VizThink

Bigger Picture’s 7 Steps to Drawing Almost Anything

VizThink — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:29:45 +0000

Ole Qvist-Sørensen, an amazing graphic facilitator (he’s facilitated at all three of our vizThink conferences) and owner of Danish visual thinking company ‘Bigger Picture‘, recently put up an excellent post on his company’s blog outlining their tips for drawing just about anything.

Their context is graphical facilitation but these techniques will work for any context and should help you find that inner visual thinker. These videos are well worth the less than 30 minutes it’ll take to go through them.

Introduction

Ole breaks their process down into seven basic steps:

People
Places
Process
Speech
Colour
Effects
‘Everything Else’

The Seven Steps

Check out the videos below (each step is a separate video):

People

Places

Process

Drawing Speech

Using Colour

Drawing Effects

Everything Else

Bringing it all together

Finally, Ole posted a quick video showing how all these elements can be brought together in a single graphic:

Thanks to Ole, and his team at Bigger Picture for taking the time to record these videos and put them out there.

Be sure to check out Bigger Picture’s site for more examples of their fantastic work

Webinar: Creating Global Change through Visual Language

For the past year or so Ole has also been working heavily to get visual thinkers and communicators involved in the push for action on climate change (check out their site for a whole whack of some of their recent work) and last year he recorded a webinar with VizThink on the subject.

Click here to check out “Creating Global Change Through Visual Language” and get in touch with Ole if you want to get involved/help out.

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Learn something new, get some interesting insights or just have a comment? Leave it below!

The Value of Visual Thinking

VizThink — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:34:44 +0000

David Armano of the Dachis Group, just posted his slide deck from a talk he gave last week at Blogworld 2009 titled “The Value of Visual Thinking in Social Business”. His presentation contains some really great insights into how visuals are useful and how to get yourself thinking visually.

His breakdowns (the 4 M’s and 6 steps of getting visuals) are a great summary of the process of creating effective visuals, and he concludes the presentation with a couple of his own examples of process based on some visuals he’s created. I’ve embedded it below an all in all it’s well worth the 5 or 10 minutes it’ll take you to flip through.

The Value of Visual Thinking in Social BusinessView more documents from David Armano.

You can follow David at @Armano on Twitter or on his blog at davidarmano.com.

Finding Your Visual Voice in 100 cards: A VizThink Assignment

VizThink — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:40:26 +0000

The other day VizThink founding member and one of our community’s biggest supporters, Dave Gray, put out a “VizThink assignment” on twitter. I personally love the idea and thought it was an idea worth spreading to those in our community who might have missed it, or aren’t on twitter.

The premise is simple, but I think it could be really eye opening: Take 100 index cards and sketch the same object 100 times in one sitting. Then, the next day, step back and look at the cards to see what has emerged.

It’s not a short exercise, you’ll likely need an hour or two to complete it, and to be most effective it really should be done in one sitting. Dave provided the process in an earlier entry on his Communication Nation blog:

1. Find an object that’s visually interesting to you; something you wouldn’t mind spending some time with. It could be big or small — anything from a water tower to a stapler. The only rule is that you need to be able to observe it from life.

2. Get a pen and a stack of 100 index cards.

3. Now draw the object 100 times — that’s right, 100 times — once on each card. It’s important to do this in one sitting no matter how long it takes. Part of the exercise is to discover things that will only reveal themselves if you are bored or tired. In the corner, number each card from 1 to 100 as you go.

4. When you are done, put the cards away and don’t look at them till the next day.

5. The next day, spread the cards out on a table, floor or other large surface. Take a few minutes to digest what you see. What themes or patterns emerge? As friend to arrange them in groups and put similar drawings in clusters or groups. You will have a few favorites. Ask yourself,
- Why do you like them?
- What do they have in common?

(Source: Communication Nation)

Try it & find your visual voice? Share it with us!

If you try this exercise we’d love to hear about (& see) your results. Leave a comment here, blog it, or tweet it and let us know what you learned about your “visual voice” – tag anything you upload/create with #100xcards & #vizthink so we, and other members of the VizThink community can find them.

- Ryan

[Reminder] VizThinkU: Show, Don’t Tell: Drawing and Design w/Karl Gude – Next Week!

VizThink — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:31:27 +0000

Just a quick reminder, Karl Gude’s one-hour, online VizThinkU webinar is next Tuesday, October 27th @ 11am EST.

Karl spent 25 years visualizing information for various large news organizations including The Associated Press and Newsweek magazine. As a visual journalist, information designer and artist, Gude’s mission was to simplify, or “laymanize”, complex topics so that the average reader could understand them. A Director of Information Graphics at Newsweek for nearly a decade, Karl moved to academia three years ago. He now teaches information graphics and visual communication at the School of Journalism at Michigan State University.

Karl also gives frequent lectures on the subject of visualization and has conducted scores of workshops on diagramming, storyboarding, designing, graphing and mapping around the world and is a consultant for the CIA on visualization.

See some examples of Karl’s work, as well as a complete session description below:

Show, Don’t Tell: Drawing and Design w/Karl Gude

October 27, 2009 | 11am EST (15:00 GMT) | Online | $59/person (Save $10 w/Mailing List Subscription!)

Consistently rated as one of the favorite facilitators for our conferences and workshops, Karl Gude is back with an all-new workshop for VizThinkU called “Show Don’t Tell: Drawing & Design”.

Often, concepts need to be sketched out so that others can “see” what is in a person’s head, and this requires confidence in one’s ability to do so. Most people are visual learners who can more easily understand highly complicated concepts when they are drawn out as opposed to only being written about, but people can worry that their visualization skills are no match for the task at hand, and so they write…and write, and write.

Visualizing information can require skills in many areas —critical thinking, conceptualization, presentation, drawing, design, technology, etc.— and in this one hour-long workshop, Karl will teach you the two “D’s” of visual communication, drawing and design. This lesson will benefit all skill levels, but it will be especially useful if you are a beginner. Karl will give you simple visual tools and rules that anyone can use to sketch out your ideas and then package them all together.

Be sure to join us for what will be an educational and entertaining workshop…

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Did you know?

When you sign up for our mailing list you get the latest updates from VizThink as well as exclusive access to discounts.

Best of all, it’s entirely FREE! – so what are you waiting for?

Sign up today and receive a $10 discount on this workshop!
(offer expires on October 27th)

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[Community] VizThink Philadelphia Takes Visual Thinking to the Streets

VizThink — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:32:51 +0000

Last month VizThink Philly took to the streets of Philadelphia as part of PARK(ing) Day, a global event where organizations take over parking spaces for a day and create temporary ‘parks’ – the story below is cross-posted form the VizThink Philly blog.

