Year: 2009

Hanging Out at Northern Voice

I”m happy to be back for my 5th 2009 Northern Voice. We are well into the afternoon of day 1 or “moosecamp.” I’m always overwhelmed by the variety of offerings. I spent the morning in conversations, not sessions, then after lunch decided to hang  out in the room where I was doing a session on Graphic Recording 101 at 2pm. That meant learning about all kinds of interesting browser plugins from the amazing Scott Leslie, then pondering on gender in blogging with Laura Blankenship and Leslie Madsen-Brooks. A half hour is a tough constraint to get to play with many plugins or begin to dive into gender issues, but both were thought provoking.

On the plugin side, I’m playing with Zemanta and Feedly. I want to check out Ubiquity and Instapaper. Alexandra Samuels turned me on to Evernote and it looks really useful for keeping track of text notes and all the flip chart images I use in work.  I’ll keep you posted on these toys.  I have nothing profound to share from the gender conversation other than I sense gender reveals itself in any media, but I don’t really understand it.

Then at 2 I hosted a rapid 45 minute “Graphic recording 101” session where we jammed about 10 people on paper on the chalk board and another ten on tables to take a quick dive into the space between the pen, the paper and the wall.  My SD card reader is fritzing, so I can’t upload the photos to Flickr, but I’ll get them up as soon as I can.  In the meantime, here is a picture from the glorious Barbara Ganley! She, Laura and I are doing a session on “the spaces in between” tomorrow. I’ll also be graphically recording Rob Cottingham’s keynote and doing a little tech experiment with Alan Levine later in the day with his new recording/annotation toy. More on that tomorrow.


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Community Orientations Podcast with Shawn Callahan

Our friend Shawn Callahan has been following the work on the book – for years! He has been privy to various drafts and has recently been using the Community Orientations in his work with communities.

Recently he realized he wasn’t so clear on orientations 7, 8 and 9 so this past weekend we hooked up on Skype and talked through them. Here is Shawn’s post and the podcast.

As we talked, I was interested to hear about the exercise he did with the orientations, and see how it compared to how I’ve been using them. Here is what Shawn wrote:

BTW the community orientation exercise simply involved getting the participants of the workshop to plot on a radar chart, which I’d drawn on a whiteboard, where they thought the community was currently and then do this again for where they would like to see the community of 12 months time. It generated a terrific conversation and a feel of mutual purpose. Here is what the result looked like.

I had not thought about using the orientations for community plans or aspirations. I had been using them as a diagnostic for technology stewards to a) become aware of key community orientations and b) then use that to plan or tweak the community’s technology configuration. But both make a lot of sense to me.

Thanks, Shawn!

Want to learn Graphic Recording?

e-Homemakers session at GK3 2007Ever since I was turned on to this thing called “Graphic Recording” or “Graphic Facilitation” my work has changed. When I facilitate F2F I have my paper, pens and chalk and try at some point to use visuals to focus, capture or catalyze what is going on in the room. I have amazed myself at what I have been able to produce – and I make that same claim “I don’t know how to draw!” But something, somewhere along the line liberated just enough of my inner censor to build my practice. (You can see more examples here, here and here ).

People are always asking me how they can learn to do this. I have (and continue ) to do very simple introductory workshops, mostly when I am overseas. But there are folks who do a brilliant job at this — far far more experienced practitioners and one of them, Patti Dobrowolski here in Seattle is offering short courses (6 hours) in Seattle, Denver and PARIS! So to all of you who asked me to tell you when I saw a great offering, here are the details. This is from Patti’s email to me – so her words!

Learning | Alchemy Learning

graphic recording
with Alchemy: The Art of Transforming Business
Graphic Recording is a visual mapping system that captures information and ideas for groups. It goes beyond regular flip charting and uses words, colors and images to explain and synthesize what happens in business meetings, conferences and events.

The technique requires the ability to listen, take quick accurate notes and draw. It is a perfect compliment to consulting, facilitation, hosting and key note speaking in business and community settings. Join us to learn this effective tool.

Upcoming Dates:

Denver & Seattle
March 6
June 5
September 11
November 6

Denver Facilitator Kriss Wittmann
2546 15th Street
Denver, CO 80211
9-3:30 pm

Seattle Facilitator: Patti Dobrowolski
Starbucks Headquarters
2401 Utah Avenue South
Seattle, WA
9-3:30 pm

Paris, FranceFebruary 10-12

Dresden, Germany
February 26-27

Core competencies
To the casual observer, the essence of recording is the ability to listen, take quick accurate notes and draw. Beneath the surface exist overall process consulting, filtering/synthesis skills and graphic architecture skills.

This exciting six hour training will give you a solid introduction to:

The WHAT of Graphic Recording:

  • Roles of a graphic recorder; before, during and after a meeting
  • Dynamics and process experienced by a group and you as the recorder

The HOW to Graphic Record:

  • Core Recording Skills
  • Process Skills
  • Information Skills

Please email Kathleen if you have any questions! kathleen@link2alchemy.com
Also for those of you who have taken this class before, let us know if you would like to be on the waiting list to brush up your skills at no charge if we have room!

