My Pen, Our Pens: Engagement through Participatory Visualization Workshop

For the last 6 years we (Michelle and Nancy) have been leading introductory workshops on graphic facilitation, the use of visuals in group process. We’ve grounded the workshops in basic drawing “liberation” (I CAN DRAW), dipped into graphic recording and finished with examples of visual practices in group process. Last year Michelle took that on solo and will lead RosViz 16 again. If you are looking for a great entry point into graphic facilitation, JUMP AT THIS OFFERING for September 19-20, 2016 in Rossland BC. Add a few days and enjoy the stupendous beauty of the area!

I am grateful Michelle took RosViz on, because in true restless Nancy form, I was ready to do something new, to push my own boundaries a bit further. Often that means WITH YOU!  So I wanted to share our individual and collective offerings, this year in September in Rossland on September 16 and 17. Michelle has all the details on her blog about both offerings.  And I want to add to my American friends, with the Canadian rate exchange, this is a good deal!

Now, the new offering, which maybe is a workshop, but I also think it is a do-shop, a think-shop and a play-shop!

My Pens, Our Pens: Engagement Through Participatory Visualization

September 16-17, 2016, Rossland, BC, Canada

This year we are ready to push ourselves into some new territory from our practices and from the inspirations of other practitioners we follow and admire. We invite you to join us in this exploration.

For 2 days we will explore, share and practice participatory visualization practices which support group process. From templates pioneered by leaders in the graphic practitioner fields to ones we create on the spot, from visual exercises designed to promote relationship, thinking and sensemaking, to collaborative and collective visual harvest practices designed both for sensemaking and knowledge sharing.

We’ll start out in familiar territory getting comfortable drawing – but this year we’ll go beyond drawing on walls, and experiment with shared visualization on smaller scale paper and even, if you want, on tablets and ipads. Then we’ll progress through a series of exercises and experiments alternating with reflection and harvest. At the end of the 2 days you will have experienced, experimented, facilitated, reflected and made sense of how visuals can be part of participatory and engaging processes in your work.

This is not your traditional workshop. We are looking to push our boundaries (and yours) in terms of the role of visuals in design and facilitation. We will ask hard questions about who captures content and what is its use?  Can visual methods help in developmental evaluation and results communication be more meaningful? What is the role of metaphor? It’s constraints? Where are there visual opportunities in process design? When does it make sense to use visuals and where does it detract from the process? What is the process of participatory capture and harvest of content? What are the power dynamics? How do we use visuals with approaches such as Liberating Structures?

Here are some of the themes we are exploring:

  • The Influences of Different Modalities and Constraints on group interaction: opening possibilities
  • Metaphor: friend and foe
  • Visual Practices for Strategy/ Assessment / Evaluation: engaged and effective
  • Visual Reflective Practice: personal and group
  • Visually Communicating With Our Teams: shared language and attention
  • Building a Visually Grounded Facilitation Practice (tools, resources, etc.): stuff you can use right away

To ground us, we’ll send you some readings and maybe an exercise or two in advance to jump start our time together. I have been curating some very cool stuff! Because this is an exploration, we want to look inward AND outwards, so  we’ll actively share out to the world what we learn.

Who is this for? We invite everyone, from beginners, to RosViz alumni, to seasoned practitioners to join us.  You are welcome to bring favorite drawing materials and electronic devices. We will provide with a drawing journal, a set of marker pens, a sketchnote pen and 2 different colors of pan pastels with a sponge. You will have access to loads more materials to play with and use throughout the workshop. If you know us, you know there will also be healthy snacks and chocolate. We also host a very active online community of practitioners to support your practice and learning after the workshop.

Visual novices or those wanting to brush up on their drawing skills will be invited to an optional pre-session of our more traditional “drawing on walls” the day before.  There is an additional fee and it includes an additional set of chalk pastels. However, this is not required and will only be offered if we have 4 or more interested people.

Dates: Sept 16, 8-5 & Sept 17 – 8-3

(Please arrive the night before if flying in. We end at 3pm on Sept 17 so people can catch flights home)

*Getting started drawing on walls optional ‘pre-day’ is Sept 15, 2- 6pm

Price: $950 CAD + GST  (Intro to Drawing on Walls + $300 CAD)

*Early bird discount $800 CAD + GST (register and paid by July 15th)

*Bonus: Three or more from one organization, 4th comes free!