- Ryan

(Bianca Cevoli looks on as people pour their thoughts onto paper at the SketchPark)

On September 18, 2009 VizThink Philadelphia created a mini-park on a busy street where pedestrians could stop and draw. They called it the SketchPark. The SketchPark was one of hundreds of temporary parks around the world created as part of PARK(ing) Day where organizations set up small temporary parks in parking spots to illustrate alternative possibilities for uses of urban space.

SketchPark Facts:

Why: To promote visual thinking to the masses

Equipment:1 table, 4 chairs, paper, drawing supplies.

Who: Approximately 30 pedestrians stopped to draw diagrams, doodles, and landscapes. The SketchPark was created by members of VizThink Philadelphia.

Where: A parking spot at 16th and Chestnut street, Center City Philadelphia, the heart of Philadelphia’s business district.

When: 10:30 AM-4PM, Friday, Sept 18, 2009.

Types of drawings: Drawings varied from city planning diagrams, to mind maps, to supernatural creatures, to cityscapes, to abstract patterns.

(Jonny Goldstein creating a diagram to help a passerby develop a strategy for her job search)

(Photo by Albert Yee)

(Created by an urban planner showing connections between neighborhoods)

(Created by an architect who is in the process of career switching to rabbi)

(One of the first people to sit down created this urban landscape)

About the creators of the SketchPark:

Bianca Cevoli is graphic designer, writer, who blogs at geekadelphia.com.
Julia Pellicciaro is an interaction designer who blogs at InterfaceInYerFace.com.
Jonny Goldstein is an animator, artist-at-large, and slidedeck provocateur.

They are the founders of VizThink Philadelphia, a local chapter of the global VizThink community.

About VizThink: VizThink is a global community dedicated to the use of visualization in learning and
communication.

[VizThinkU] Show Don’t Tell: Drawing & Design with Karl Gude

VizThink — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:06:55 +0000

October 27, 2009 | 11am EST (15:00 GMT) | Online | $59/person (Save $10 w/Mailing List Subscription!)

Consistently rated as one of the favorite facilitators for our conferences and workshops, Karl Gude is back with an all-new workshop for VizThinkU called “Show Don’t Tell: Drawing & Design”.

Be sure to join us for what will be an educational and entertaining workshop…

—

Did you know?

When you sign up for our mailing list you get the latest updates from VizThink as well as exclusive access to discounts.

Best of all, it’s entirely FREE! – so what are you waiting for?

Sign up today and receive a $10 discount on this workshop!
(offer expires on October 27th)

—

Some examples of Karl’s work:

Other Artwork by Karl: Various | Children’s | Cartoons

And finally, be sure to check out this fun video of over 25 years worth of Doodles Karl made during News meetings:

Needless to say, Karl’s got a lot of good stuff to teach us – so what are you waiting for? Register Today!

Karl Gude

Karl Gude spent 25 years visualizing information for various large news organizations including The Associated Press and Newsweek magazine. As a visual journalist, information designer and artist, Gude’s mission was to simplify, or “laymanize”, complex topics so that the average reader could understand them. When Chernobyl melted down, Gude diagrammed how a graphite nuclear reactor worked, how it failed and the dangers of the China Syndrome. He has mapped every war and diagrammed most new military technologies since the late 70s. Gude charted the fall of Enron and the rise of Apple computer and explained the World Trade Center attack. He has even shown how a garden can be planted so that flowers bloom throughout the day.

Gude was the Director of Information Graphics at Newsweek for nearly a decade before moving to academia three years ago. He now teaches information graphics and visual communication at the School of Journalism at Michigan State University. He gives frequent lectures on the subject of visualization and has conducted scores of workshops on diagramming, storyboarding, designing, graphing and mapping around the world and is a consultant for the CIA on visualization. His seminars have been attended by employees from Google, Ebay, Raytheon and other large companies. Gude understands that words alone can’t tell the whole story, and he enjoys inspiring artists and non-artists alike to show, don’t tell.

[Reminder] Visual Journeys is next week!

VizThink — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:20:45 +0000

Just a quick reminder that our next VizThinkU workshop, “Visual Journeys: Using visual thinking techniques for personal, and professional development” is next Thursday, September 3.

While there’s little question about how visuals can be used to better communicate your ideas not a lot gets said about how visual thinking can be used for brainstorming & planning, even less with respect to personal development techniques.

In this new VizThinkU workshop, we’ll explore how visual thinking can be used in personal, and professional development.

Our two facilitators, Joy Meredith & Sean Griffin, have made names for themselves with their individual techniques and this promises to be an amazing session of self discovery & planning.

This workshop is perfectly timed as summer winds down and many of us start planning for the coming year – take this time to get yourself focused and prepared personally and professionally with the skills you’ll learn in Visual Journeys.I hope you’ll join us.

For details and registration visit our VizThinkU workshop page.

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Missed a past VizThinkU workshop? No worries! All of our workshops have been recorded and are available on our website in the VizThinkU section.

[VizThinkU] Announcing “Visual Journeys” online workshop

VizThink — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:38:31 +0000

Visual Journeys: Using visual thinking techniques for personal, and professional development

with Joy Meredith & Sean Griffin

Online | September 3, 2009 | 11:00am EDT (15:00 GMT)

In this new VizThinkU workshop, we’ll explore how visual thinking can be used in personal, and professional development.

Our two facilitators, Joy Meredith & Sean Griffin, have made names for themselves with their individual techniques and this promises to be an amazing session of self discovery & planning.

For full details check out the workshop page on our site and register today.

This three hour webinar will be divided into two parts:

Me Mapping

w/ Joy Meredith [ ~1 hour ]

The unexamined life is not worth living. – Socrates

When was the last time you examined your life . . . your whole life? Ever take a complete inventory of what’s working and what’s not? Well, Me Mapping is a simple yet powerful technique to diagram out and get a full picture of the different aspects that make up your life. From there you create a plan to declutter the things that are draining you, engage with the things that are going to energize you, and learn to appreciate and incorporate gratitude for what’s already working. Me Mapping is a simple yet powerful tool that can be used to help you make the most out of your life, marriage, and business. Socrates might have been a little dramatic, but still shouldn’t your life be as amazing as you are?

The Seeker Visual Journey

Discovering and Living Your Life’s Purpose

w/ Sean Griffin

A special workshop for those wanting to align with and start living their purpose in life.

2 hours that will change the way you think and act!

Improve your ability to solve problems, improve your thinking performance and create meaningful results in the ‘here and now.’

Tangible outcomes include:

Creativity tools that support your ability to be the best you can be
Visual thinking tools and exercises
Turning your creative thinking into valuable tangible results – today
Understand how to generate creative thinking on demand
Challenge your current thinking into constructive and productive new thinking
Align with your passion and purpose in life

In this interactive, visually-driven program you will learn creativity exercises and tools that will support different thinking allowing you to uncover the place inside yourself where you can truly reach your full potential. This program will inspire you to think more deeply about your unlimited potential, experiment with your limitless reservoir of creativity and become more aligned with your passions and purpose in life.

