Me and My Chumby

Me and My Chumby
Originally uploaded by Choconancy1.

My Chumby arrived today. There is something irresistible about this little mobile wireless displayer of widgets that tickles me. I am playing with it. Literally playing.

On Twitter, we started tossing around ideas - Leonard Low, Jennifer Jones and I -- about how it might be a mobile learning device. Or a community device. Mmmm, possibility.

@NancyWhite - wow a CHUMBY! I've previously blogged about whether they might be moddable for m-learning... WDYT? (leonardlow)

@NancyWhite http://tinyurl.com/29kgsu (leonardlow)

@leonardlow I was wondering the same thing. How can I use this little device for both learning and community somethingorother?

@NancyWhite Community definitely: IM or Twitter on Chumby would be easy and suitable for the small form-factor. Anything else...? Hmmmm... (leonardlow)

@leonardlow I've got twitter running on it now. I was wondering about using it as a "community indicator." Small bits of feedback aggregated

@NancyWhite Trying to think of Chumby's "lifestyle fit" to determine what apps would work well on it. Brainstorming now... :) (leonardlow)

@NancyWhite As a "home appliance" I think it would be a terrific podcast receiver - like a radio, but for podcasts. :) (leonardlow)

@NancyWhite You could "tune it" to RSS channels - news, music, learning - and it would play them sequentially - a custom mix of content. (leonardlow)

Injenuity chimes in...

@NancyWhite I'm adding my virtual Chumby to my facebook account. Do you have a real Chumby?
Jennifer D. Jones (injenuity) via web at 21:03

@leonardlow Well, the sky's the limit as long as you think of things that fit on a small screeen. So larger than Mobile, but still small.

@injenuity Yup, I have a real one. Uploading Flickr pix as we "speak!" http://tinyurl.com/2zrg46

@NancyWhite But it has to stay plugged in, right? Won't you miss it when you are away? (injenuity)

@NancyWhite thinking audio - not limited by small screen. Download, cache content locally, play it, delete it after a day (unless saved)... (leonardlow)

@NancyWhite recommend I get one to play with? :) I'm a programmer... can *create* apps. :)
leonardlow (leonardlow) via web at 21:12

@NancyWhite thinking audio - not limited by small screen. Download, cache content locally, play it, delete it after a day (unless saved)...
leonardlow (leonardlow)

@leonardlow If you are a programmer, yes. Thing is you don't "download" - it rotates widget content via wireless (I think). Small HD?
Nancy White (NancyWhite) via Snitter at 21:14

Fun!

Tags: chumby, twitter, mobile_learning

Wikispaces adds tag clouds

Yipee! I {heart} Wikispaces. Today they announced the addition of a tag cloud feature. Just what I was wishing for last week. Now I have to figure out how to embed it on a wiki home page. (Right now it is a bit buried in the "manage" area.)

Here is an example from onlinefacilitation - tags



Here is another example from a Knowledge Sharing Toolkit I was helping CARE put together. Tags were a far more integral part of the design, so this is particularly useful.

Tags: wikispaces, tags, clouds

Another Twitter Story

Tracking the quake on Twitter | mad dog in the fog:

"I’ve been tracking “quake” and “earthquake” on Twitter. There was a continuous flow of information as soon at the quake hit."

I now have to add this to the Twitterstories wiki!

Tags: twitter

Talk to Strangers

I'm clearing out some old drafts, so be warned, a flush of short blog posts coming. Here is a piece of advice worth considering...

Teaching Online Journalism - More advice for (young) journalists

2. Talk to strangers.

Paul’s advice to “make contacts” and “do things and talk to people” will resonate with many journalism educators — and maybe some editors too. Why are so many students’ stories so boring? It is not because educators (or editors) have seen it all before. No. It’s because some students (and some journalists) stick to what they already know. They don’t circulate enough. They don’t talk to strangers.

Come on, you’re not a little child anymore. You cannot be afraid of strangers if you want to be a journalist. Get over it.

Yanick Rice Lamb gave some wonderful advice about this in a column at the SPJ site: “You have to circulate to percolate.” When you first glance at her column, you might think it’s only about diversity issues. Wrong. It’s about the whole idea of becoming a good journalist.

This is why we have communities and social networks!

Tags: advice

Meeting our Imaginary Friends

Nick In Seattle
Originally uploaded by Choconancy1.

I have known Nick Noakes online for many, many years. He has proven to be an insightful and intelligent colleague, a reliable collaborator and a warm and caring friend. So I was thrilled when he came to Seattle last week for the Educase conference.

My husband coined the term (in our family context) "imaginary friend" in 1997 when I first started inviting people I knew online (at Electric Minds at that time) to my house for potlucks, or if they were traveling from out of town, to stay with us. The first time he was a bit freaked out, but he knows that over time I develop real relationships with wonderful people. Nick is no exception.

When people ask me - over and over again - if we can develop healthy, functional and "real" relationships with people online, I can unflinchingly say yes. Nick is a stellar example. I know of few people who so regularly offer themselves as guides to learning about new online spaces. He devoted a year to building "Boracay" Island in Second Life to explore how it could be used in learning. He has hosted hundreds of newbies and helped us find our way in Second Life. When someone needs a volunteer online facilitator, Nick says yes, even if it means staying up until 1am for the organizing meeting. (Nick is based in Hong Kong.)

I love my community and appreciate people like Nick Noakes!!

Tags: onlinecommunity, 2ndLife

Apologizing to my network for Shelfari Spam

I wish I had read this before I began exploring Shelfari. Caught in Shelfari’s Sticky Web: No More Friends, Please! I should know better. I should be VERY careful of any site's "find a friend" feature, having been on the receiving end of such spam.

But I love books and I just got sucked in.

Shelfari's "find a friend" feature has an interface that is easy to misinterpret. I thought I was sending a mail only to the people in my gmail contact list that were already members. I did not scroll down and see it was to ALL 900+ contacts.

Red face. Egg on face.

But what is more interesting is how many of my contacts trusted me and registered. Within 24 hours I had notification that more than 80 of my contacts had joined the site. Two fell victim right away to the same error I made. Uh oh.

In addition, I made contact with 3 people I had lost touch with and had four gracious people write and ask "who are you and do we know each other?"

Social networks are very interesting, especially the edges of very weak connections.

In any case, I learned my lesson, yet again.

If you are looking for a web based bookshelf sharing/social networking application, I have explored three. Shelfari is at the bottom of my list. I far prefer http://www.goodreads.com and http://www.librarything.com I have been able to import my LibraryThing list (where I first started) into both other sites with ease. Here is a quickie review - totally off the cuff. Feel free to add your thoughts and observations!

LibraryThing
I started out months ago on Library thing and really liked it. Your book organizing area is a giant spread sheet so if you are a really organized person, this feels useful. You have lots of different ways to organize and use the data. (I'm not that organized, but still, it is nice!) There is a tag cloud, which is peachy. I love tags. From an "organizing my bookshelf" perspective, LibraryThing is my preference. From a social network perspective, it doesn't' make it as easy to connect with other friends and readers as...

GoodReads
LazyGal introduced me yesterday to Goodreads. I like Goodreads' ease of putting books into piles of read and to be read. This makes sense to me from the social learning aspect - people can see what I'm currently reading and what is on the stack. (My stack is frightening however, and I'm not sure I'd like to admit to it's height!)

I like the harder-to-spamness of Goodread's "friend finding" as well. Their notifications are well collected into a daily email to reduce Bacn. Their message inbox is simple and you can see both the messages you sent and received in one place. The interface is low key, the book images are not too big/overwhelming. So far, so good. I'd say this site is a good one for a network of people who want to interact around their books together.


Shelfari
The initial Shelfari page is inviting and warm. It makes it easy to find out what books you have in common with your friends (once you have spammed them). It focuses on this social aspect. The one aspect of this that is ironic is that their r message feature is odd in that you see messages to you on your page, but you have to go to the sending member's page to reply, so initial message/replies cannot be seen on one page. Disjointed!

The bookshelf, is hard to read and other friends have said it is not easy to figure out the interface. The book images are awfully large. There are few options for sorting and organizing your books. Not good for big book collections.

Shelfari is Bacn prone. Every action generates by default an alert email.

Bottom line?
I'll continue playing with LibraryThing and GoodReads. I can import and export my book lists between them, so when I settle in, I can carry all my work across. That's sweet!

Tags: books, social_networks, bacn

Animator vs. Animation by Alan Becker

Animator vs. Animation by *alanbecker on deviantART

Via David Sibbet comes a link to this amazing Flash piece (oh, too bad it is not in an embeddable form. It would FLY around the blogosphere!)

What is it about? Go watch it. I don't want to spoil it.

Tags: power

OMG, I just bought a Chumby!

Chumby Blog Tells the Story

From Gardner Cambell via Twitter

Coming from about 7 miles from me, I pick up this tweet from Gardner Cambell, twitting from Educase:

GardnerCampbell: Competency is one thing. Wonder and devotion are quite another.

Tags: twitter

Learning at IFVP 2007

Originally uploaded by Graphic Footprints.

I have a whole long post to go along with this picture, that emerged out of a question someone sent me in email. I am awaiting permission to publish. But since I am having such a WRETCHED time with Blogger not successfully publishing via FTP to my website, I'm going with the picture alone because I love it!

Twitter /KPBS news/So Cal Fires

Twitter / kpbsnews
is San Diego station KPBS.org's way to keep people abreast of fire response news. Bravo. Networked response.

Some of the messages in the last hour:

the following areas are under mandatory evacuation: From Del Rio Road EAST to Steele Canyon Road. From Fury Lane SOUTH to Millar Ran ... ... 39 minutes ago from web
Evacuation has been ordered for Rancho San Diego area- Close to state route 94, near Jamul and Jamashaw. about 1 hour ago from web
People on oxygen, don't adjust your oxygen settings without consulting your doctor. about 1 hour ago from web Icon_star_empty
The La Mesa Recreation Center is accepting donations of personal items but no food. about 1 hour ago from web Icon_star_empty
People that lost homes should contact their insurance broker and make a claim first, but call the Dept. of Insurance if you have problems. about 1 hour ago from web Icon_star_empty
Rohr Park in Chula Vista has plenty of room for horses. 4600 block of Sweetwater Road, near Winnetka Dr. call dave braithwaite 619-203-1640 about 1 hour ago from web Icon_star_empty
Here is the link to the CA Department of Insurance http://www.insurance.ca.gov/ about 1 hour ago
The hotline for the Department of Insurance is 1-800-927-help. about 1 hour ago from web
The City of Solana Beach has lifted all evacuation notices within the city. Residents who evacuated are allowed to return to their homes. about 1 hour ago from web
All garbage pickup services have been suspended. All Tuesday routes are now set for collection on Saturday. about 1 hour ago from web
Addendum to Poomacha fire: contrary to reports, there is no need for bulldozers, water tenders or pickup trucks. about 1 hour ago from web
All residents of Chula Vista that were previously evacuated may now return. about 1 hour ago from
As of 4:30 today, the Poomacha fire is now 23,000 acres and heading for Mt. Palomar. about 1 hour

Bandwidth and community platforms

John Smith has posted a useful post about Bandwidth and community platforms. I am snipping good portions of it here because it is relevant not only to some current work we're doing with some fantastic education leaders in Colombia, but is always part of my international work. John had heard feedback about X or Y tool taking more bandwidth than other tools. He decided to do some research.

