward Vielmetti (edwardvielmetti) via web at 10:14

@nancywhite I use alexking plugin for wordpress and it does not always makes the link (tinyurl) correct. What do u think of tweets in posts?
Christian Kreutz (ckreutz) via web at 10:12

@NancyWhite god knows how bad it would be if someone gave me a plugin to Twitt every Last.fm scrobbled song 🙂
David Ramalho (dramalho) via Snitter at 10:10

@NancyWhite doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use Twitter to promote the odd post , just that being systematic about it = RSS 🙂
David Ramalho (dramalho) via Snitter at 10:09

@NancyWhite Hi Nancy – haven’t used them, tend if relevant post to followers to put up a tweet about it at times! And there’s RSS and others
Laura (LittleLaura) via twitterrific at 10:08

@NancyWhite – personally, I don’t like them – that’s what RSS readers are for, IMHO – why should Twitter try to be all things to all people?
Koan (koan) via twitterrific at 10:08

@NancyWhite Kinda kill the sense of RSS 🙂 , or extend it to Twitter (but probably abuses it) 🙂
David Ramalho (dramalho) via Snitter at 10:07

@NancyWhite – I am not thrilled with the tools that auto post blog entries on twitter. No detail and so it doesn’t seem like conversation.
Jim Benson (ourfounder) via Snitter at 10:07