VizThink & Visual Thinking in ‘Associations Now’ Magazine

VizThink — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:32:03 +0000

A few months ago myself, Sunni Brown (VizThink Austin) and Mike Rohde (VizThink Milwaukee) were interviewed for an article on visual thinking called “Are you a visual thinker?“. It ran in Associations Now Magazine, a publication of the American Society of Association Executives & The Center for for Association Leadership. At the time I thought it would just be a little piece in one of the back pages of the magazine but it turns out they had bigger plans and ran it as the cover story.

In fact, they went the extra step further and hired none other than Mike Rohde to design the cover and provide illustrations for the article. The end result was a fantastic looking piece that exposed the idea of visual thinking to a whole new audience. Mike did a great write-up over on his blog about his process in creating the illustrations and he’s kindly let me repost it here for your enjoyment, which you’ll find below.

(Of course if you truly want to learn from the masters, both Sunni & Mike (along with Austin Kleon) recently recorded a, very well received, VizThinkU workshop with us called Visual Note-taking 101 where they share their secrets and advice for producing excellent visual notes.)

- Ryan

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Associations Now Magazine: Sketchnote Illustrations

Originally Posted at Rohdesign.com, republished w/permission

I was honored and excited to be interviewed by Mark Athitakis for his Associations Now Magazine article, Are You A Visual Thinker?

Imagine my surprise and excitement at being hired to illustrate the Associations Now Magazine cover and feature spread for the very same article in my signature sketchnote style.

What a great opportunity to share visual thinking in a fun way, to about 20,000 leaders of associations.

The Hand-Drawn Idea

As Mark was writing the article, Associations Now Magazine’s art director, Beth Lower, saw and liked my sketchnote of the iPhone 3GS Unboxing. Each issue of the magazine has a different design in context to the feature story, which led Beth to a completely hand-drawn, sketchnote style cover to communicate the visual thinking feature story.

Beth and I chatted about the concept on the phone, and both of us resonated with the concept of a visual thinking collage, comprised of the tools and notes about them in a hand-drawn sketchnote style.

Pencil Sketches

For the next step, I sketched out a rough cover design idea using pencil in my Moleskine squared notebook, and scanned it for Beth to review for direction.

Beth liked the the look and feel of my pencil sketch and approved the illustration phase of the project. I prepared for the final sketchnote illustration, though I knew some elements would likely need to be sorted out on the fly.

Inked Illustration

Because I wanted to create the art at 100% actual size, I found a sheet of heavy paper to layout the structure of the cover on. I drew out the full size of the cover and began laying out elements I knew had to be in place — Associations Now logo, headlines and table of contents elements in pencil, etc.

Once the main elements were organized, I began inking in the elements, starting with the logo in the top left of the page and working my way down to the main headline on the left side of the page.

I encountered issues with gel ink reacting less than smoothly with my paper and pencil graphite lines, but thankfully, I was able to work through those issues and ink out the cover for production.

Photoshop Production

Once I was pleased with the final illustration, I scanned it into my MacBook and began preparing the final art for production in Photoshop.

I knew Beth wanted to capture the sketchnote style, which meant producing a creamy background color behind the rich black illustration work.

Cream can be a very tough color to capture in the printing process, using standard colors of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (CMYK). It’s so easy to lean too much toward yellow or red and ruin the creamy feeling you’re hoping for.

I found what I felt would reproduce in CMYK as a good cream combo, then imported the final scans in, tweaking the contrast, moving elements around in subtle ways and perfecting the final artwork.

Once the art was finalized, I shipped source artwork off for production.

Inside Feature Illustration

Next up was the two-page feature spread illustration which had to continue a consistent image and feel from the cover, to connect them visually.

Beth provided a PDF of the page spread with a headline in place. I used this to trace and ink in the headline and figure out where drawn elements needed to be placed.

I used some elements from the cover for consistency, then began sketching out other elements to fill the remaining space in a balanced way. This is where I built art elements on the fly, allowing the concept of the article and elements already created for the cover to spark new ideas.

When the inner spread was completed to my satisfaction, I created a Photoshop file similar to the cover, with cream background and the elements in their exact locations on the page.

Beth had one more element for me to sketchnote — a quote by Ryan Coleman of VizThink. I sketched out a pencil grid, drew the lettering, scanned and sent the art out to wrap up my illustrations.

Printed Magazines: Wow!

A few weeks later, a package arrived at my door with a package of final, printed copies of the Associations Now August magazine, featuring my illustrations on the cover and feature spread. I’m very pleased with the cream color and how well the illustrations look on the page.

The Associations Now team have been very pleased with the final results, and I’m excited to hear how their subscribers react to this unusual issue of the magazine.

Thank you Mark Athitakis, Beth Lower and Lisa Junker from Associations Now for your faith in me to produce the cover and feature spread illustrations. I’m very honored to have been chosen.

If you are interested in getting a copy of the August issue, let me know. Lisa, the magazine’s editor has told me she has limited copies of the magazine available for those who ask nicely.

[VizThinkU] Just One Week Until “Agile Presenting”

VizThink — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:26:01 +0000

Next Thursday, July 30th @ 11:00AM EDT (15:00 GMT), we’re having our next VizThinkU workshop, “Agile Presenting: Engage your audience and introduce interactivity to your presentations” with Heather Gold and John Vlismas. Both are successful comedians who have also made a name for themselves as speakers with their respective, widely-praised, sessions “Unpresenting” and “The Shared World”.

Now I’m sure you’re asking yourself, “What do two comedians have to teach me about making my presentations better?”

More than you might suspect.

Imagine the work environment of a stand-up comic: Performing in an unfamiliar environment, to an unfamiliar crowd and they know there are at least one or two people out there in that dimly-lit room who probably want to take them down a peg. Sound familiar?

Maybe reminds you a little of your last speaking engagement, sales presentation or meeting?

While we’ve focused a lot at VizThink on making your presentations look more appealing and be more effective from a visual stand-point, we haven’t spent a whole lot of time on the skills around delivering it – which is why we assembled this VizThinkU course. This workshop will introduce you to new ideas about engaging and interacting with your audience as well as approaches to think quickly on your feet and react to unexpected situations.

Our two faculty members for this session, Heather Gold and John Vlismas, are both accomplished comedians and public speakers. In addition to their stand-up careers they’ve also consolidated their skills and experiences into workshops that they’ve delivered around the world, and our now bringing them online as part of VizThinkU.
This session promises to be entertaining and informative and you don’t want to miss it – be sure to register today.