"I decided to compare the size of several arbitrary pages. I chose 5 platforms: ClearSpace, two tools that participants in the Foundations of Communities of Practice are currently comparing to each other, Moodle (because I’m doing a project on it) and Web Crossing (which is where the Foundations workshop is held). I saved 5 pages and added up the bytes according to the several different types of files that made up a page. A quick and dirty way of making the comparison:"

In the conversation there seemed to be several leading proposals about what to do:

• Get more bandwidth for community members who needed it
• Ask Jive to consider whether ClearSpace has a performance issue

I kept arguing that there was more concurrent stuff to be done than waiting for these, which sounded like somebody else’s job. Ideas that came up:

• Work on making the member’s trajectory through the site more direct
• Create a separate directory of some sort (e.g., del.icio.us links into it) so that fewer page loads are needed
• Provide some kind of intermediary person or service who can retrieve stuff that low-bandwidth people request
• Automate the production of a CD image of appropriate sections of the site and send it to people by snail mail every month or two

What else?

The first thing is that communities can't ignore the problem. It is so easy to say "we tried our best and if you can't make it work for you, I'm sorry." We cut out participation by a) those less technically confident and b) those with real technical constraints (bandwidth, firewall, etc.)

But it is so frustrating to solve the problem, often I find myself and others I'm with giving up, because the more we try, the more people we lose as we simplify things down to the common denominator: email.

How do we set up expectations with each other so we can wade through the technological challenges so we are inclusive, so we don't spend too much attention on technology and forget the reason we come together and which does not "give up" when things get difficult?

Tags: onlinefacilitation, onlinecommunity, communitiesofpractice, techreport, technologystewardship

Testing Blogging from Flock

Nick Noakes is here for Educase, so finally, after having him as a valued friend and colleague online since something like 1998, he is here in SEATTLE and staying at our house. He showed me Flock so I'm giving it a try!

Blogged with Flock

Finding Energy From the Edges: IFVP 2007

Cafe Table Cloths
Originally uploaded by Choconancy1.

Since Thursday I have been immersed in a new tribe: the Visual Practitioners. People who listen with amazing depth and bring peoples words into a new life in images on the wall. Some are graphic recorders who focus on accurate capture of conversations. Some are graphic facilitators who use images as part of a group process. Some, like me, recognize and thirst for the ability to use image in our work - regardless of that work.

On the first day we started with a World Cafe asking the question "What does IFVP want to become?" Through three rounds of conversation and a whole group conversation, it became clear that the question, "What are we now" was still in front of our eyes. As a new-bee, I could only listen and imagine possibilities.

As a new-bee, or even an outsider, I heard various threads: people wanting to expand their business and the reach of visual practitioners , contributing more to organizations. I heard people wanting to change the world, at the personal and individual all the way to the whole systems level. But it was still a focus on "what we are today."

We have 3 more hours together this morning. I am burning with curiosity to see if the question "What might we, or what DO we want to become?" surfaces again.

On another tack, I have been blissed out to find people here who are deeply connected to other people in my network; people my friends have been talking about for years, saying "you should meet Firehawk" or "You should meet David Sibbet." Well, I met them, like long lost friends, diving into conversations like a fishing bird into water.

Finally, I am so grateful to be a new bee. To live on the edge, rather than the center, of this community. It gives me permission to ask questions - including "stupid questions." To be able to layer on another context for the work that may be different. (Three of us engineered a small coup last night, resisting the individual nature of the graphics jam designed to evoke new icons, and instead did a collaborative 6 foot wall version, filled with laughter, humor and a ton of learning from each other. More about that later too, with pictures.)

Living on the edge of many networks gives me views into many worlds, helps me understand the central nature of connection and context. I can connect people across domains and networks. I can offer another perspective which might trigger new learning. I can be forgiven for my missteps and ignorance as long as I walk the edges with some humor and humility. It is a blissful place to walk.

There is a long wait at the airport this afternoon for more reflections, but I felt I needed to jumpstart before breakfast.

Tags: IFVP2007, graphicfacilitation, reflections

Shift-It: Christina Merkely

(My live blogging is flagging towards the end of a very full day. So much reflective stuff to write... ah...My camera battery was dead, so I have to find someone else's pictures!)

Christina Merkley – Shift-It

http://www.makemark.com/

(Introduced the agenda, which I did not record…)

Ground rules:

• Keep an open mind
• Set the intention to get something out of this
• Participate and ask questions
• Focus on what you want, not what you don’t want. Flip it. What Law of Attraction is all about. I may say “flip that.”
• Free to use processes with your own clientele, but with Law of Attraction work is based off of Abraham Hick’s work. Check out that work and reference your clients. http://www.Abraham-hicks.com and reference Christina

Christina is showing us the visual bio chart – a nice beginning move for yourself. Create a visual bio to help you tell your story. I use mine on my website, in trainings off on the side. Marketing piece. People can identify you in different ways. Where you went to school, companies you worked with.

Using it as a presentation tool, I’m from Victoria BC, got pulled into organizational development work. Worked in politics and realized we needed to get more coordinated. Started looking for schools. Attracted to SF, CIIS, an alternative grad school, to create my own study. Did an MA in OD and transformation. I did not know this graphics field existed. Never thought I was an artist. A friend at CIS, we had to do internships, did one with David at the Grove. He showed me their materials and for me it brought together my two creative and analytical sides. Did an internship. It was beautiful timing as they were doing the strategic visioning product development. Combined strategic visioning and the individual work. This juncture started happening. For thesis. Showed it to person at Clausson and they hired me. Spent a year as support person. In there in the Grove hub as support person to other consultants. Gave a bird’s eye view of the work. Close mentor said handed me a job for Monday. Jumped in and must have done OK. They switched me to being a graphic recorder. IN some ways people think that was cushy, but you have to immediately bring in your salary. You have to learn a lot about marketing. Huge learning curve. How to network and bring in the work. Spent four years at Grove as internal graphic recorder and moving into co facilitation. Then this individual track started to emerge. Love the work. In SF Bay Area Coaches Training Institute is there. No one else was doing graphics, so worked doing demos with students and they all wanted to work with me, collecting the insights and aha’s in the coaching experience. On to something here.

I experimented for years with whomever I could get my hands on and the process started to evolve. Took hypnotherapy training, NLP, how people create their reality. Being the entrepreneur, itching to go out on my own. Moving into facilitator as well. Created my own company 6 months before 9-11. Make Your Mark LLC. It was tricky after 9-11. My work dried up. 911 was kind of a spiritual wake up call. I realized – what I really enjoy doing. Personal work. Meditation path. My own personal development work. I decided to switch my work. Enjoyed corporate work, travel, work with great facilitators. But this is what I loved. My exit strategy. How to switch out of corporate work and build a business model around this. Not interested in executive coaching where company pays. More into personal life coaching. What has evolved – it is organic, step after step. Out of this I realized if I was going to expand and make it easier on myself. What is this thing. Moved back to Victoria. Over a long rainy winter thinking – the process shifted, name popped out and the 7 stages. Went to Starbucks and all the templates fell out in an hour and a half. Then another three years of getting that into a product form. Partner with people to create. A lot of back and forth with designers. Shift-It Rapid Coaching Process. 17 moves to this. Gives me flexibility as coach. Map pack – all those different moves I do in order with the client.

I work in Victoria. Doing a lot of training and mentoring in graphic facilitation. As moving into other work, want to train them out and get them to deliver. Started small. When I moved, there wasn’t much understanding about graphic recording and facilitation. It is a niche field, that is growing. It was a matter of survival to again learn more about marketing. Created Make Your Mark site. Content. On your site you want to create useful content. Free stuff. Wrote a lot of articles helped me get known again. Because of the internet, it didn’t just expand in Canada, but around the world. They didn’t want to fly me out, but they wanted to pick my brain. Opportunity – who would you recommend in my area. Some of you are on my referral network. I get a lot of traffic. Clients ask my opinion. Train out and partner up and now have business that sustains me. Graphic coaching niche. I coach a lot, also about marketing and internet marketing. In the last 5 years, people know search engine terms and finding us. A wealth of sites out there. I think it is very exciting, positive, growing, the world is our oyster and I like to help people get that mindset. The positivity around this work and where it is going. Depending on what your niche is and how you want to weave it in your own way. How things have grown, diversity of use and people being attracted.

(Passing out raffle ticket.)

Have productized into a kit that people can use on their own. Next step is e-elearning. 40% training and 50% coaching.

Q: What was the process from swinging from working with larger and larger groups to the individual.

A: I could not do corporate anymore from a values perspective. Quality of life rather than just money. If you do want to make a difference, need to think beyond 1 to 1 to telecoaching groups. License or empower other coaches and consultants to take it to their clientele. Very interested in Law of Attraction work and may create a new product line which can expand in an exciting way. Get it into a lot of people’s hands and make a difference.

Work generally takes 3 hours, can be broken down into 12 calls or mini process in 6 calls. (Less moves).

(She puts up her vision graphic. I’m too far away to see it.)

Obviously I’ve been influenced by David’s work, the mandala, with a magnet in the middle. When we launch vision we pull things to us that align with our vision. The underlying symbolism. Use myself as an example. What is your next stretch. Mine is 7 years out. Earlier their were shorter time frame goals. At this point, what is my desire? What do I want to create? For 2015, put yourself there in present tense – I have great work, life balance, time to think and be, assistance in home front, virtual staff, successful multimillion dollar personal growth enterprise, perfect match life partner, fun and happier personal and family life (holistic), fit, healthy, feel great about myself, well known and respected brand, slightly famous, purposeful life that feels good to me and contributes to others. You can do a magnetism map on business or your full life and self. There are a couple of things on this template (hand out templates). You will have three of them. Take a color and a B&W pack. You’ll notice these red words. What I found helpful in visioning is to discover –this is a specific thing – what is underneath, what essence is this providing in your life?

