Welcome back, Seb

Photo by Stephen DownesSeb is back blogging! I was happy to hear Seb Paquet has restarted his blog. So I have to welcome him back. He was one of the first people to welcome me to the blogosphere in 2005 and I adopted his welcomeing practice. You can read about it waaaay back:

Seb Paquet taught me my first explicit blogging community indicator: welcoming. When Seb noticed a new person blogging who he knew or was interested in, he blogged a welcome post, linking to that person’s blog and, if available, a picture. Immediately Seb connected me to his community and expanded mine. I now follow that practice, which has been labeled by one of those I’ve welcomed as “kindness.” I like that!

Photo by Stephen Downes

Penmachine’s Pictures of the Graphic Recording Session

Nice photos Derek, aka,  Penmachine!You really captured the energy and the vibrancy of the people and the beautiful images people made together today at Northern Voice. Yes we CAN draw! And express ideas, tap into different thinking and have FUN!

Search results for visual_thinking…

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!