This two and half hour webinar will be divided into two parts:

UnPresenting
w/ Heather Gold

People who work in the digital realm love interactivity in every realm, but when it comes to presenting, they forget all about it.
In this workshop on UnPresenting innovative comedian Heather Gold breaks down how public communication works and then remakes it in our collective image. Heather focuses on the main thing business has ignored: the actual source of power in the room and how to engage it.

The Shared World
w/ John Vlismas

Successful comedians are high-functioning multi-taskers. They must exert charm, pre-empt mood changes and conclude a sale every time they tell a joke. Essentially, they are expert at forming temporary movements and guiding that movement for the duration of the performance. Take away the humour, and the skill set resembles the ideal profile for a good leader, be it a person or a brand.
Where corporations find it difficult to react to their markets quickly, encumbered by protocol largely designed to assign blame, comedians must assess and react in the blink of an eye, sometimes facing several thousand people they have never met.

Ideally specialist communicators, comedians are adept at managing risk, and do so constantly.

The Shared World^TM is a system of thinking which encourages high-speed analysis using empathy, intuition and assimilation of data rapidly to make lightning speed, high quality decisions.

The key to winning over an audience is to position oneself directly at the heart of the crowd. Instead of trying to analyze how they feel – experience how they feel.

About the Instructors:

Heather Gold
Heather Gold is the turkey baster love child of Sarah Silverman and Rachel Maddow and tours North America as a comedian, speaker, interactive solo performer and social artist.
She brings insights and authentic conversations to companies, organizations and conferences like Google, SXSW Interactive, BlogHer, AIGA, Social Venture Network, Forum One’s Marketing and Online Communities Conference and Overlap 08.

Heather is the creator of the hit interactive show “I Look Like an Egg, But I Identify as a Cookie,” which ran for a year in San Francisco, showed at Ars Nova in New York and was selected by The Oakland Tribune as “Best of the Bay Area.”

Heather speaks and performs for venues and colleges and conferences across North America and contributes to media like The San Jose Mercury News, Tech TV, The Learning Channel, The Toronto Globe & Mail, and CBC Radio. She’s been quoted and covered in places like WIRED, Salon and NPR. Heather is one of the creators of EqualityCamp, which brings techies and activists together to organize the current gay marriage movement.

John Vlismas
Award-winning comedian, John Vlismas is one of South Africa’s most creative, prolific international comics.
While outspoken and sometimes controversial, Vlismas is a firm favourite in the corporate market, and spends over 80% of his stage time entertaining executives and their staff with tailored material, proving that he has the ability to adapt rapidly and appropriately for diverse audiences.

In 2008 he represented his country in Toronto, finishing in the top eight at the Yuk Yuk’s Great Canadian Laugh Off, and performed at Freedom Day celebrations in Dubai, at the request of the South African Business Council. John also performed his long anticipated one-man show, entitled Lucky Plebian, in June 2008.

John has joined up with academic friend and mentor, Jonathan Foster-Pedley to lecture on MBA “Creategy” Electives at the Graduate School Of Business, delivering his talk “The Shared World” on applied intuition.
He has scripted and performed for the FNB Life Start, and SAB Brand Power national road shows, Arts Alive festival each year and regularly performs at his comedy club, The Comedy Underground, now SA’s longest running regular comedy event.

John has enjoyed much local success with his previous one-man shows, all of which he wrote, directed and produced: Whacked in 2001, Aggravated Assault in 1999, Man in Black in 1998, and Mr Ballistic in 1997. In 2001, his two-hander with Bevan Cullinan, Grinder confirmed his ability to sell tickets. The esteem in which John is held by the comedy industry is evidenced by such events as his role in Steven Wright’s South African tour as support act, and his performance for SA Tourism at the Sydney Art Museum in 2004.

Don’t Miss this Workshop – Register Today!
As you can see, this is a unique workshop offering with two fantastic speakers. Whether you have to make small internal presentations or speak regularly to large audiences I guarantee you this is one you do not want to miss.

Be sure to register today!

- Ryan

[VizThinkU] Announcing “Agile Presenting” – our next VizThinkU workshop

VizThink — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:30:29 +0000

Agile Presenting: Engage your audience and introduce interactivity to your presentations
Online | July 30 @ 11:00am EST

What can two comedians teach you about making your presentations better? More than you might suspect.

Maybe remind you a little of your last speaking engagement or sales presentation?

While we’ve focused a lot at VizThink on making your presentations look more appealing and be more effective from a visual stand-point, we haven’t spent a whole lot of time on the skills around delivering it – which is why we started assembling this VizThinkU course. While not directly a visual exercise or skill the art of delivering your presentation is a very important component of telling your story. This workshop will introduce you to new ideas about engaging and interacting with your audience as well as approaches to think quickly on your feet and react to unexpected situations.

This session promises to be entertaining and informative and you don’t want to miss it – for full details check out the workshop page on our site and register today.

Early-bird Savings on “Agile Presenting” – this weekend only!
Save 10% when you register on or before Sunday July 12th

Given the title theme of our next workshop, we figured it’d make sense to reward the agile members of our community with an early-bird registration discount for this workshop. So here’s the deal, from now, through the end of this weekend, use the discount code “agile” and we’ll take 15% off the cost of the workshop – Register now!

A Preview of John Vlismas’ “Shared World”
Curious about what we’re in for? Check out this teaser video from one of John’s in-person workshops:

(Heads-up: there’s some language in this video that some might find offensive/NSFW)

Last Day to Save on “Visual-notetaking 101″ when you register for “Drawing Out Your ideas” with Nancy Margulies

VizThink — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:12:40 +0000

Our next VizThinkU workshop “Drawing Out Your Ideas” is next Friday, July 17th at 12:00 EST (16:00 GMT). This three hour workshop with master visual facilitator, Nancy Margulies is promises to be a fantastic and unique online learning experience. Space is limited so if you want to join us, be sure to Register Today.

As I’ve mentioned before, this course is also a fantastic follow-up to our last VizThinkU workshop, “Visual Note-taking 101”.

While not a pre-requisite, if you want to enhance your experience with Nancy’s workshop I highly recommend you check out the recordings from the Visual Note-taking workshop, which are available on the VizThink website. Best of all, if you register for Nancy’s webinar before midnight EST tonight, July 10th, we’ll send you a discount code that will take $50 off the price of Visual Note-taking 101. So what are you waiting for? Get Registered!

VizThink is 2!

VizThink — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:29:45 +0000

Yesterday (June 25) marked VizThink’s second anniversary. Needless to say the past year has been one heck of a roller coaster ride with plenty of ups and downs. The important thing is, we’re still here and the community continues to grow.

If you’re new to the community and dont yet know the history of VizThink, be sure to swing by last year’s post which tells the story of VizThink.

Some of the highlights of the past year:

2 Conferences, one on each site of the Atlantic:
VizThink Europe and VizThink 2009 in San Jose, Ca

Community events now happening in 12 cities around the world
Austin, Amsterdam, Boston, Chicago, London, Madrid, Manchester/Leeds, Milwaukee, New York, Philadelphia, Salt lake City and Toronto
The introduction of VizThinkU
Our online series of educational workshops.

Thank you all for being part of our community and I know those of us here at VizThink are looking forward to another exciting year. As I mentioned in the post yesterday, we’d love to hear your vision for vizThink over the coming years – please be sure to share it, whether as a comment, image or even a tweet!

- Ryan

What is Your Vision for VizThink?

VizThink — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:04:47 +0000

As I’ve mentioned a few times since VizThink09 in San Jose, we’ve been taking a good hard look at VizThink and how to sustain the community over the long haul. Already some of our initial ideas have been put into action with the first couple of VizThinkU courses (”Visual Note-taking 101” & the upcoming “Drawing Out Your Ideas” with Nancy Margulies) as well as some changes to the VizThink website, which have all been well received.

The past few months though, as many of you can probably appreciate, have really been much more about helping VizThink survive than anything else in order to reposition ourselves and rethink what the future holds. As we enter the summer and things seem to have at least settled down a bit in the economy (far from fixed but things are certainly calming down) it’s time for us to turn our focus from “how do we survive?” to “how do we thrive?”

This is where you come in – VizThink is nothing without it’s community and you all play an important role in shaping how this movement will grow over the coming years – so I’d like to pose the question:

“What is your vision for VizThink?”

When you think of this community one year, 3 years 10 years down the road, what do you envision? What would continue to make VizThink a valuable community to you?

Draw it out, tweet it, blog it and even add it to the forum thread here. You can also privately email me your thoughts at community@vizthink.com. If you post it somewhere out there in the web tag it “#vizthink, #vision” and link back to this post (or email me a link to it) so we can be sure to find it!

We’re starting to frame out our plans for the next few years over the next couple of weeks and I’d love to integrate your ideas and feedback. Together I think we can continue to build on the great thing we’ve all got going here and I hope you’ll share your vision with me.

Thanks!

Ryan

—

Ryan Coleman
Chief Community Evangelist
VizThink

Reminder: “Drawing Your Ideas” with Nancy Margulies is Next Week!

VizThink — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:52:43 +0000

DUE TO AN INJURY, THIS SESSION HAS BEEN POSTPONED TO JULY 17, 2009 @ Noon EDT

A quick reminder that next Tuesday, June 16th is the next VizThinkU webinar, “Drawing out your ideas: Techniques for visual thinking, note-taking and presentations” with master visual facilitator, Nancy Margulies – While recordings will be made available, this is one session you really want to try and catch live online. The session will start at 2:00pm EST (18:00 GMT) and last for about 3 hours.

Also, tomorrow is the last day to take advantage of our special offer. If you register for Nancy’s workshop before Midnight PST on June 9th you’ll receive a discount code for $50 off the recordings of our first VizThinkU workshop, “Visual Note-taking 101”. A great session unto itself, it is also an excellent starting point to help get prepared for next week’s workshop with Nancy.

You can find all of the course details on the VizThink site but don’t wait, register today!

Hope to see you on the 16th!

- Ryan

—
Ryan Coleman
Chief Community Evangelist
VizThink

[VizThinkU] Announcing – Drawing out your ideas: Techniques for visual thinking, note-taking and presentations | 06/16/09

VizThink — Fri, 22 May 2009 14:00:48 +0000

Last week we had our inaugural VizThinkU course, Visual Note-taking 101, which from all accounts was a rousing success – so today I’m very pleased to announce the next VizThinkU course “Drawing out your ideas: Techniques for visual thinking, note-taking and presentations“ with Nancy Margulies, a master visual facilitator.

The workshop will take place online on June 16^th, 2009 at 2pm EST (GMT 18:00) and will last approximately 3 hours. Additional details about this session are below.

Drawing out your ideas: Techniques for visual thinking, note-taking and presentations
With Nancy Margulies

June 16th, 2009 | 2pm EST (GMT 18:00) | 3 Hours | Online | $195/person

Watch as Nancy Margulies, a master visual facilitator, demonstrates the process of using words and images to convey ideas during this three hour online workshop. Using example projects from participants, Nancy will create visual images that conveys all the ideas and relationships among them while teaching you tools and techniques that can be taken back to apply to your own work.

Nancy has taught thousands of people to develop skills that enable them to record their ideas using images as well as short phrases. This skill will enable you to “think on paper” to gain a deeper understanding of complex systems.

With the skills Nancy will teach, you can map a given activity and then look at the consequences, unintended consequences, resources needed, and other factors so that you have the “big picture” and a truly systemic view. Or you can use visual recording to convey an idea you want to present to others, with images that make your presentation more engaging.

Nancy is the author of several books on drawing and visual recording. She can teach you to draw with greater skill and will give you a set of symbols you can use for everyday visual mapping. If you believe you can’t draw, prepare to be delightfully surprised.

Planning is another process that is greatly enhanced by visual recording. As a student of Nancy’s you will have access to templates that you can use as the basis of “planning maps” – planning for everything from a meeting, to a large scale event or even planning your future.

BONUS: Get the most out of this session by starting with visual Note-taking 101
This workshop is a logical continuation of the Visual Note-taking 101 session from last week – while it’s not a prerequisite, it will certainly help you maximize your experience with Nancy.

Missed it? Not a problem! To help you catch up we’re offering a special discount on Visual Note-taking 101 for the next couple of weeks. Everyone who registers for the workshop before June 9^th 2009 will receive a discount code that gives them $50 off the cost of access to the recordings from Visual Note-taking 101. It doesn’t get any easier than that!

Take advantage of this time-limited offer:

[Community] VizThink Milwaukee tomorrow! Philadelphia next week!

VizThink — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:59:14 +0000

Just a quick update on the ever growing list of cities around the world running regular VizThink community events. This month we’re got one new city, Milwaukee & VizThink Philadelphia is having their second meetup.

VizThink Milwaukee 1 | May 20, 2009 @ 6:00pm

This is the kickoff meetup of VizThink Milwaukee! Come down to Bucketworks at 1340 North 6th Street, just north of Downtown Milwaukee and meet others interested in using visual thinking.

You need not be a great artist to attend, only an interest in using and improving your visual thinking skills is needed.

You may wish to bring paper or notebook and pens/pencils.

See the event page for full details and to register (It’s free!)