Location: Prestige Hotel Ballroom, beautiful Rossland, BC

Meals: All meals on your own. Rossland has several beautiful cafes and restaurants to enjoy. Healthy snacks, chocolate and drinks are provided throughout.

About your hosts:

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Nancy White

“I am a learner, mom, gramma and chocoholic. I founded Full Circle Associates to help organizations connect through online and offline strategies.  My practices are diverse, including online interaction designer, facilitator and coach for distributed communities of practice, online learning, distributed teams and online communities, doodler and visual practitioner. I have a special interest in the NGO/NPO sector and the emerging practice of using communities and networks for work and learning. I blog at http://fullcirc.com/wp/, teach, present and write on online facilitation and interaction, social architecture, social media and visual practices. I am co-author with Etienne Wenger and John Smith of Digital Habitats: stewarding technology for communities. Lately not only do I like to draw on walls (graphic facilitation), but I spend a lot of time playing with my granddaughters!!! For more about my visual practice see http://fullcirc.com/wp/about/visual-and-graphic-work/.”

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Michelle Laurie

 

“Despite being an analytical person, I have found that visuals have brought new meaning to my practice as a facilitator and communicator. Typically I explore the interface of environment and development via strategic planning, assessments, facilitation and engagement. Lately my work has focused on supporting organizations to transform their ideas for positive change into realities on the ground. I incorporate visuals wherever I can particularly with the use of participatory graphics, templates, animation and reporting. I also use visuals in my personal life for planning weddings, family activities and travels! I am an associate with the International Institute for Sustainable Development, a member of the International Association of Facilitators, the Canadian Evaluation Society and IUCN’s Commission on Education and Communication. I will be your main contact for workshop logistics.”

To register you must email  michelle.k.laurie(@)gmail.com to confirm your participation, provide your contact details and submit payment.

Payment Options:

– Email transfer – michelle.k.laurie(@)gmail.com

– Paypal transfer – paypal.me/MichelleLaurie (If you prefer to pay in USD, contact NANCY)

– Cheque by snail mail to: Michelle Laurie, PO Box 1063, Rossland, BC, V0G 1Y0, Canada

My Ideas - 38

Liberating Structures: I’m a String Being

RhapsodyMany of you know I’ve been using Liberating Structures a lot in my facilitation work. One of the “leaps forward” for me in the last year has been my ability to string various structures into a coherent agenda. The leap has come from learning about other practitioners’ strings, and batting ideas back and forth with them about my strings both visually and in text. (The visuals really help me!) This “thinking together”  helps me consider my plan and improvisational options so I stay fully present AND flexible when I facilitate. The strings also help me be transparent both with my clients and participants, and I can easily encourage them to learn, use and take ownership of their own meetings. (I am insisting more and more on every gathering being, among other things, a way to up our collective practice/intelligence on working/playing/thinking together.)

I’ve been thinking about those of us working on strings together as “string beings!”

I was thrilled when Keith McCandless made the most recent  LS News & Updates about Rhapsody for Strings 🎻🎼 The newsletter shares a set of strings along with very short narratives of each string. The strings of Tim Jasko-Fisher and Fisher Qua, layering structures over each other were particularly enlightening. (Images below) I asked Keith if it was ok to republish here to spread the news even more widely and have included it below, along with some of the fabulous strings that our group shared.

Here is a string I shared:

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I’m also interested in how to easily share and work on strings together (see this reflection on some tool testing we did.) I am getting more and more questions directed to me individually, and I think it would be more useful and efficient to do this as a community. For one thing, each person would have access to a wider repertoire of experience and strings. And two, there is great learning in the process, so why not share it. So maybe you want to become a String Being too. Read to the bottom of the newsletter for how to join us…

Here is the newsletter text:

One Liberating Structure can transform a meeting.  A powerful string can draw out much-better-than-expected results in a way that forever shifts the pattern of working together. Below, accomplished maestros share and rhapsodize about their favorites.

As familiarity with the LS repertoire increases, there are an infinite number of combinations and riffs.  AND, there are certain strings that simply knock your socks off. With the suggestion that a picture tells a thousand words, the editor [Keith] has limited the narrative from each maestro to a puny three sentences. Future LS News will feature interviews that dig deeper into details (e.g., invitations, twists, turns, and LS punctuation).