In this work life balance bucket – peace, calm and centeredness. To the universe, bring on any form that will give me peace, calm and centeredness. For biz –creativity, expression and growth. What do these things mean for you, the underlying essence, what you are about. Go through these things and pull up your essence. What you are really about. With Law of Attraction, you start to have these things come to you that meet the essence. Each one has a little check where we move into allowing. You create a vision, big step, then you get that freak out about the vision. Things that are pushing your buttons and you need to come into alignment with your vision. There are things that push my buttons. For me, if … checking to see if this is possible, in this amount of time. (missed had to plug back into power). This is where work as hypnotherapist comes in. You have to tap in to feel that security and energy. Hicks,, 17 seconds of pure energy and attraction kicks into place. One thing I’m good at is imagining. It starts to become more familiar, it doesn’t seem so strange. You become it in your mind. Keep it safe at first, then as you own it you become it. That’s what I do. Go with client and see how much they can hold and where is the stuff we need to shift. For me it’s the money and then how to integrate having kids and family. The rest – I’m there in a lot of the ways. I can hold it and allow it. As I do this with a client, this tells me where we need to focus our work. Demo the flip it process with you. 7 is the magic number or less in terms of the area. If there are more. Collapse them.

Now work with LoriLouise to demo…

The first template, wouldn’t it be nice if… we’ll start there as a little segue. Nice one to use with groups for visioning. Quick one. Bypasses some fo the resistance. Take a moment to think about the conference, even before you came here, things brewing in your minds about your horizons or where you want to go. Wouldn’t it be nice if…. A playful sentence. Finish the sentence for yourself. Keep writing. The good stuff comes at the end. This is where you are now. It continues to evolve.

(Christina has now put up three charts – a magnetic template and two flip it charts. )

As we work with LoriLouise, given your work with “wouldn’t it be nice” how do you condense these into main things.

Christina starts working with LoriLouise. I think this is too personal to blog, so I’ll take a pause in live blogging this…

Each “wouldn’t it be nice” have a zing and zap of energy. All of you are going to have different things that turn you on. Lots of interesting stuff to work with. Now let’s test a little bit with time frame. If you are in transition, 3 years out? With more time do guided imagery. Now in 2009, who are you? Play with “I am…”

(Again, I missed a bit as it is hard to hear in the back of the room where I am plugged in)

(Ahh, giving up after the part with LoriLouise and am just listening. End of full day!)

Tags: IFVP2007, graphicfacilitation, coaching

Carl Moore and Suzanne Otter

Carl Moore
Originally uploaded by Choconancy1.

Carl Moore and Suzanne Otter
Visuals: Critical Success Factors for Achieving Community Objectives

In public realm, you don’t have authority. In private realm just one person makes the decision and you just have to make a good decision. In the public realm, you have to keep making good decisions.

Susan agreed to join us this morning and I feel so bolstered. My name is Carl Moore, have a small consulting business named Community Store, taught at Kent State University and they made me emeritus so I moved to Santa Fe. All my work is in the public realm. They are messier, puzzles of transparency and inclusion are real, palpable

Susan: Hi I know lots of you, it is really a treat. I have been at this since the late 80’s working with David Sibbet. In the last few years have opportunity to work locally. Mostly do work in the community. My job is to help groups learn together about complex issues, make a good decision then do something they may have never done before. We’ll share some of those stories and where the graphics are used in that context.

Carl: My first course in GF was with Geoff Ball. Had opportunity to be facilitated in a group by David Sibbet, National Assocition of Community Leadership. David asked us questions for which drawning was the answer. Very helpful realization. I asked questions for which making lists was the answers. I’m a graphic primitivce

My job as a facilitator is to create a safe space for people to say their mine. They are free to be committed to the content. I know when I work that I need to be able to draw a picture of what the group is doing, their aspiration and the steps of the process. I need a picture.

One of the kinds of pictures necessary for me to work is to show them what they are about to go thorugh. When I do strategic planning, I’ll draw something like this on the wall. I’ll explain what’s occurred before we come together is an awareness of the internal and external environment analysis, SWOT, Visual quick way of showing what is done, what will be done and follow on.

Sometimes we use templates to let a group be facilitated. We’d like to do one with you. We’d like to learn what is the mission of the International Forum of Visual Practitioners (IFVP). What is the mission, he asked?

(People contributed their ideas, and Susan is graphing them.)

What is outside of our misson?

(People again contributed. Insert picture here)

What of this language speaks to why you exist?

(Carl kept asking questions, digging deeper.)
Graphics can help create trust in the facilitator. The big issues in community in the west are land and water. Working in Eldorado around land issues. The community had been working, or arguing for a while. Before we went to the first meeting we interviewed county staff to find out project history – at least 10 hours, interviewing, making drafts of maps. It took a familiar form. Kind of like a matrix with time and phases to the work. We also had bars of information that went across. At the top level big events. When did people move into the area, ranching, to ranchettes, to suburban. Plotted weather, building permit issuing, planning events and then community events that went across. It was pretty simple and easy to read in this matrix. We began the meeting…

And they were angry for a variety of reasons. Having that chart in front of them. Impacted their knowledge that we had done our homework and done something to help them sort out their puzzle. Caused trust in us.

Second observation: Grpahics can be used to trick the controls. Was about to facilitate a meeting of Sheriff’s department. All with arms crossed, didn’t think to have donuts. If I began there it would be tough. I had a bunch of paper and I had just come from a meeting where someone did this to me. I put paper on the table and markers and said, “draw a picture of something about you that no one in the room knows about you.” Slowly, they drew pictures, then explained pictures and it totally changed where they were with status.

It can help manage complexity as Susan’s matrix illustrates. It matters to complexity, but there is a downside if the images get too complex, they call attention and mask the real meaning of the story.

My preference, and one of the reasons such a joy to work with Susan, how do you invite people in to engage them, but images not so slick that people are put off by them. Favorite example, was working on a project to build a new bridge from Indiana into Kentucky. Need for years. The people who were managing the process used GIS to show where the watersheds were. It looked so good. They could put all the layers up there. No one dared challenge it. In NM on hand drawn maps, people pick up a marker and change them. Favorite mapping story – worked three years with a citizen group in Katherine County. Encouraged citizens to carry weapons. Resolution for every federal or state agent to register when they enter the county. They felt abused. (Gap). One of the triggering things for movement – came in with hand drawn maps of the area where some cutting of trees could occur. Put them on acetate. First map outline, second map endangered species, third roadless area. Mapped each of the values and showed what was left for cutting. Then field trip to the selected area. Have to do things on the ground. Examined the area to see what is possible. Group that had barely been able to sit in the room together were able to move the issue a bit. An inviting use of mapping.

Susan: Would add – when you are working in the public realm, subject to open meetings act. People who come have other options, other political means to get things done. So it is critical that you don’t – for example we were unsuccessful where we could not get our design partner to put up a million slick maps. The neighbors walked in, didn’t like it and found other ways around the meeting. A room filled with slick graphics sent the message that the plan was already done. Graphics need to invite people in as opposed to triggering another way.

Carl: Invite them to build the materials, rather than imposing them.

Plato argued that the idea form of anything are in the demi urge, just below heaven. When you draw something, you are drawing something that is a copy of the ideal form. A copy of a copy. You are always being reductionist – the nature of the work.

My favorite book about community is called “Habits of the Heart: From individualism to commitment in American life.” Americans get to a stage when they are moving from individualistic to a more community way. What we’d like you to do, Susan said I have to do this because this is what we do to groups, count off to ten and remember your number.

We count off the group because people often sit with the people they know. We want you to answer the question, have you ever lived in a place that felt like community? What helped it be a community?

(groups break out, the report back and Carl helps identify patterns of what is community. See chart)

The most recurring themes: scale. Aristotle argued that the max number is 4000 people – max number of people who could interact with each other over the course of a year. Scale has to do with communication, sense of purpose, mediating institutions, ways to get together, there is a center to community. It might not be the kind of center the literature might describe. The back of the feedstore. The coffee shop at 7am on Monday. A shape to community – it is bounded. Obviously talking about place-based communities. You cannot race through a community and not be noticed. Part of the charm of Santa Fe are the perpendicular roads. You can’t race through downtown Santa Fe. Heard the word safe – if you don’t feel safe you don’t have community. Communities have ways to exchange, to trade babysitting services for something else. Create currency alternatives; barter. They are diverse. If not diverse, they are lifestyle enclaves. The definition – you are going to get two handouts later – one of them is an essay, “What is community?” A group of people who are interdependent, struggle with the traditions that bind them and the interests that separate them to envision a better future.” (get the rest). Then it means community is the struggle. I posit that your mission is to help people struggle for community. It is not an end state. You keep working at it.

Now share 1-2 favorite stories of doing this work in community. (See hand out) It is important to pick good clients. We want to tell a story about a place called Rancho Viejo – the future build out of Santa Fe for the next 40 years. They came on some hard times. They had built a plaza area in first stage. Lots of ideas of what was going to go into Plaza area. But the citizens took it over. Interesting that the worst enemies of the builders of the subdivision buy into the subdivision. The developers had to respond. Since they built the community college plan required them to add an affordable subdivision. Challenges. What kind of a process could we use if we bring people together to do this? The story is reflected in the picture in the handout.)

In the middle of this, Suzanne created a graphic and we filled in as we went along. Started to emerge after third meeting. We went through first stage – how to convene the group. I wrote a letter to every person. Told them about office hours to ask questions. Told we wold meet four times, when, how long and ground rules. I was convener so developer could participate as party in the process. 25 citizens came together. Invited 5-6 people who did not live there and no future interest to be committed to process with no stake in the meeting.

Laid out fabulous ground rules. Important. Clear about purpose and the givens and what is not up for discussion. For example, given is X% of affordable housing. If that was not a given, it would have stalled. Elaborate ground rules. If you would like a set, I’ll flip one over to you.

We took them through stage 1, learning. People came and taught about community college plan, history of development, county regulations. Meeting 1. We made a simple map to answer the question, what question begs a picture. Showed on the lower part of the map the topography of the area and the planning events and when people moved in, roads, that is a question that is helpful to have a picture as opposed to a list. It had a picture of the time when the citizens came together to say what should be done and what wasn’t done. Our challenge is how to pay attention to the past without getting stuck in the past. Critical component. Everyone had their version of the past.

We went through a learning then planning stage. Put them into groups, crudely taught about scenario then tell stories about what good would be. Tell stories about what you’d like to see in the village. Distrubuted the neutral people. Had fun. What is in common in these stories. What did you hear about the future that you really like? We recorded that. That was step 2.

Step 3 was chosing. We needed a way to hear what choices they wanted to make. We used one of the tools (shared in 10:45 session) variation of single text negotiation (from dispute resolution). We invited people – 25 in 5 groups – to tell us what their criteria for a good solution be and what they proposed be done for the village center. 30-50 minutes. Each group told what they came up with, Suzanne recorded. Then we reconstituted the group – hard to do in community because they want comfort of their neighborhood. To the new groups, answer four questions. What do all 5 roposals have in common, what could you agree with, what can you not accept and what 1 thing do you care most about. Then walked through how they answered to start to build what they all wanted, where there were differences and what needed to change to get to agreement on a set of choices.