VizThink Philadelphia 2 | May 27, 2009 @6:30pm

“Get Framed at the Storyboard-O-Rama”

VizThinker Julia Pellicciaro will do a quick storyboarding demo, and then we’ll make our own storyboards and share them with each other.

Storyboards are poweful tools for planning and pitching projects. They are can also stand alone as potent communication devices.

Afterwards if you care for drinks and pierogies, hungry and thirsty VizThinkers will stroll over to Sugar Mom’s.

See the event page for full details and to register (It’s also free!)

VizThink NYC Coming Next Month!

As of this writing there are plans afoot to have VizThink New York City’s first meetup in the middle of June. If you’d be interested in attending drop me an email at community@vizthink.com and I’ll make sure to connect you with Steve, the organizer.

Watch VizThink.com for event updates.

Just a reminder – community events are happening in over 12 cities around the world and we’ll be announcing a steady stream of VizThinkU online courses in the near future – to stay up-to-date on the latest events be sure to check out the events sidebar on the VizThink home page. All events are posted there as they’re announced.

Photo Credits: jr conlin | johnbrian | kyle simourd

Reminder: Less than a week until Visual-Notetaking 101!

VizThink — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:37:25 +0000

Just a reminder that next Tuesday, May 12th @ 11am EST, we’ll be running the first VizThinkU course, Visual-notetaking 101. Check out our blog post announcing the webinar for information & bios for Austin Kleon, Sunni Brown & Mike Rohde – the three visual-note-making masters who will be leading the course.

Tuition is just $99 for this THREE hour course and best of all registration also gets you access to a recording of the entire session so you can refer back to it later!

A few people have also asked for some additional details on what will be covered during the course so here you go:

Section 1 – Austin Kleon will present “But I can’t draw!”

Addressing your fears of the pen, and rediscovering the ancient, universal childhood pleasure of putting pictures and words on paper
Exploring drawing not as fine art, but as a communication tool
Establishing a drawing alphabet and learning some basic cartooning techniques
Doing fun activities such as “How to draw a stick figure” and “How to draw a face”
Building our very own icon library for note-taking

Section 2 – Sunni Brown will present “Learning Active Listening”

What is “active listening” and how is it different than “regular” listening?
A graphic recorder’s approach to active listening – how to listen effectively to multiple sources, fast talkers and ramblers
What to listen for and what to filter out
How to “cache” what you’re hearing so you can capture it on paper

Section 3 – Mike Rohde will present “Sketchnoting Techniques”

The importance of focus and engagement in capturing the presentation you’re sketchnoting
Learning to become a filter of ideas rather than a word-by-word stenographer of every last detail
Techniques for getting into the flow, to help you capturebetter sketchnotes
Getting personal with your sketchnotes — letting your personality shine through
How to use recorded podcasts and videos for sketchnoting practice (with a demo of sketchnoting a podcast live)

Materials Needed: paper and pen/pencil

Register Today!

When you register for a VizThink webinar, you will have access to the live session, as well as a recording which will be made available to you after the webinar is over, as well as any course materials provided by
the instructors. You will also have the satisfaction of knowing that your money will go to support the VizThink staff and community.

Where: Online

When: Tuesday May 12, 2009 @ 11:00 EDT (15:00 GMT)

Duration: 3 Hours

Tuition: $99

Work examples from this session’s Facilitators:

[VizThinkU] Visual Note-taking 101 – May 12, 2009

VizThink — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:35:06 +0000

As promised, we’re starting to roll out the VizThinkU schedule. VizThinkU, is VizThink’s new, online-based education program designed to offer you access to knowledge from leading visual thinkers in a series of courses. Courses will take place every few weeks and feature two to three speakers on a specific topic or area of interest. You can attend our courses live or access them at a later date at your convenience.

While there will be announced times for our webinars, our entire course library will remian available online and be available. Of course the benefit of joining live is the opprtunity to participate in the Q&A sessions but if for some reason you can’t make a session, don’t sweat it – it’ll be there for you whenever you’re ready. Be sure to check back often as we’ll be adding new courses or programs as they’re confirmed and ready for registration.You’ll find all the details in our new VizThinkU section on the website.

So without further delay, I’m pleased to announce our first VizThinkU course “Visual Note-taking 101″:

Visual note-taking 101: Techniques for making your notes more visual and memorable
with Mike Rohde, Sunni Brown and Austin Kleon

Tuesday, May 12, 2009 | 11:00am EDT (15:00 GMT) | 3 Hours

Course Description
Ever since Leonardo put pen to paper, visual note-taking has been a route to improve the quality of your thinking, make information more memorable, and make your ideas easier to share with others. Learn practical techniques and “tricks of the trade” from modern visual note-taking masters Mike Rohde, Sunni Brown and Austin Kleon. In this three-hour course you will learn how to use visual note-taking to improve your listening skills and take better, more memorable notes. The focus of this class will be on how to write, sketch, and diagram ideas live, in real time, as you hear them. Many of the techniques you will learn will also help to improve your skills in drawing your ideas at the flip chart or whiteboard.

Course Faculty

Austin Kleon

Austin Kleon is a writer who draws. A collection of his Newspaper Blackout Poems is forthcoming from HarperCollins in February 2010. He’s drawn cartoons for clients such as Austin City Limits and South by Southwest. He works a day job designing websites, and lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife Meghan. You can see his work online at www.austinkleon.com.

Sunni Brown

Sunni Brown, M.P.A., is Owner of BrightSpot Info Design, a company specializing in visual thinking
to support organizational and group success. BrightSpot operates on the principle that “information overload” is best managed by using visual language and the thoughtful design of
information. Coupling text and presentation materials with graphics and visual architectures
significantly enhances meaning, comprehension and memory. Sunni was trained in graphic facilitation at The Grove Consultants International, a San Francisco based company that pioneered the use of visuals in meetings and group processes. Sunni is currently an Associate of The Grove and an Associate of Momentum Leadership, a change management consultancy. She is also co-Founder of VizThink Austin, currently the largest visual thinking community in the United States. She holds Bachelor’s degrees in Journalism and Linguistics and a Master’s in Public Affairs from the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs. She lives in Austin, TX.

Mike Rohde

Mike Rohde is a designer and art director with a passion for simple, effective and usable design solutions. He has over 20 years experience as a professional designer, working in print design, logo and identity design, application icon design, web and user interface design. Mike has been hired by conference organizers such as SXSW Interactive, An Event Apart and SEED, to capture live, real-time sketchnotes of events using only a gel pen and Moleskine sketchbook. He lives and works in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and is a member of the 9rules network, founder of the Palm Tipsheet e-newsletter and founding member of the Milwaukee tech community group Web414. Mike’s work can be found at rohdesign.com and on Flickr .