  1. Building Financial Literacy with High School Students
  2. Liberating Learning Together:  Using LS in Our Work
  3. Leadership Retreat: High Dive Into Collective Strategy-Making
  4. Tap the Founder’s Story To Uplift Next Level Innovation
  5. Management Meeting: In Charge But Not In Control
  6. Get Over Yourself, NOW! Prepare To Go Deeper with Your Customers
  7. Cross-Sector Community Groups Catalyzing Learning + Action
  8. Catalyzing Nursing Knowledge for BIG Data Science
  9. Strategic Planning to Tactical Plans in Three Fractal Movements

We know there are many more maestros who have strings to share. There is an experiment underway on Slack for people to give and get help from other practitioners. Joining is clunky at the moment (if there are any Slack maestros out there, help us?!): Email Fisher to request access. (You can also email me and I can add you- NW)

Source: [LS News & Updates] Rhapsody for Strings 🎻🎼

The Post that Keeps on Keeping On: Zoom and Re-Zoom for Facilitators 

Back in 2013 I came upon a lovely facilitation tool/activity called Zoom/ReZoom using Istvan Banayi’s great books, ZOOM and RE-ZOOM. Every once in a while I check my site stats and dang, if this post isn’t hit daily, and sometimes 30+ times, which far exceeds my average hits these days. The traffic seems almost entirely from search engines. My interpretation? Either Zoom is a very cool word, or people are actively looking for ways to engage with each other. 🙂 If that’s you, link back into this old post where there are resources and a story of using the activity.

Last month I finally got a chance to use a facilitation activity called Zoom which I found on the Wilderdom’s Game resource page— a great resource!  I deeply appreciate that they put the “copyleft” designation on all their resources. THANKS! As I learned and read facilitation ideas from other sites, I realized I should share some of my experiences as well. Here is the description from Wilderdom’s resource page (which also includes all instructions – I’ve attached a pdf copy at the bottom for taking to an event, but please DO visit their page!)

Source: Zoom and Re-Zoom for Facilitators | Full Circle Associates

Resource Guide to Learning Delivery Methods

resource guide to learning

What learning delivery methods are there and how do you consider them? In 2014 Scott Leslie and I supported an analysis for decision making on training strategies for the International Labour Organization’s Microinsurance Innovation Facility, now the Impact Insurance Facility (http://www.impactinsurance.org/ ).

As I moved on to other related works, I kept drawing on these initial documents. Finally, I’ve gotten around to a) getting permission from the ILO to share (THANK YOU!) and trying to pull out some of the domain specific stuff so it might be more widely useful.

The Resource Guide to Learning Delivery Methods  (pdf for now) is a version of one of the outputs of our work, shared with permission from the Facility with the hope that it adds value to your work. (The other elements include a Glossary and a Strategic Options documents.) We hope to also put these online for crowd-sourced critique and revisions. (TBA!) In the meantime, I just want to get this OUT THERE!

From the Introduction:

This document is a version of one of the outputs of our work, shared with permission from the Facility with the hope that it adds value to your work. (The other elements include a Glossary and a Strategic Options documents.) We hope to also put these online for crowd-sourced critique and revisions. (TBA!)

The Facility team was evaluating their e-learning options to expand capacity building for microinsurance for the poor. An early identified need was to understand elearning in the wider context of delivery mechanisms.

The basic content can be useful when starting to consider capacity development, training or specifically an e-learning strategy. It is not exhaustive, and some things have become dated since it was written. Understanding that, it can help you understand the range of learning options, and where they might be most effective.

We surveyed 20 different learning delivery methods across five major categories:

  • Face-to-face delivery methods
  • Online delivery methods:
    • Traditional online courses
    • MOOCs, communities & self-directed learning
    • Synchronous methods
    • Mobile delivery methods
  • Offline delivery methods
  • Blended and hybrid methods

This guide is the detailed analysis of these methods in the context of the Facility’s domain. It includes a general description, domain-related examples, and provides insight and comparisons on these methods based the qualities the organization identified as key to assessing any proposed solution. These qualities include:

  • the implications of this method on scalability and adaptability of content
  • implications on quality control
  • any effects the method may have on motivating learners’ completion of training and achievement of learning objectives
  • the ease and costs of implementing any of these methods

Your qualities may be different, so you may wish to consider your needs and how the methods may or may not meet your needs. This document is offered as a Free Cultural License as defined by the Creative Commons https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ .