Category: events

You know when you gotta go – Nexus for Change 2

March 28th I head to Bowling Green, Ohio for my second Nexus for Change. Last year at Nexus 1 I had the opportunity to work alongside some amazing professional graphic recorders who were supporting the overall event and my eyes were opened to the visual aspects of group process. This year, I’m heading back to Nexus for Change 2/Nexus U and am inviting you to consider going too. And I’m on the Arts Team again (as well as the Tech team, but spreading my wings beyond my customary domain).

I was on the fence because life is crazy and the year is looking to be full of travel. I was unsure because it took a while to see the agenda and to figure out if I had something to contribute/get. Then I decided to let go of expectations and just COMMIT!

This year there are two parts ($600 for 4 days!). Nexus U is a chance to focus on large group/whole system methods and consider how to apply them. Think of “method camp.” Gabriel Shirley has assembled a team of experienced practitioners to lead folks through a series of fast/deep dives on Saturday, then to work in groups to plan actual applications. Then on Sunday night Nexus 2 opens, followed by two days of thinking about whole systems change – how methods are related, how we can use these tools to change our selves, our companies and the world.

Are you a facilitator? A change maker? Interested in change? In methods? Sign up and come along. If you are into visual methods, I’ll be leading the deep dives on Saturday, then I’ll be backing up an old client, James Soohoo (James is NOT old, but this is a past client!!) as he shares how online tools made a difference for his group at the March of Dimes.

For all the details in a downloadable form, click here: Nexus for Change 2 Invitation (pdf)

IFVP 2008 Conference Announced

Join us for the 2008 IFVP Conference for graphic recorders, graphic facilitators and other visual practitionersIFVP Conference Logo 2008
I’ve got this one on my 2008 schedule!

This year’s conference will be held August 6-8 at the Summit Executive Centre in Chicago.

The IFVP Board and Conference Team are excited about the changes for this years conference.

Holding the conference earlier will give you a great view of Chicago in the summertime. We also hope that we’re coinciding with the summer slowdown of projects that many of us independent contractors experience.

Our Wednesday through Friday conference dates encourages taking the weekend to explore the Windy City. We’ll update this page with suggestions on how to make the most out of your trip to Chicago.

Also, the Summit Executive Centre couldn’t be better located to enjoy downtown Chicago. Located on Michigan Avenue, it’s on the South end of the “Magnificent Mile.” It is less than two blocks from Millennium Park, the Chicago Cultural Center and six blocks from the Art Institute of Chicago. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

What I’ll Be Doing at Northern Voice 2008

Canada's Blogging and Social Media ConferenceOhh, goody, Northern Voice is just over a month away, Feb 21 – 23. I’m excited. Here is what I’m doing from a scheduled perspective on the main day (Saturday.) Still cooking ideas for Friday’s Moose Camp. Dave are we still doing something with Improv? Oh, and don’t forget Thursday night’s party!

First I’m hosting a session at 10:45 on Saturday (up against Marc Canter – drat), “Why I slowed down blogging and started drawing on walls.” The gist? How can drawing, doodling and other visual practices make a difference in our blogging and in other parts of our lives? Blogging really helped me find my writing voice. Now, what is my visual voice? How can drawing, doodling and other visual practices make a difference in our blogging and in other parts of our lives? (Please bring paper, pens and such, but leave your inner censor at the door.)

Right after than Chris Lott foolishly asked me to sit in on his panel, The Blog is Dead! Long live bloggers. I have no idea what we are doing and that sounds fun to me.

Most of all, I’m looking forward to hanging out with folks, old friends and new. NorthernVoice always has this friendly vibe where I feel comfortable. I have the ability to act extroverted, but conferences usually trigger my inner introvert. So I appreciate the NV vibe and especially the people.

So, what will YOU be doing at Northernvoice 08?

Reflections on Our “Drawing Together” Session

Argh, I have been wanting to finish this blog post. Work is crazy, so I can’t be as complete as I’d like to be, but I have to get this out. There is so much incubation going on in my head about visuals, and not enough time to release it all into the wild!

This past week as part of the Future of Learning in a Networked World 08 “event” we did a session on Drawing Together Online. Leigh Blackall arranged for us to use Otago Polytechnic’s (corrected – thanks Leigh) Elluminate room. Elluminate has a shared white board. Hmmm… possibilities. Could we draw on paper then take digital photos or scans and upload to Flickr? Draw together on the white board? The key was I wanted to create an irresistible invitation for everyone to draw something during our hour together.

We started off with a few ruminations and images from me. Leigh gave us a short lesson on drawing human figures then we just jumped in. And the white board became the center of attention. At first it was chaotic. Then we played with constraints. A theme. A request to work smaller and slower. We reflected on how we felt looking at the images. How we felt when we could not find space to make our mark, or when it was erased by someone else – and not being able to know quickly who it was. We talked about our inner censors, keeping us from drawing. How they came to us as childhood melted into adulthood.

I had a great time. For me, it was a wonderful session. The Elluminate Recording is here. A montage of some of our drawings is below as well as a link to Flickr: Photos tagged with drawingtogether

I invite any of the people who played together that day to share your impressions as well. Some of us said we want to do more exploration of drawing together online. YES!

1. flnw_ambivilance_2, 2. Commute, 3. flnw_coffee, 4. My Texturized Cofee Picture, 5. cogdog’s texturized coffee picture, 6. flnw_boundaries, 7. flnw_ambivilance, 8. I Need MORE COFFEE (PicNik-ed), 9. Our first collaborative drawing, 10. I Need MORE COFFEE, 11. Coffee, 12. Our first collaborative drawingOur Images

While we are thinking about visual thinking together, here is another amazing link of a video that really uses visual thinking, from Christian Nold at PopTech. follow that link to take a look at this video. (Edited to remove the embed because it kept auto-playing, driving some of us nuts.)

FLNW Event January 16 – Drawing Together Online

On Wednesday, January 16th at 22:00 GMT (check your local time) I’m throwing in a contribution into the online portion of the Future of Learning in a Networked World 2008 gathering. Why don’t you join us?

We have a FLNW Slide Sets space on Slideshare and I just uploaded the images I plan to use for this totally off-the-cuff experiment of drawing together online. Here is what I wrote as a teaser:

This is not a talk by any stretch of the imagination. It is an invitation to draw together to exercise our visual thinking. I have been doing F2F graphic facilitation work and it taps into something that I often feel missing online. So can we talk together, draw together then share our images to add to that conversation? What might happen? Let’s play.

See http://flnw.wikispaces.com/flnw2_itinerary for the full FLNW 2008 schedule, both online and on the ground in Thailand. Here is the Elluminate URL we’ll be using for the actual session. (Thanks, Leigh!) And here are the images…