Register Today

Where: Online

When: Tuesday May 12, 2009 @ 11:00 EDT (15:00 GMT)

Duration: 3 Hours

Tuition: $99

Work examples from this session’s Facilitators:

Guiding principles for VizThink

VizThink — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 15:11:58 +0000

Guiding principles for VizThink

Originally uploaded by dgray_xplane

Some of you may have noticed that I have been knocking on a lot of doors lately, asking people to participate in the future of VizThink in one way or another.

One of the questions I have heard pretty frequently is “What are Vizthink’s guiding principles?” and “What is the vision/mission for VizThink?”

To try to answer these questions we have created a draft document with the help of some of our members. I have posted the current draft on the VizThink forums, here.

There is no charge to participate in the forums, although you must register to post.

Thanks in advance for your feedback — and please, share your thoughts!

Upcoming VizThink Community Events

VizThink — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:48:34 +0000

Just a quick post to update everyone on some upcoming events on the local community side of things. We’ve got three events (announced) coming up in the next few weeks. Two of them, Boston & Philadelphia are the first local event for those communities.

VizThink Boston 1 – April 9, 2009

Please join us for the inaugural meeting of VizThink Boston – bringing together all those interested in exploring visual thinking in its many forms and purposes. At this first meeting we’ll be looking at the diversity of interests in the room; so please bring an example of visual thinking to share – an example of your work, a favorite image, a inspiring piece of visual thought, etc. – and come prepared to tell us a something about yourself, your interest in visual thinking, and what you hope VizThink Boston might provide for the visual thinking community.

Details and registration can be found here.

VizThink Philadelphia 1 – April 22, 2009

This first meetup will do a 1-hour creative activity, a visual mind-spill, where you will gush images onto paper and share them with your neighbors. Led by Jonny Goldstein. No experience necessary: You just need to be interested in visual communication and learning.

Details and registration can be found here. The organizers of this event are also looking for a venue for it – if you know of some sapace that can handle 20-25 people please drop me a line at community@vizthink.com and I’ll connect you with Jonny.

VizThink Netherlands 3 – May 7, 2009

We are excited that the T-Xchange laboratory wants to be the venue for this session. It is a great place where experiments with futuristic visual interactions can be held and therefore we chose the following theme:

the Future of Visual Thinking

Our high level program will be (under development- until further notice):

Welcome (around 12.00)

About the future – a story about…

PITCH your session – a short 2 minute pitch to interest you in one of the experiments

Parallel sessions:
- Non linear presentations (Eric Kramer, TriMM)
- Tools for Thinkers, the future of the Industry (Malik de Kok, Denkwerkplaats)
- To be confirmed: Kinesthetic Modeling as a method of Visual Thinking in 3D (Nick Payne, Armour Plated Camel)
- [Your session?]

Presentations/results of the day

Drink ‘n’ Talk – VIZZY-BAR

For more details check out their blog and you can register here

Going Forward – An update on where VizThink is headed

VizThink — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 11:00:31 +0000

It’s now been about a month since VizThink 2009 and in the background the VizThink team has been working away on planning how we move forward and sustain the community through these challenging times. Through this post I’d like to share with you some of the changes we’ve implemented and the plans we have going forward.

Welcome Dave Gray
It’s not like Dave really needs a “welcome” to the community in general, as he was an integral part of the creation of VizThink and has been an active participant since day one – but it’s worth highlighting a change in his day to day interactions with VizThink.

With the changes we announced a few weeks ago we essentially went from a three man team, to one made up of two guys working half time to keep things going. Dave recognized our challenge and is fortunate enough to be in a position where he can contribute some of his time to helping further VizThink in a more official capacity – so he stepped up and volunteered to help us out wherever he can.

As a result expect to see contributions from Dave pop-up from time to time here on the blog, or on the website. He’ll also be helping us with implementing and realizing some of the ideas listed below.

If anyone else out there is interested in helping out please feel free to drop me a line at community@vizthink.com with your ideas & interests and lets see what we can get started!

With that said, lets talk about some of the things we’re working on:

VizThink University
The biggest of these changes is the introduction of VizThink University (a.k.a. VizThinkU). Starting in April we’re going to begin offering regular, online-based “courses.” Most of these will be approximately half a day long and feature sessions with 2-3 visual thinking professionals in the industry. Each course will be based on a central theme. Watch for schedule announcements and further details over the next week or so.

If you’ve got something you’d like to share with the community, and would be interested in being one of our facilitators then be sure to drop me an email at community@vizthink.com with an outline of what you’d be interested in teaching.

Website Revamp
With the help of a couple of members of our community we’re currently in the process of revamping & redesigning the VizThink website from top to bottom. We’re revisiting the navigation structure as well as adding some new features. Expect to see the new structure and design emerge over the next couple of weeks.

New Membership Structure
We’ve also stepped back and revisited our membership structure. As part of the launch of the new website we’ll be releasing the details. The good news is we’ll still have the free membership and the basic paid membership will actually be getting cheaper. On top of that we’ll be introducing a few new levels (with various benefits) that you may want to consider going forward.

For our existing paid members, watch your inbox, we’ll be emailing around additional information about your membership shortly before the official roll-out.

VizThink Board of Advisors
We’re very sensitive to ensuring that VizThink continues to provide the content, events and opportunities that our community wants or needs. As part of achieving this goal, we decided to form a VizThink Board of Advisors. This process actually began at VizThink 2009 where we began to reach out to some of the industry leading visual practitioners who have been supportive of VizThink since the beginning. We’re still ironing out some of the details but we’ll announce the founding members of this board as soon as we’ve got everything arranged.

Local Communities
Last but not least we’ve got the local communities which are still humming along and growing. Many people have asked how to get a community going in their area , if you’re interested be sure to check out our Organizer Resources pages on the VizThink wiki and if it sounds like something you’re up to drop me an email at community@vizthink.com and we’ll arrange a time to chat and get you setup!

Thanks again for being a member of our community – I look forward to hearing your feedback as we go through the next few months of changes.

Ryan

—
Ryan Coleman
Chief Community Evangelist

Changes and Enhancements at VizThink

VizThink — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 20:30:04 +0000

As many of you are aware VizThink has been experiencing many changes and enhancements in the last few weeks. At times just having the conference seemed like the biggest challenge we faced, but the toughest so far though have been “What happens after the conference?”

Over the past week there have been plenty of conversations between the team, our investors and trusted advisers on how to keep VizThink moving forward in this tough economic time. As with any organization the toughest decisions always come down to people, and in this case all of us on the team have made sacrifices to help keep VizThink going, which Tom Crawford laid out in an email which has just been sent to the community:

A Message from Tom

Twenty months ago we started VizThink with a mission to bring the visual thinking community together to promote the ideas, concepts and principles to the world at large. In that time, we’ve seen huge success gathering thousands of people in person and online for conferences, workshops, webinars, and regional meetings all over the world. The growth and passion of the community has truly been overwhelming.