Those four questions, opposite view – those were recorded in clean lists for side by side comparisons. Recording them in a more creative way would have been confusing.

There is a little more to it than that (laughter.) Ultimately you see a graphic representation of the work of the group. As you look across learning, planning, choosing and the planning state. Box for items for consensus and last column every member signing off. The developer could take this to the bank and the county commissioner when they needed more water allocation.

I’m clear when I do community work that the developer may pay me, but working FOR the community. Was fabulous – developer was former city manager. Had some bad experiences with community group – they hated him. That was his experience. They would challenge the process. He had seen how I facilitated the community college planning group. So he began process with absolute trust. He agreed to do what was resolved by the group.

This map was then taken out by members of the group to become champions of the process. At the third meeting a couple came in – the homework group – stumbled into this in another project. The compact we write and letter was set out was “don’t agree to do this unless you come to all the meetings.” The new group was balking, but the group took care of it. It is an issue. We try to do it with another process and had terrible luck because people did not participate in good faith. Everyone who signed off had participated in the whole thing.

Suzanne has been working on a water project. This is a water issue. Haymas valley (she draws a map of the territory). In the middle of the watershed are 5 communities, one of which is Haymas Pueblo, a sovereign region. The legislature, the other communities can go to the legislature and ask for funding for work and then they say we’ve spent a gazillion dollars with no results. So have to work as a region, not as a community. Not much experience working together, only in emergencies. The county hired a team of us working to see if we could get this group to form an alliance to go to the legislature. What has happened – what questions – in community work with its own characteristics have a picture of an answer or a list. For this project we also created a process map so the community knew when the meetings were, funding, and created another process map that “remember the meeting we just went to.” And one that gets filled in as we go along. The answers so far have been recorded in a list because the trust level is so low. If I were to rent big boards and work like this it would cause suspicions. These are people who are elected to run water systems, provide safe, available, affordable water. A huge responsibility. When they come in the room they have overalls on, know how to fix the well. They want to see if you are really writing down what I’m saying or is this a show for us. Very critical about this. Working for 9 months and we think they are going to sign the agreement next month. An example of being out there doing community work. A whole different animal. If one community doesn’t like it, they go directly to the legislature. You don’t have the same context in a community than within an organization.

A couple of “last things.” Rancho Viejo taught us a couple of lessons, then we’ll share a template.

The lessons we got – there really is an arrow of community change. Follow the arrow. The reality is if we can get a group to learn together before we ask them to say what is and make chances, we have a chance. Pattern is come out, tell us what you want is too quick. Don’t go there so soon. Have people learn together first.

Second, have the right convenor. It was a challenge for me to be the convenor, but there was benefit. IN another example the only possible convenor is the local doctor. Everyone depends on that one person. If you have one for the entire county, you will do whatever that doctor asks you to do.

Invite everyone. Democracy is messy. (Missed a bit to say hello to Rachel Smith ). Get to know someone before you ask them to do something. Must be convinced the process can manage where the convenor is going to “get the hurt from.”

Make a mess. If you begin too neatly you will never get to understand the complexity. Academics can reduce complexity and take over people’s ideas. You want to be protective – Suzanne’s point of writing what they say. Don’t put it into your language. Be wary of that.

Enlarge the shadow of the future to base the action. Pay attention to the past without getting stuck. Timelines are good for that. Let people add to that.

Pictures are a good thing to do. One is a process picture in the beginning, what is going to happen. And a picture at the end of what they produced. They will tell Suzanne how to make it better.

Last thing – the back side of the Rancho Viejo hand out – simplified for the purpose of understanding. We make the assumption because there are certain predictable behaviors in a group, over time facilitation strategies have emerged. Some are listed. Give people time to think before you ask them to speak. If I only did one thing, that would be it. If you don’t people with privilege speak up quickly and cleverly. With more time get confidence. (Read off list really fast)

In turn, processes, y’all know the nominal group technique: (see hand out). It is a process that is a collection of strategies. There are certain processes we use on a regular basis to do three things: generate, develop and select between ideas. What we find in terms of graphics, most of what we do using those tools are linear frameworks: lists, templates and matrices to fill in. Those processes and strategies can be used in other applications like strategic planning and we are likely to use graphics in other ways. We list those.

Q&A: do you teach groups, like when they are in chaos, I don’t do community stuff. This is really good, the group is uncomfortable and I explain why I am so happy. Training them to put on facilitators hat to understand their own dynamics. For groups that want to learn this (perhaps not community groups in conflict.) When you get in conflict, do you go into reflective space.

A: Christo, the guy doing the installation in Central Park. There were 200 organizations against him at the start – how could he fail with all that energy to draw upon. We will get push back. I try and design to anticipate so there is a place to put that. I do like the mess. Want to hear from the edges. Not sure I do it in instructional way. One devise we use – esp. with groups to meet over time – at the end of every meeting what do you need so that we come to the next meeting we can present info, bring people with knowledge. Chaos as a creative energy. Move the question towards ‘ can you fram that in the form of a question we can answer together. “ Then rigorous to respond to that question. One question was “we don’t believe you that any rural water systems can do this. Bring them here.” And we did. That fragile setting it needs to be converted into a way to keep the group together.

Q: Both you and Suzanne are modest about your work with complex and messy. For those of you who have not run public meetings, they can be abject terror. People come angry, verbally armed. So the work they are doing is amazing. Hats off!

Carl: Suzanne and I in the wake of fire in Sierra Grande that threatened to destroy Los Alamos. Can you create a process to plan into the future. Respectful to people who saved us and become a different kind of community. Helped city of Chattanooga do a process for transformation. Visioning process in Los Alamos that resulted in some nice elements. (Shows poster). This was in the newspaper. This green thing was the logo we used. The delta with scientific notation, Got the graphic from a local high school contest by sharing the community process with the students. The real thing they got was to work with a professional designer to convert into a logo. This was a full page in paper. You spoke. We listened. Did we get it right? Mission statement, whats going to be done and how to give feedback. Another one a month later – you spoke, we listened, here it is. Then to next stage to take abstract vision work into comprehensive planning. It connotes the delta, all the things in the legal process and included what/when for landmark stages. Process map so community sees how things would happen. The great joy in working with Suzanne is the kind of problem solving we do before going into project. We orient ourselves to the world differently. Thanks for being so attentive.

Tags: IFVP2007, graphicfacilitation

Chart from Firehawk's Session

Chart from Firehawk's Session
Originally uploaded by Choconancy1.

Firehawk’s Sacred Digital Mirrors
Intro by David Sibbet: Firehawk Hulin – began his life in England, half of parentage is Cajun, wonderfully juicy person. Was in professional media, making lots of money and burning out. Ten years of studying with Native American teachers, medicine wheel, embedding understanding about how we live and work. Life’s purpose is to bring forward these medicine teachings with his wife Pele. Coleader of the Thought Leader dialog. Monterrey Institute for Social Architecture – gathering of players looking to play the infinite game.

Graphic recording by David Sibbet

Music, invite you to come sit by the fire in a place in Second Life called Third Life created by David Sibbet, Singing Heart (Michele Paradise). (GET SCREEN SHOT OF SPACE). This is a virtual medicine wheel. A place that mirrors some of the places that humans have met in for thousands of years. Sat at the fire together. Heard each others words and sought the wisdom that can only come from our collective heart. When I first heard about second life I had the same reaction p- interesting distraction, but what does it have to do with the sacred. In the last three months have been having amazing sacred experiences in this space. 5-6 of us gather Sunday evenings to devise and practice holding a wisdom council in cyberspace. There are 8 doors in the medicine wheel. In each one represents 1/8 of the energies of wholeness that come up from thousands of years of observing the earth and her systems. IN the east, where the sun rises, the energies are freedom and creativity. The people sitting in the east watch out for what is needed for freedom and creativity to be available to all people. Where are we enslaved. Wanted to start here because not usually allowed to have a fire in a ballroom at hotels. From my name, fire is essential to me. When I was 44 you could count on one hand number of times I have sat at a fire. Now more fingers than in the room. We remember who we are when we sit a the fire.

Start today with an old technology with relevance for the days we are in. It is called, stringing the beads. Figure out how we can get in an absolute circle. In 1992 met mixed blood couple who became my teachers. Taught a process called stringing the beads. Each bead is unique, but held together by a single thread. Passing the thread around to identify who is present. Inconceivable to think about getting to business before we know who is here. I wondered how this would fit in business. In the last 4-5 years more and more friends who are consultants are using a form of this practice in their work so we hear from everybody. Doesn’t have to be formal, but sometimes it is good to be formal, in a circle, listen with our hearts open to whatever comes. There are 16 of us. If we take about 1.5 minutes each and hear each of us speak to the question similar to what Ole talked about, but what brings you here from your own perspective. What called you to this room on your own journey. What brings you to this particular room. What spark, what call. (Putting computer down to participate.

Back to Firehawk telling his story – malcolmcohan.com – a million people sharing their vision statements with short videos. I want you to make a vision video that is a minute long. 60 seconds bit. On yourself. I want to start with my vision. I made this for myself. I watch it every morning. It turns me on. It kicks but, I get up and say YES! It’s great. What I show it to other people it creates other ripples. Malcom is giving away the software for PCs to enable that. Get the free stuff on a PC. Working on the Mac stuff. There is software for Mac that is so good.

I want to start with the vision piece. It is really important that we have positive images of the future that we want to live in to. Who do I want to be. Amazing that I don’t have grandchildren when wife and I have six children. I really want to see the world I want to have for those children, to help create for those children.

(Moving our eyes to the screen to watch the video)

firehawk@Resonance.to

Q: How many times have you seen that. Roughly several hundred, I would guess, since I made it. I watch it pretty much every day. I’m using it as a reminder to me of who I am and what I care about and the path I can see going forward. It is on YouTube. Many people have checked it out. I’m not marketing vision videos other than that they are possible.

In 1972 started my first audio visual company - for 22 years industrial rock and roll. Large meeting, multimedia, multiple projection all the way to digital video. What I was aware of that it always made a big impact at the time but not much lasting difference. IN 1990 my career took a left turn when I met Bill Veltrop and the international center for organizational design. Calling people who had technologies of change who were not talkig to each other. Found myself fascinated by that realm. Then I met my teachers. All fo the media work for a decade sat. Then when I completed my apprenticeship in 2000 the world had changed. In the last 2 years it has all changed. IN 3-4 hours you can make something that can inspire you. Make a3-4 minute statement about what you see for yourself is a powerful act. There is a collective part to it.