BIG CHANGE Webinar Series Starts Today

For the last two years I have been part of Nexus for Change. This year we decided to take a break from the work of putting on a F2F gathering and a subgroup has been preparing for some online work, this time in the form of the BIG CHANGE Webinar Series. The series focuses on concrete approaches for “thriving in tough times – the key is to create inspired organizations and communities through meaningful collaboration.”

Today is the kick-off for this free webinar series sponsored by The NEXUS for Change and Bowling Green State University. If you read this soon enough, you can register for today’s session. Go to www.nexusforchange.org and click on Big Change to register.

WEBINAR Session #1 – 90 Minutes
Feb 17th – 2:30pm EST
The Change Handbook: Uncovering the principles for whole system transformation withPeggy Holman &  Tom Devane
>a live fishbowl with executive graduate students using mind mapping and affinity diagramming to make sense of the methods for large-scale transformation.  There are more than 60 methods to consider and even more emerging every year…Learn more and register

Future sessions include:

Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There: Leading Meetings that Matter
with Sandra Janoff & Marv Weisbord
90 Minutes
Mar 5th – 2:00pm EST
Cost: Free
For leaders and consultants who run task-focused meetings. Find out about the ten principles derived from 20 years of leading meetings in many of the world’s cultures…

Terms of Engagement: Designing RoadMaps for Positive Transformation
with Dick & Emily Axelrod
90 Minutes
Mar 18 – 2:00pm EST
Cost: Free
This session brings together the practical view of the realist and the people-oriented view of the humanist into one role: the “Pragmatic Involver.” Explore the six major questions addressing how success can be attained in a project on any scale…

The Philosophic Consultant: Revolutionizing Organizations with Ideas
with Peter Koestenbaum& Dick Axelrod
90 Minutes
Apr 2nd – 2:00pm EST
Cost: Free

Large-Scale Change On-Line: Living & Learning Together
with Denise Easton, Jake Jacobs, Jon Kennedy, Gabriel Shirley, Nancy White, & Christine Whitney-Sanchez
90 Minutes
Apr 29th – 2:00pm EST
Cost: Free

Launch Day of Communities and Networks Connection

Communities and Networks ConnectionConnections make the world go round. I can’t learn and improve without the things I learn from my network and beyond. Especially the interesting fringes. This requires some sort of “line of sight” to that network.

With that, I’m pleased to announce the launch of the Community & Networks Connection.  This isn’t a community, and  not as loose and open as a network. It is in that juicy place in between communities and networks that helps to collect and organize useful content from blogs and other web sites, from people who care about, and are passionate to understand these phenomenon we call “communities” and “networks.”  The goal of this page is to create a place where it’s easy to find current and highly relevant content. And perhaps to stimulate a new connection between you and these brilliant people.

nancys networkYou can get a sense of the power of the site by visiting the site and clicking a keyword on the left.  For example, if you look at the page on Social Media you find:

  • Keywords on the left  ordered according to their relationship to the current term.  So you can see that Virtual Community, Tags, RSS, Facebook, Twitter and other such terms all relate heavily to the concept of social media.
  • The top of the page has the latest posts. What’s new?
  • Below that you find top posts based on various social signals.  As the site runs, it will get better at finding great content.

As a long-time blogger, I’m intrigued by a few of the specific features offered to participating bloggers. Tony tells me this will bring more trafic to participating sites. I need some lessons and stimulus, because I tend to ignore things that could bring more people to my site and that is pretty silly of me.  (Edited in later: for more posts about HOW this works, see Tony’s post, and John Tropea’s post. )

If you go to my blog’s content page, Full Circle, the page shows on the left the keywords that I write about a fair amount.  Keywords like Online Interaction, Technology Stewardship,  Catalysts are all pretty good indicators.  These same keywords are listed in the new widget in my sidebar provided by the site.

There’s also a page that shows the Best Content from Full Circle based on social signals.  These will improve over time. (Though I am the first to roll my eyes at “best” — but heck, it is a useful word at the moment. Do you have another suggestion as you use the site?)

smart, funny peersThe best part of this is this is not just about my content. In fact, I’m just a drop in the bucket.  I’m not alone.  There is quite a network that is participating in the launch – from people who are close friends and trusted colleagues, to interesting people I try and follow.

It’s fun to look at some of the differences in keywords for some of my fellow participants. For example:

All of this technology underneath the “hood” comes from Tony Karrer.  I know that he has more features planned.  Certainly, Tony and I would like to hear any suggestions you have for how to make this site better.  Comment here if you have ideas of other blogs or sites I should consider including.
Take a peek. Subscribe to the whole shebang or follow one key word. Lets find out what we can discover and learn together.