Like many other businesses, we are not immune from the economy, and have had to make some very difficult decisions in the last 6 weeks. However, we want the movement—and yes, it’s a movement—to continue for decades to come. In order to ensure that can happen we’re making a few temporary structural changes in order to reduce costs and focus on the core mission. Effective immediately, I will be stepping into a new role as VizThink Fellow. In this role, I will be available for consulting, training, and workshops on a variety of visual thinking and learning topics. If you or your organization are interested, please feel free to contact me through the VizThink team at community@vizthink.com. I will be happy to put together something just for you.

In addition, Chris & Ryan will be moving into half time roles. We’ll still be continuing the social network, workshops, webinars, podcasts, and regional communities. In fact, they will receive new emphasis without the specter of a large conference looming around each corner. In the coming weeks, you’ll hear more details about these changes and many new exciting opportunities to get involved.

I would like to thank the investors, and particularly Rodolfo Carpintier from Digital Assets Deployment in Madrid, for their ongoing belief and support in this community. I have had a great team in Ryan Coleman & Chris Pascucci. I would like to thank Ryan for his seemingly unlimited list of great ideas, even keel, and constant sounding board, and Chris for his untiring dedication to make even the wildest idea happen with a keen sense of getting the immediate details just right while keeping an eye on the long-term goals. Both have stepped up over and over to make amazing things happen. They are great to work with and will continue to be focused on growing the community well into the future.

Most importantly, I would like to thank each of you not just for your involvement so far, but for your ongoing involvement in making this a vibrant, sustainable community. VizThink is about bringing together people just like you and letting the world know there is a better way to brainstorm, organize, and communicate information. We can’t do that without you, and need your support now, more than ever.

How can you get involved? Sign up for the online community. Participate in the forums. Register for a workshop or webinar. Attend or start a VizThink meeting in your city. Spread the word to your friends, colleagues, and customers. The more people are involved the better it gets for everybody. I look forward to seeing each of you. For questions or more details on anything in this e-mail, feel free to contact us at info@vizthink.com or 503-467-7770.

Sincerely,

–tom

So What’s Next for VizThink?
That’s a great question – as Tom mentioned in his message above you’ll be hearing a lot more in the coming weeks. In the background Chris & I, along with input from the community and our advisers will be taking a look at VizThink from top to bottom and coming up with a model that will sustain the community through this difficult patch.

We’ll be soliciting feedback from the community along the way but if you’ve got a burning idea, are willing to lend some of your time, or want to get a local community going please feel to drop me an email at community@vizthink.com.

Chris and I will miss working with Tom on a day-to-day basis – Tom’s visible presence in our podcasts, at our conferences and other events is just the tip of the iceberg to the work he’s done behind the scenes to help build and grow our community and we all owe him a great debt of gratitude for getting this thing off the ground.

So in short, we’re still here, a little smaller and with a little less time to get things done, but the important this is, VizThink is still alive and kicking. As Tom said, there’s a movement at work here and we all want to do everything we can to keep the momentum going. Thanks for joining us on this journey, and for your support going forward.

- Ryan

VizThink Opening Reception – Open to the General Public

VizThink — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:00:00 +0000

Just 3 days from now, on Sunday, February 22, 2009 VizThink ‘09 kicks off with our opening reception which runs from 6:30pm to 8:30pm in the Fairmont San Jose Lobby Lounge. The opening receptions have been a great place to kick off the conference by mixing and mingling with fellow participants, industry experts, and colleagues. The Fairmont Lobby Lounge is nearly ideally suited for small group conversations with cozy chairs and sofas, coffee tables, and plenty of good food and drink available for purchase as well. We’ll be sure to have a few markers, index cards, and post-its spread throughout to help get the creative juices going. If you’re attending the conference, you’ll be able to pick up your name badge there to save time during the Monday morning rush.

In addition, for the first time ever, we’re opening up the reception to the local visual thinking community, even if they’re not attending the conference. No advanced registration is necessary and the cost is free! Just head to the VizThink registration desk when you arrive and fill out your name tag.

Amazing All New Slate of Content Scheduled for VizThink ‘09

VizThink — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:17:59 +0000

Can you believe that VizThink ‘09 is only 1 week away? We’ve been working on the plans for this conference since nearly the end of the last one. While lots of things have changed in the world around us, one of the things that hasn’t changed is that attendees to VizThink ‘09 are going to have access to the best visual thinking content available under one roof. We have over 30 breakout sessions with some of the leading experts from around the world.

As we learned in a recent podcast with Tony Karrer, to get the most out of a conference takes work and preparation. So, to help, we’ve got two ways for you to explore the content and prepare before you get to San Jose. First, the final conference guide is now available in PDF for you to download.

You’ll also get a physical copy when you check in at registration. However, there’s only so much that can be put in an print guide. So, we also have the conference wiki as a second and even more useful resource. Each session has it’s own page, often with longer more detailed session descriptions and even examples. It’s an invaluable resource for planning your conference experience. Here are just some of the great sessions on the schedule:

Visual Storytelling with Karl Gude
How Do Patterns Structure Visual Thinking with Colin Ware
Eleven Years with One Visualization: Lessons from Jerry’s Brain with Jerry Michalski
Way of the Whiteboard: 3 Unwritten Rules of Persuading with Pictures with Dan Roam
Tools for Visual Storytelling with Nancy Duarte
Facilitating Online with Graphics with David Sibbet
LEGO® Serious Play™ – Think, Create and Innovate with Jacquie Lloyd Smith

WIth over 30 great sessions to choose from, you may wonder how you’re going to choose. Well, this year, by popular demand, we’ve added tracks. While you don’t have to follow the tracks, you may find it helpful to go with a theme. Alternately, you may want to pick one session from each track to get a diverse experience visual thinking. Our 6 tracks this year are:

Visual Language - Discovering the components of visual language
Storytelling – Using images to tell stories
Changing the World – Applying visual thinking to improve ourselves and the world around us
Visualizing Data & Our World – Using visualization to represent data, objects, and locations
Business Strategy – Using visualization to represent business concepts, ideas, and plans
Visual Thinking – Surveying a variety of visual thinking techniques, approaches, and applications

Creating tracks is hard. Each session could easily be placed in more than one track. Most sessions, for instance, have a storytelling component. In addition, most sessions are talking in some way about visual language. These tracks are not meant as rules or limitations, but as guidelines to assist in your planning and decision making process.

There’s still time to sign up and take advantage of this great opportunity to network and learn from your colleagues and industry experts. Be sure to register now so you’ll be sure to reserve your space and not miss this exciting conference.