A couple of months ago went to meeting of 12 mental health professionals using story to bring wholeness and wellness. In 4.5 hours from scratch created a 5 minute vision video. Had a high speed connection, wrote a poem, some took a nap, we found copyright cleared images, put them together with a soundtrack and 6pm put it on the screen. A very empowering experience to do that in that short of time. That’s what’s going on. I used to spend thousands of dollars an hour in a studio to do this work. It is intuitive and faster.

Jen: My father was in a similar business in Chicago. I was a little girl, we used to go look at the huge equipment that was all part of making TV and video. Now it is in your lap.

I start with music. The way I make film it always comes first in the music. I don’t write words or think of visuals until I hear the music. This is a piece of copyright free music from http://www.musicbakery.com There are so many of them now. Musicbakery is mid priced. This was $29 to use. http://www.stock20.com will sell you individual tracks for $7. Good flowing movie making music. You can get license to use popular music. I did a project for the International Museum of Women. Called the artist directly he said call his agent. Agent asked how much I wanted to pay for it. I said $250. He said “too much, why don’t you send me $100.” There is something going on in music. If I want a particular piece of popular music, work with someone with a broad license on that song. But the free music and copyright clear music. I start with the music.

I wanted to have all that as context for this next piece. The reason I called this the sacred digital mirror, one of the first technologies of transformation that called me was Appreciative Inquiry. Look at the world as a miracle. Seek the best that we are. I love photography and I love people. I like to take pictures that mirror to people how magnificent they are and put that on the screen whenever I can. I want to partner with world class facilitators, visual practitioners. Peter Garn who was at HP and now independent. Now doing work at Cabrillo college. Were going to have a three hour visioning session for a master planning session with the whole community. Never before engaged the whole community. They called everyone together on flex week before Fall semester. 200+ staff, faculty, admin. 150- people showed up. Dana White worked the boards, Peter facilitated and I shot 1500 pictures in three hours. Then I went home, had a bite to eat and made this. Showed it the next day to the board at noon. Didn’t get much sleep, but it carried the immediacy of what happened. Then showed it to the whole school at the end of the week for close of Flex week. We took and shot the boards and put them in 11/17 print outs and the movie and gave the CD to all the groups working on the master planning. They use this to start the next round of meeting. Again, not trying to tell the linear story. The mirroring of the energy and spirit in the room.

(video)

It opened the door to what these kinds of collaboration can look like. To weave the charts with the emotional content of people seeing themselves and being mirrored back in that way. Thoughts?

Jenn: interesting with this piece and the other one. You start with music. For me it is visual. The faces. Those faces were beautiful. Everyone of them. So human. I have a four year old and I take a lot of pictures of her. Every image shows a different emotional range. When I create summary documents, I create what you have there but on paper. I start with what the meeting was like – excited, happy, sad, new , old. I go online and search for an image that resonates for me the tone of that meeting. Takes 20 minutes or hours. Hit or miss. For those that process visually, by reading, by music. Covering, touch everybody on one of those three levels. For me it was the faces.

Linda: There are lots of areas of overlap. Our meetings are very experiential, with a ton of multimedia. We do vision montages in the visioning process. We need to do them more. We do a lot of high ropes courses. One thing we found – volume was turned up to 12 on this – when training photogs to shoot the course, we have finalcut pros do backflips to turn it around the next day. Finding moments of expression of emotion and open the next day with the previous day’s video. Gives permission to be emotive. Before we say a word we dim the light and show the video from the day before. It matters what the music, but the images will always fit the music as the music carries the emotion. Anytime you allow people in the room to expand their emotional vocabulary together. We in front of the room define the size of the room. The ceiling can be high or low. To make that room bigger for people. There is nothing like a human image to do that. Where is the emotion in the image vs the action or conclusion. Not intuitive but powerful.

FH: When I started we used to process the slides in the bathtub with a fish heater. Dip and dunk the film, trash the bathroom in the hotel. Cut the slide sup and put them in the 30 slide projectors. We would not sleep very much to do that. I was asked by one of our pathwalker friends, she asked me to come to Univ CA San Francisco to an accountants meeting she was running to photograph the people. TO show them themselves at the end of the day. The day was wonderful because accountants don’t’ get to talk to each other much. It went to another level when they saw my mirror and I did not break a sweat doing it. Shot 7:1 to 10:1 ratio of images. Edit intuitively. Order and reorder on the computer, figure out the track and I’m done. 4pm it is on the screen. We had a closing circle, they had not planeed, wanted to talk about what they were feeling. It is a part of our emotional intelligence that often does not show up at meetings. Power in the partnership – the images on the wall make great connective tissue. You can’t have to photoshop them. Just shoot the wall and weave them into the pictures. Makes a lot of sense to me.

Janine: when you were choosing the audio, that was intuitively – didn’t run it by someone to get approval? No, I won’t work that way. Those messages are powerful – it recognizes the driving needs of people. Across every department… how have you seen the audio, these messages push the planning or strategy forward? You have to act on that. “We need resources.”

FH: The challenge that junior colleges have is to reinvent themselves. Population is dropping. They have to serve a whole lot of – a friend of ours has created an amazing answer. He takes at risk and super at risk young people, mostly Hispanic who would normally have no attempt to college and he accelerates them to college level in a semester. Lots of grants because it is really working. Took the best OD stuff from Harvard business and started applying that in a new realm. Now getting grants to replicate in other colleges.

Jenn: that’s a vision for you. That is happening in other places. Some clients have donated graphic facilitator time to local orgs to get their leadership off the ground. To do this organizational development. Sharing success story – we’ve seen improvement in Richmond public schools which was one of the worst in the nation now people are calling them to ask how they are doing their turn around. Take the best parts and move it forward. If everyone does a little bit you have a vision for the future for these kids who are the future.

David: Digital Bridge Academy brought me in to help sell the idea, using templates like Ole with the kids, kids doing fabulous scenario work, infiltrating faculty meetings. In some ground that has been somewhat cultivated. Coming to the emotional piece. Can’t take one ingredient as causal. Very contextual. That’s why the partnering is so important, finding the partners we are supposed to do to do the great work. There’s this huge opportunity to grow different organisms to really redesign the social forms we grew up in.

Bill: Thinking about groups in conversation with a person leading/facilitating, that hierarchy of what we do from this morning. Through that leadership and collaboration that end result we record graphically but you recorded with sounds and pictures and graphics mixed in. Maybe where we are heading to is that person doing the collaboration leadership. The maestro aspect of how you put all that together. There is some kind of chemistry, magic that goes on in that person that makes it all happens in a way that is ahead of the normal.

FH: the leap that I made, originally saw medicine wheel as separate from my media career. But I design with wheels. What is needed to make up the whole. There are 140 different wheels. Things in the east relate to a certain energy. That’s how I get quickly to the flow. Using that as a design tool. Where is the energy of adventure, nurture, strategist. Outrageous. Let the wheel inform what I do. Old wisdom and new technology come together.

Susi: reflecting that energy and helping people see, by being human and speaking from the heart they can do great work, communicate and facilitate by being like you.

Can you learn that?

You have it, it is inside each of us. What I love about medicine wheel is that there is no pathological element. You are a sacred human being who came here to learn and grow. Imagine relating to our children like that. Each of us has this gift. If we don’t give it, you have terrible bad luck. You gotta give the gift and it is often not obvious. You can’t do this stuff as a sound bite. That’s why I like working over years with people, time to evolve together.

Linda: Someone asked what do you do to move the strategy forward. How we use this, at the end of the day people feel how they want to feel. Ropes allow people to experience themselves being un-self conscious working optimally together without working hard. Show them a mirror to remind them of that then asking what gets in our way of being like this all the time. How we want to be together as a team, how we are with our families when we don’t have to think about it. What obstacles do we have to remove at work. How do you move us forward, the practical application, to forge a culture together to execute a strategic plan. Almost a gap analysis. This is how we want to be, how we are and what strategies to put in place to become who we want to be.

Cheryl- a possibility statement, not a gap analysis.

FH: You have to have the ability to hold a lot of complexity. You need a social system to hold you together as you go through the birth canal. Circle, being together, really hearing from each other. Just play with me. Stories are told. It shifts the game. It si not about a technique or a thing. The old people said, we are life, it is all one thing. We are not separate. We have to find a way organizationally to not be separate. To come into a different relationship.

Bill: From your perspective, you talk about linking the old with the new. Is there anything about the act of linkage that is new because the new has changed it. Are people doing, thinking, creating conceptualizing ideas differently?

FH” yeah, people are evolving. We have to design processes to evolve consciously. Global warning is not something happening to us. It is part of life and calling us to a higher purpose. To cataclysm or apocalypse. I want to stand in the room where people say “yes, and.”

Bill: Do you ever come to the day where you change the way you do it?

FH: I’ve had a lot of experience writing the word first. But now I have control of production so I can say how it goes. The box is the tool I control. Creations are more powerful.

Deirdre: In graphic recording, you get to decide too. The are trusting your skill and intuition .

FH: Graphic recorders have elephant ears. Hear in incredible ways. Mezmerizing to see it unfold on the board, adding value in the room in real time.

Jenn: Anyone can learn how to put their thoughts and ideas out there. You don’t have to be an artist or musician to put y our vision on a screen in a way anyone can identify with. The Lord of the Rings trilogy – those three movies had to wait for CGI to be made that good. You can make anything look real on a screen with media. If that is your vision, we have the technology to take your vision out there in a way you can identify with and resonate with. An evolution in our selves and in technology.

One last piece to show you.

Software for mac – fotomagico - $30 – it takes what iPhoto does to a whole other level. It is really good. Going to share a piece of media I created this morning in fotomagico

(video)

(music – everything is holy now)

That’s the sacred digital mirror. To even conceive of shooting, editing 490 pictures 71 in the show and then putting the soundtrack and synchronize it to feel the way it feels. Could put rock and roll and it feels different.

How long in minutes to make it ? Edited pictures last night for an hour. Sorting, use Apple’s aperture, make a copy of files then delete and select images that resonate. An hour. Then started doing this at 10:30 and David came in at 12. 2.5 hours start to finish and the time shooting yesterday in the world café.

Fred: I told a little lie yesterday. Someone sitting beside me had a camera, and saw you shooting. “I’m not going to take any because they have a professional here. He has a bigger lens than you. “ It was a lie. You create wonderful pictures.

What Fotomagico does – it has, the way the code is written it maximizes the quality of the image. This is not a bright project nor well color balanced. It lets you blow things up, zoom in without losing, without them falling apart. I’m shooting 2000x3000 raw files and its doing something with that. I can zoom, rotate and pan. You can control on a timeline linke in final cut pro so things can hit on the music. The choreography.

Do you design for worst case projectors? Take what you have. The room was very dark. Love shooting in daylight but often ballrooms are dark. I push that then lightened up 80%. I can set a program to lighten all the images. Do that in aperture.

N: Now people are doing this collectively, remixing each other, holding mirrors up to each other.

FH would like to have a conference while playing with each others stuff, a team of people doing that. Collaborative juice of other people surprising me. Last serious movie was four young people and four gray beards.

Bill: Do you not need the maestro?

FH: I don’t see it as maestro. It’s like – my job now is very different than when I started my company in 1972 fresh out of college. I see that the next generation of maestros are on the planet doing stuff. What I love is being able to share the connection to the earth with all of this. My credo – VOOM – Voice of Our Mother is at the Table. This is a means to express this. Don’t think of this as “my thing.” I love giving it away. Turning people on to how to do it. That’s where I’m at. In terms of the larger game, the high priesthood of media creation died with the digital age. What we’ll see in 10 years will blow our mind.

Ole: Now everything is on computers. Next higher level of working with information with bits and bytes. What do you think we’ll be seeing?

FH: thread that I see – much more like the holodeck on Startreck. Step into a program and work with it.

N: The Ted video of the tool that allows you to physically move things with your hands

FH: Second life, calls you to create. I didn’t want to get sucked in, but what David created, oh my goodness. I cherish the time. It is not ‘instead of” with huge implications for teaching people earth wisdom.

David: Trying to track what is different in that medium, not amplifying something else. It is truly collaborative writing. Chat is a slow poetic medium when done interactively. Downloading chat as serious writing. There are other people in the writing, in the conversation.

(GOT involved in conversation and did not scribe )

People who are disempowered F2F can be totally empowered in these new environments. Things happening at a fast pace. Cross currents.

Thank you.

IFVP Session: A Visual Practitioner's Full Circle Approach

Ole’s Session: Bigger Picture: A Visual Practitioner’s Full Circle Approach

(Usual live blogging caveats apply – spelling, not capturing everything, mistakes, etc. Synthesis and reflection come later! I’ll add in visuals as well. Flickr photos here.)

· Started with asking people why they are in the session. Intriguging that most came because of Ole’s reputation and interest in the technology aspect.

· I hope that I’ll both cover something new that inspires, then talk about Kaospilot and Pioneers of change.

· Full circle is not about circle practice, but using visuals in as many angles as possible. Wet dream of visual practitioner is to apply it an individual, group, collective levels; before, during and after, with and without tech. We might have a gold nugget a lot of leaders can learn from. Sit beside leaders and do synthesis with a visual approach and literacy.

· Ole tells the story of his grandparents who started as farmers. His grandfather wanted not to farm, but to do new stuff with cars. Grandmother was a clothing designer. Dad was first mainframe computer engineer, mom technical assistant in Red Cross. Ole is a Kaospilot, Pioneer and visual practioner. They married someone in the neighborhood. Ole married a Russian. Global society.

· Overview of his agenda: introduction, orienaation, case, facilitative leadership and burning questions and issues.

· Situations where visuals really work. Meetings, presentations, collaborative work where there are graphic facilitators to hold the conversation and allow people to take ownership of their conversation

· Ole works with a network of networks. World Café, Pioneers of Change, Chaordic Commons, Art of Hosting – all sorts of networks who think in similar ways, bring different skills. In Pioneers of change I have a unique contribution with visuals.

· Applies to all types of organizations, big and small, business and NGO.

· Values that guide Ole’s work – generosity, sustainaibilty, creativity, diversity. Concpets building on open space technology, wisdom of the crowns, systems thinking, open source, creative commons, united nations. Try to work with those values and concepts

· Shared picture of visual methods and tools. (Get copy of slide to share with blog). This “bigger picture.” Graphic recording, graphic facilitation, visual orientations. Sure there is individual track, support individual with visuals in their learning journey. As a conference or a change process over time. Supports collective co-creation and individual learning plus some dialog tools visual dialog tools, information that is meaningful to the topic. That feeds in, but also unfinished drawings that are hosting the conversation, meeting or process. This image is 10 years old at an Institute for the Future meeting with the large scale forecast project. Everything was made visual. Recognized this from what he did in 7^th grade, and when he was 18, where you finalize. Half of exams were with visuals. Half professors loved it, half did not like it. Came out with an average. In Denmark that may not be enough to get you into the university. That’s where Kaospilot comes in. 3 year university for misfits. People who don’t find their way in traditional boxes. Become who you want to be, just start doing it and we’ll try and provide what you want. Unlike universities, not free. You pay a third.

· More than visuals: deisgn and change dialog technology. Visual practitioners strategicall design learning tools for individual, group and collective. Distinction between group and collective – small group intensive with cause and a question that motivates. Collective across small groups. Business unit and the company.

· We can really play a role – can you come and be here for a day or two and draw, I say no. you need me on your design team. Why don’t our whole team come and facilitate everything you want to happen. Ole is always part of the design, the event and already plan for post event involvement. “I am your cohost,” Visualize me on your team. Help design team become clear on purpose – already have four platforms, how visuals support all the way through. Visioning across the process. During, host, facilitate, co create, synthesize and simulate. When you have visuals on wall easy ot understand within a short amount of time we can grasp and take ownership of them. If we have to communicate to outsiders, put aside 20% of the time in the during to play out the power of the visuals. Would not want them to receive a packet of visuals 2 weeks later and not be clear about it. Rather have the visual, understand it, put on wall and invite others into the conversation. Practice of that during the event. Participation in creating visual, capable as host convening conversation, structuring the dialog and documenting.

· The power of the visuals, when we create them, we are building a visual language for the client that speak to the organization. Use existing icons and add to that. Some could be online, tools available to a participant to use later, technology on how to interact – it becomes a desktop continuation. Pictures, virtual game, system to continue to participate in, templates, interfaces built up in the same visual language. Continue the life of the visuals.

· Q: How do you convince clients to dedicate 20% of the session for that post-preparation? To do the post work? Four murals over 2 days. The fifth on is a guide to using fhe first four walls. Close by kicking off the client. After close, even a visual debrief.

· Sometimes it is important to say no, that their investment won’t happen if they cut this important part of the process. Help them not fall to pressure from other people by really being consistent on what it takes for success. Ole does not do one day sessions with Kraft, but will do 2 day sessions. Part of it is learning over time for subsequent meetings. Use of templates. Learn to do it for themselves. Where it can cascade. Get the right people in the room at the beginning, set up the right structures then they can host and convene.

· Q: What have your clients most gone for eagerly? More and more to come and do all that thing, and at the end, synthesize. If we can get people to do that thing you do three times we can decide things. Can we have that guide for five simple steps for people to do afterwards. 2009 Denmark hosts Kyoto 2 around climate change. How to get everyone involved and on the bandwagon. They say “we need a synthesis, find the essence of the story, the three questions everyone can have compelling conversations about.” “We heard you did this nice drawing, we need more of that in our meetings. “

· Coaching hosts and facilitators to run conference.

· Case study – missed 5 minutes for a bio break.

· Board practices the process in advance so they run it. Break out groups. Collectively creating and synthesizing inputs. Key questions designed by design team. Groups had tools to finalize and finish their work. The leaders had practiced, tools to collect group stories at the event, then more collected after event. Tool to catch conversations around changes they thought they were good at but needed to do more of.

· The individual learning and reflection tool – used through out the process to keep the essence. Given time to do this – your learning and actions. Same visual language flows across all of the tools.

· Four collective murals (morning/afternoon each day)

· Ole shows us the visual artifacts and templates from a case. Each 20 person breakout has a facilitator and a graphic facilitator. Client participates as facilitation. Master visuals creating in parallel of full process. Team pulled all the different elements into the master visual.

· Three rounds of breakouts – out of 5. Leaders – gets them to focus on the most important, not everything. Facilitate and host and synthesize around the most important things. The tool helps and builds that skill in the leaders. That’s the social software we bring if we are good at designing the visuals and in the graphic recording during the process.

· Establishes credibility. Wow, this is a team from Namibia who did the follow up on their own and have the tools to follow up further. Done at a third of the cost. The learning is internalized. The tools and the visual language is there. Three months later they were clear which parts of it is important. Getting to that point sooner in the planning process.

· The main delivery is the “software” – it could be all kinds of conferences. Lets not have leaders present the finished questions but to raise the important questions and convene the conversation.

· Q: What is your learning edge in this process, Ole? “I never really get the color red right.” Laughter. This is what is coming now.

· I can’t send you this because there are company details. So don’t take pictures.. you will be killed. But happy to share other examples.

· The next step: a new approach. People love this visual language. How can this help us have more meaningful conversations that we need to have. Ole tells the story of the HR department sharing what they are doing, get the stories out, get people on the same page. What are the questions people ask HR? What do they need to get from HR/ Turned out to be on the screen, on the desktop. In one picture what HR is all about was the finished product. Facilitated each of the hosts of 9 HR stories and came up with the stories of each key function. Recruitment. Have a conversation about what that looks like. Do first sketch, unfinished, go out and get feedback, iterate next version, go out and talk and talk and get inputs, until there is a version that people agree that this is the best possible version now, but unfinished enough to invite additional input over tieim.

· We have a conversation online, on a table, here is a great tool, http://www.crossloop.com - I could be doing this presentation in Denmark. What I hear you say I draw in Denmark, you see what I draw. We had those in 9 HR processes. After we sit and talk I return with what I heard in a picture. Synthesis. The magic keeps coming back

· How can we as VP be good at creating unfishished platforms that ask the right questions, encourage conversation, synthesis and spread the conversation.

· We can do this in all different contexts and walks of life. I really believce there is one conversation we need tools that enable us to work faster. Forget about all the assignments we have – one case we need to focus upon: climate change. Need to come up with great bigger pictures. The further and faster we can get those conversations out the better. One year ago I was in SF. I picked up 5 magazines with the “green” issue. This year I have 15. Everyone is talking about it. Some talking in same old ways, some in new ays. Big mess that needs to be met and needs to have synthesis.

· What could IFVP professionals also be? Those in ened are the leaders. They are already doing a good job, but so many people have the job of spreading conversations that matter. If we were to go in – the collaborative tech platforms are there – but not the social connecxtive glue. If you look at YouTube, Facebook, Google earth, Myspace – they enable us to connect and ask the questions, but it has to be much more into the rooms and F2F meetings, but linked out to the desktop.

· How do we do this at a network level. Story – in Denmark, 12 images of Mohamed that stimulated huge conversations in networks in a negative connotation. How can we do that at a positive level?

· Nick: Went to the Norman Rockwell museum. A propagandist… did that kind of mythologizing of America and it created powerful statements. Purely visual. Very strong.

· Be strategic around this. How to get it out on networks.

· There is also a huge wave of that already happening. Any given month there is half a dozen wholeness memes that are new, moving along a certain trajectory. How to sustain the memes into a larger vortex?

· In DC, culture like academia where people are just talking to each other, not listening. Some of these tools have been used at World Bank and UNDP, there are huge opportunities getting some movement on some of the bigger issues that are mired, and hard to get momentum for the next steps. To the commitments. How do we get there? Start small and work up? There is a lot of frustration – people want a new way, but don’t know what that looks like. Seen hope there.

· David Sibbet – hopeful thing we stumbled into. The West Coast Green conference managed to attract 10,000 people. Green builders. Decided to see what we could do. Stumbled into this concept of putting the “action hub” into the conference. Café like. Wold find Tome or David – whole community – and do a graphic game plan on an action they wanted to do. 2-3 dozen proposals got generated. Near another place for informal networking. Then ended with hot idea section, brought ideas to hub, get feedback in small groups and then present. They baked it into the second one – this little side thing is now the thing they are most excited about. Did n’t take any one having to agree to it. Sits on the side. Trying to do this with multimedia for the world environmental conference in Barcelona. A whole media studio so people can wander in and produce media OUT of the conference. Hopeful ways of sneaking in, not asking permission and just tyring to see what is possible. Out of the last builders conf, a guy come from Apache nation, was living in car. He got so mobbed with attention in the hub, he has a vision of building sustainable housing on the reservation. In the middle of all this our IT director was sitting there facilitating and doing one of our template graphic things. Three sessions going over his ideas. He wrote back, this is a life changing thing. Another guy – he says I love to take showers and I feel guilty. I want a water recycling system for showers so I can take long showers. Start a company to do a shower recycling processor. Ole thinks he saw that picture on the net yesterday. Hot idea sessions. Patricia Shaw’s book, Changing Conversations in Organizations.

· In US Navy did something like that. Think you can’t do this stuff. Rooms – the oasis – floor to ceiling white boards, a creative space, anytime and work on ideas.

· Building a room for sharing ideas as a main tool for realigning a system. A playing room. What would this look like for a distributed group? Medicine wheel in 2^nd life.

· As of first of Jan 2008 only topic Ole will be working on is sustainability. The art of facilitatove leadership. Mastering the power of visuals, the white canvas and questions in desiging , hosting and leading engagein transparent and sustainable change processes. Offering this for any leaders that want this. Getting them down and understanding you don’t have to be good at visualizing, but good at listening. Do it simple so people can understand. Use the canvas as an empty sheet, but with a structure around it that get people up and engaged, your own templates. How to question, sytnethize, structure and facilitate dialog. Create consense, always collaboratrive. Always open, not finished, like the web. Everyone who engages takes ownership and sees themselves in the picture. They can take it out to another group, iterate and takes it out wider and wider. If we can do it paper and marker, we don’t need additional technology. That is important so the conversations can happen all over. Everyone is a facilitator. They come with questions, not answers. End up speaking the same, owned visual language that makes their actions easier.

· Our role is spreading this. That’s Ole’s edge. Instead of doing it myself, teach others to do it. Need leaders to be inspired. A very nice virus. And it all begins with this ideas of drawing one thing. It can be done in 6 days.

· What would this look like? What we believe in and how we work A course not only in leadership but authenticity. Clarity, efficiency, authenticity…

Tags: IFVP2007, Ole, Graphicfacilitation

Live Blogging at IFVP: Kristina Woolsey

Page Space and Screen Time – Kristina Woolsey

Working on visual language.

Live blogging caveats apply (spelling, not catching everything). Pictures will be added later and on Flickr with the tag IFVP2007

· Two years ago David, Tomo and I began a conversation on visual language. A core part of what I’m about

· Yesterday, the World Café session talked about the intersection between visual language and visual practitioners. An art o be aware of.

· Today, talk about technology opportunities, intersection with visual practitioners and visual language.

· Tomorrow Rachel will do technology demonstrates on technique. Make sure we are asking the right questions and framing this so by the time we get to application we are in alignment.

· I’m in the idea business, not the tech anymore, so will frame the issues.

· Firehawk will also do a demo in the last session today.

· This image my daughter drew. The closet image I have to new Mexico, but is Mono Basin. What is wonderful, yesterday just bought a telephoto lens, so started hiking up this hill. I was able to take pictures just up the hill (showing pictures). Gorgeous. What happens is you see this incredible valley. What I thought was better was to have that valley as the image. 30,000 level view. Give you that kind of perspective. I did that on purpose because this is what I mean by technology. Not cool and hip for its own sake but something that allows me to do something. Explain ideas. I could not do this with analog. Camera, computer and cable. Those are the technologies I find interesting and spent many years looking at. I’d like to help this group find the ones that match what you do. When they match with what you do, they may start changing what you do. Having a camera, I am more of a photographer. With computer share images in new ways. Practice changed.

· In the room yesterday we were talking bits and bytes. My glasses are a technology. I can’t do with out them.

· In 2005 we talked about illiteracies. We had a good time. Visual illiteracies. As explained yesterday the excitement about the tools of visualization. How visual literacy becomes more general. A lot of buzz. 20 years ago I thought about these things by myself, 10 years a go a few people, now so much there is so much noise it is hard to think. There is a lot going on in this area.

· I go back to basic principles. What I’m interested in is not the tech but the ideas and how tech allows us to share the ideas. (Lots of pictures on the screen).

· So this is 1979, match imagery. Before graphic calculators – an image about how to understand integration. This set of images and computer programs help us now. This picture did not change the phenomenon but helped us understand it!

· 1976 Geographic Mapping – a picture of a performance hall. I spent many years looking at architectural renderings and how they represent a space. The caricatures were often more informative than the detailed architectural drawings. There is a way where you are talking about abstractions, not pictures. 1978, before the Mac interface, we had the idea of images on the screen. David and Fred, incredible excitement about iterating through the work through images.

· 1974 Seymour Papert – which of these is the better renderings of a cube. Three mages. Which one best represents a cube. Some are good for some, some are good for others. Children will draw a, perceived by adults as naive. But there are many ways in which these picture change when you pay attention to them.

· I joined Apple in 1985 and we developed a tool called Hypercard. It seemed like it came out of nowhere. It was a tool where you could link things, click on pictures and see things connected. Could make your own. Set of characteristics now at the core of what we thought of as the web. Ted Nelson and Doug Englebart had done hyperlinking hears before. Parc Xerox had them. In the research domains and labs. Hypercard allowed you to start connecting things. I was there for 15 years, 5 ran Apple multimedia lab.

· Project in terms of life story – movie about DNA, you should be able to stop at any time and click on an object or person and learn more, capture screen shots. Apparent scientific understanding phenomenon.

· We had B&W small screens. Took a lot of imagination to see the web revolution. Did a projecxt on Grapes of Wrath and learn more about issues from the novel. It anticipated the web in terms of finding ways to gatherin formation. It was built by a librarian and high school teacher, people in the craft.

· This is one I brought today (image) as a way of thinking about technology in your craft. You would click on a part of the image and you would hear that person’s speech. (Image of people at a table with hands up). Each perspective was different. The image started a whole other set of conversation with the audience.

· When Clinton=Gore announced the internet, we did it as a demo with little kids connected with video conf and messaging in 1995 and 1996.

· This thing happened to me. We were building all this connectivity but there were few people involved who understood visuals. We build a course at Stanford, VizAbility. I have a couple copies here, CD. 1995, 2004 http://www.course.com

· These tools are available but people weren’t dying to do it. Didn’t know. Course was built to encourage seeing, drawing, environment and culture (missed a few). We built exercises using the computer systems to get an experience in basic literacy. Who is this for? EVERYONE! Drove marketers crazy. Not for graphic professionals, not for a niche, but for everyone. Critically acclaimed product. Still viable in 2020. Pre computer skills. How do draw, show people drawing. A thing on seeing. Most individuals in our culture in North America – visualization has been put off into the arts and the arts have been put off someplace else. Extream generalization. Using diagrams. Scott Kim has a great video piece on how group conversations happen.

· 1988, these are my kids, me, I got to 2005 and my kids are grown and graduating. I retired in 1998. I don’t do this. 12 step. I do not do this. I had been doing life by …

· Now doing a lot of things. In 2005 I got so angry that these tools existed now, put our life blood into them, and nobody had a clue. We forgot to send the instruction manual. I went back into this business. I do do it now.

· In 2006 I developed the newmediathinking project. After I left you here in 2005, I spent a year of intense, engaged, involved looking at kids and media. I read all these articles and thought “I don’t think so” so I had better find out by myself. Had a wonderful time with these kids.

· The basic pitch I was giving… what is there beyond the book. We are still in the book, looking over the edge. And the issue of enculturation. How these kids doing all this video/computer stuff – they are doing it on their own. There is no systematic methods. These visualization tools, ability to visualize, are not moving into the schools. Schools are still print based, build on reading and writing literacy. This is different. It is not an unnatural problem, but we don’t have a system of enculturation.

· We had paper, speech, conversation. My generation – how we communicated. Really complicated things. Born and learn in 2, 5 and 10 years is remarkable. These are technologies. We now have the opportunities with new technologies. (lots of names on screen). I could have done emails. It could be interesting. Slideshow, blogs, and other things I didn’t list. All these media at our disposal to communicate. But need to understand how they work and when to choose which.

· My son says this is not a big deal. New media is about new choices. Some of us are closer to them. Those in the world, that is the question.

· The main thing I learned working with kids is they are much better speaking for themselves.

· Digital kids – video – kids in digital age, digital natives, kids familiar with schools, process things fast. More visual than just reading. See pictures, imagine more. Learn better with visual. Representing what they know using new technology tools. Expression of how to learn and what they learn. Visual components that go with the writing. Ownership of learning. “You can’t be a technophobe.” Technology as integral, not as an add on. “Follow the child.” Maria Montessori

· Forgot to introduce the school – NKO school in Chicago, charter school associated with Univ of Chicago and a school in Marin County.

· This is happening. These kids are doing it. Two major take aways. I put together a little book with 7 movies talking about the kids. At the end of the project, realized I could say all sorts of things, 300 pages, then made this little report.

· Two major take aways –

o What are the new media competencies- there are a wide range. One is technical capability,

o general media awareness. Understanding what is available and how it works

o Design and composition

o Intentionality and planning

o Judgment and Reflection

· I know everyone in this room is good at all these things. Looking at normal groups (graph). I’m an experimental psychologist and would like to do this research. Youth have high tech cap low on judgment. Adults low on tech, high in judgment (see picture)

· What does it mean to live all these years. You have a prime moment for collaboration with youth. You heard the remarks of the young people and the teachers who allow things to happen. Collaborating. It always pops up if you allow it to happen. This could be a Trojan horse for environments for learning. Optimistic for various ways. Not that kids will take care of themselves, but that we are well situated for doing important work on thinking and learning.

· Second point – there are new languages emerging. New language domains. In spending this year with youth, realized the media most of us are comfortable with, the mainstream media in our culture is page space. Spacilize our ideas. Our charting. Books. The way I’m using this presentation is page space.

· Screen time is the model of the new era. Not terrific. I can carry this guy around (laptop). IPhone is closer model. OK as a phone, it is not so much that it is a phone, but it is mobile processing power to give you the screen whenever you want it. Talking on the phone is just a little detail. Interface designed more like a computer. Design over time. Movies at anytime any place.

· Three others: Sound Time – Cyberspace – a whole different world. The media I’m talking about up till now is old media made more powerful. Cyberspace is a different world in terms of programmability and robotics.

· Realspace – still important. For this group to jump ahead – realize your clients are spread all over the globe. Real thing to deal with.

· 5 language domains. If I were building a school to morrow I’d make sure I had a curriculum around these 5 domains that represent the world they will be swimming in. Some I know about, some I don’t. Sights and sounds in the new age. Wrote an article called “Child’s Play” and found a John Dewey quote. He said, things are changing, the world is moving, reach extending, we have no idea what is going to happen so we need to make sure that children have the skills of leadership, discernment and judgment that help us move along. At a time of rapid change, this is our best bet.

· The transition from page space to screen time is in our face. Bhuto in Pakistan yesterday. Went online, saw the slide show and text. All the articles that were on Pakistan from NYT were all there. Read lst 10 articles. It is not newspaper online, it is a new business. The way we are using, not just reading on the screen. Transfer then int changes

· Make movie reports and pod casts instead of essays

· Receive text and IM instead of letter – they carry their exchanges with them, not doing email anymore.

· Video games instead of cross word puzzles

· Anytime, anywhere connectivity. A connective parcel that help you keep your connections.

· Free internet in New Mexico airport, not in San Francisco.

· New media thinking report – in it I did a whole set of pages, reverse story boards. Did it spontaneously. Noticed I created this record and I now ask myself, maybe this is better than that movie. You can make books with sound buttons in them. You put the sound that goes with the picture. Did that with the movie captures. http://www.ekko.com

· It is going to be fun.

· What is interesting now is to have the ability to specialize temporal pieces. Intriguting, the page space encourage analysis and reflection. What has happened to me this year, I have for whatever reason started making these picture books. You must. I started in Santa Fe, did my first picture book about Santa Fe in May. Made this book with pictures that describe my trip. I wrote some text. IPhoto, shutterfly. You organize your pictures in the book, push a button and then 5 days later you get a book. This is a revolution in print publishing. No sound yet, but pretty soon.

· My husband laughs at me. I have developed a series of books. I have a book on China. My daughter’s high school art portfolio. I was in China going down the Yangtze making books. Hit publish in Shanghai and by the time I got home the book was waiting for me. I can do pictures, and can add text.

· Many kinds of books. Trip journals. My neighbor makes jewelry but never sells. After I did my portfolio, we had dinner, we said let’s make one for her jewelry. Now she has a portfolio of all her works, taking to Neiman Marcus. Got my first photo credit. This thing starts to generate. When kids come to visit, I take pictures and then I send them a book. “Thanks for a nice day.” Generative capability. You may get addicted. Other books, shared events, learning environments for young writers. They all went home with a book. Priceless for kids from immigrant families. Now parents want to buy books to send home to family. Kids excited.

· To maintain the oral culture, adding the audio very powerful. If you lose it, buy another one.

· Taking my old movies, and turning them into story boards.

· I started making one last night for visual facilitation. A new medium. A new technology that allow us …

· (distracted for a moment)

· Relevancy to IFVP

o IFVP as clients for new emerging visual technologies to enhance practice

o A group that spatializes temporal processes. A very interesting misx of time and space (and visuals)

o IFVP as examples of advanced visual communicators

o IFVP as co creators of a theory of effective visual communication practice

o IFVP as collaborators inc creating visual literacy curriculum

· Representational density – picture in a room with a speech, graphic recording on screen, audio, digital camera, paper recording on the side, recording personal note taking and reflecting.

· Moving from time domain into the space domain. Timeline of images. How do you bring a field trip back. You don’t want to re-experience. Invented this thing called a video smear. One pixel of a photo. If you click on it, you see that video.

· General purpose tools

o ILife

o Instant messaging and video conf

o Table pc

o Web 2.0

o More

· Unique competencies

o Active listening

o Big space – story yesterday how one of your kids, put up big paper and they did their math on it. Big space allows you to do things

o Animating idea development – a teacher is someone who animates the students. They are part of everything, they are not on the side, they are in the middle of it. You are taking and animating the conversation. Some of you have this magical skill of taking a group process and putting it out there where people can get at it.

· This is my new model of you guys. You share this core of generosity, good will and public service. Then some of you are graphical recorders. Some of you aren’t at all. You have all these other things in you (Image). Some of you walk around as teachers, artists, marketing consultants. ) “Listen for the collective.” Pattern finders. Release creativity. Those things ask for a fluency that much of the tech doesn’t has. You need to help people develop it.

· Applause

Tags: IFVP2007

I Paint My Own Reality

Artwork I bought
Originally uploaded by Choconancy1.

I'm sitting in my small but sweet room at the Hotel St. Francis in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I was stymied last night - could not get online because although this lovely refurbished hotel has wifi, it is limited to 30 connections. Guess what? With 89 rooms there are more than 30 people who want to get online.

I arrived here yesterday - a day early for the International Forum of Visual Practitioners conference. I want to learn more about graphic facilitation. I came in early to visit some dear friends from the region and take a breath. ...

...

I walked into a poster store just off the Plaza, called, of all things, Posters of Santa Fe, owned by Anthony Fernandez.. The store was a cacophony of color - beautiful images that made me wish for blank walls.

Anyway, I saw this image and asked about the artist and, of course, how much it cost. Anthony told me he was a local artist doing contemporary regional work. He had some cards from the same guy. We looked at them, but they had much stronger religious overtones, which led us into an interesting side conversation about the different faces of organized relgion.

I was about to walk out of the store and continue my relaxed wandering when I turned back and said "I want to buy it."

I did not need to spend money, but the painting called me. The line "I paint my own reality" was just singing out to me. Or painting out to me. It summarized this whole grand experiment of the last 10 years of my life to understand the impact of our ability to connect with each other online. To create a reality of relationships that has meaning and substance, as we do face to face.

So today the piece is being shipped to Seattle, along with more information on the author from Anthoney. (I apologize, I did not write down the name - just took the picture so I could share it.) And, thanks to a digital photo, it is also coming to you, with a wave from me, in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

(postscript - having a heck of a time getting this to post on Blogger. 1.5 hours this morning. No luck. Trying again tonight with fingers crossed after another lovely day of conversation with friends in Santa Fe)
Tags: Santa_Fe, reflection

More Than Cool Tools Teaser - Alan Levine

More Than Cool Tools Teaser (share powerpoint presentations online, slideshows, slide shows, download presentations, widgets, MySpace codes)

Alan Levine, who is currently in Australia doing the speaking tour I did last year, posted this slideset earlier this month. Again, just a tidbit while I'm too busy to write. Keep track of him on his CogDogBlogarroo. See also this fricken, amazing wiki on 50 ways to tell a story.

Tags: Australia, techreport

K12 Online Conference 2007 - Not Too Late

I had this draft post set on September 25th, but as regular readers will have noticed, I'm way behind. Plus I continue to have enormous problems with FTP and Blogger. I can't wait till I get this blog moved.

Another week of travel means the meatier posts will have to wait, but I wanted to get a few things "out there." First is the K12 Online Conference 2007 which started October 8th and runs through the 26th - online and FREE! Lots of great people are involved, so check it out. And I'd say it matters beyond their target audience!

The “K12 Online Conference” is for teachers, administrators and educators around the world interested in the use of Web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice! The 2007 conference is scheduled to be held over two weeks, October 15-19 and October 22-26 of 2007, and will include a preconference keynote during the week of October 8. The conference theme is “Playing with Boundaries.”

Tags: k12online, education, online_events

International Bloggers' Day for Burma

Free Burma! - International Bloggers' Day for Burma on the 4th of October 2007

Tags: Burma, Myanmar

Easy as changing a lightbulb

Lee and Sachi have a new paper video, New Light Bulbs in Plain English. So after I watched it last week (I blogged this but forgot to post it), I went and switched the bulb in and over my desk.

Simple, eh?

Lone Remaining Burmese Blogger Uses Lightweight Messaging Service to Broadcast to the World

Marshall Kirkpatrich has a really good post on the few remaining bloggers getting word out from Burma. Lone Remaining Burmese Blogger Uses Lightweight Messaging Service to Broadcast to the World

I don't usually repost posts, but it seems like an effective way to amplify Marshall's post so here it is...

The story of the monk-led protests in Myanmar, or Burma, and subsequent police crack-down is a widely reported one - but the story is not over yet. Bloggers have been particularly important as the events unfold, posting news accounts and photos to the internet from a country that very few outside reporters have access to. At least one blogger remains active in the country, posting to a lightweight messaging service with an embeddable widget for output; those entries appear live here on the left.

This morning the UK Times Online runs a story about bloggers now hunted by the Burmese government after the bulk of the action in the street has quieted. Computers in the country are all government licensed, ISPs are closely monitored and internet access has become increasingly intermittent as the protests proceeded.

Some Bloggers Remain Active

Despite the extensive repression, protests in Burma continue and a handful of bloggers remain active in reporting events to the world online. The US-based Committee to Protect Bloggers is tracking the situation closely and reports that a blogger posting under the name Niknayman appears to be the only one still posting from inside the country. Another, under the name Ko-Htike, is posting from London whenever information is able to escape from Burma.

Niknayman and associates are using a lightweight messaging service called CBox to post very short updates from inside the country. CBox doesn't look like much, but I think of it like Twitter - two small services making a big impact. Here’s Niknayman’s Burmese Cbox and here’s Niknayman’s English cbox.

CBox does not publish an RSS feed - but I've scraped one for Niknayman's posts using the service Feed43. You can subscribe to this feed for updates: http://feeds.feedburner.com/NewsBloggedFromBurma. It's a little bit funky but it's better than nothing.

It's very interesting to me that hundreds of people are reading these messages but the channel is kept clear of disrespectful and distracting posts by readers.

Niknayman is very brave to continue documenting the actions of demonstrators around the country. Monks should not be beaten and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi should not have spent the past 17 years under house arrest for pro-democracy activities. It's a testimony to the power of the new internet that these kinds of historic events can now be chronicled by bloggers acting at the margins of society.

The most important story coming out of Burma right now isn't about bloggers - it's about freedom, spiritual and political, and authoritarian militarism. Make sure to read this important, if gruesome, coverage of the news there, from the UK's Daily Mail.

Pass the word on to your network, like others are doing. For suggestions on what you can do, check here, and here.

Update: Oct 2. This blog is following a lot of the emerging news.

Tags: Burma, Myanmar