VisualsSpeak blog

Does the idea of facilitating a large audience (50, 100, 200, 300 people) make you sweat?

In our announcement for the VizThink 2008 conference, we have a little fun with the fact that Christine will be facilitating a VisualsSpeak process with an audience that could exceed three hundred people. She is being given a whole thirty minutes to complete this exercise. As you can imagine this is quite the challenge. There are a lot of things you need to take into consideration before taking on larger audiences such as:

• Are the group dynamics of a large audience different than small groups?
• How do you prepare for an audience you’ve never met?
• How do you make sure your program is tight enough in order to minimize disruptions?
• How do you use any tools or props?

In our upcoming newsletter, Christine will be giving you some insights into how to think about facilitating processes for large audiences.

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Christine Martell, Principal of VisualsSpeak LLC, will be presenting at the VizThink 2008 conference in San Francisco, California. The Conference is being held January 27-29 at The Westin San Francisco Market Street.

Christine will be facilitating twice. On Monday January 28 her session is titled “What Makes Visuals Speak?” and on Tuesday in the morning General Session she will be one of three facilitators taking the “VizThink Challenge”.

VisualsSpeak will have a booth at the conference. Stop by and say hello.

Christine will be facilitating an audience of three hundred attendees

Before I give you the details, you should know that VizThink has thrown down the gauntlet. On Tuesday morning (1/29/08) in the General Session, Christine will be one of three facilitators “put on the spot” to facilitate a process where a real-world problem about a real-world organization in front of a real-world audience (That’s a lot of reality folks) is presented to the Facilitator Three. Hold on there’s more.

The real-world problem is being held secret from these three passionate Visual Communication specialists so that we can see the stuff they’re really made of. I have it on good authority that VizThink has engaged the services of the NSA, FBI, CIA AND the Boy Scouts (Hey, they’re kids. They can hack in their sleep) to develop a specially encrypted program to keep safe the offending real-world problem to be solved by these out-of-this-world facilitators.

Now here is where VizThink made their big mistake. The other two facilitators are inviting about 18 people in total to participate in their sessions. Thus leaving Christine to facilitate the remaining THREE HUNDRED PLUS attendees (At this time there are 350 people attending). For those of us in the VisualsSpeak Community who know Christine, we scoff at this challenge. If they had asked her to facilitate an audience of three thousand maybe we would have raised an eyebrow. But three hundred…where’s the challenge in that? She could do that standing on her head. Hey, I’d like to see that!

Provide your Input and Make a Difference

If you are attending the VizThink 2008 conference we encourage you to attend the Tuesday morning General Session.

This will be a chance for you to see:

• How visual communication tools and techniques can be utilized to solve the problems your organization faces
• An array of visual communication processes being used in one spot
• What types of processes might be appropriate for your company

And this is a chance for you to use your expertise to help another organization. What goes around…

The Sessions

What Makes Visuals Speak?

Monday, January 28, 2008 from 1:30pm - 3:00pm
Christine Martell

In this session we’ll explore the elements that make visuals speak. We’ll start the conversation with photographs, exploring not only the story, but also the visual language elements that reveal less conscious aspects of what we are saying. By using a set of tested photographs, we will quickly delve into an in-depth conversation of how to utilize visual elements to their fullest. You can expect to come away from this experience with a greater understanding of how to effectively use visuals to uncover strategic vision for individuals, groups and organizations.

This session will be experiential and fun. No drawing required!

VizThink Challenge

Tuesday, January 29 from 9:00am - 10:30am
Jamie Nast, Christine Martell, and David Sibbet

Often, it’s not about the tools we use, but the process we go through to come up with visual thinking solutions. This segment is designed to show just that, and we’ve got three great people to help us with that including Jamie Nast, Christine Martell, and David Sibbet. We’re going to put these three leaders on the spot by bringing them up on stage and presenting them with a real world communications problem. They’ll have never seen it before and have no time to prepare. Their job, with your help, will be to come up with a visual thinking solution, and we’ll look at how they approach it and what they come up with. However, they won’t be in it alone. Each of the tables in the audience will work on the problem too. This segment promises to be a fascinating look into the similarities and differences between visual thinking approaches.

If You Want to Attend the Conference

There is still space available if you would like to attend. This is shaping up to be a great conference with representatives from major companies, great facilitators, international participation, and networking opportunities galore.

To sign up and receive a discount use code FCCM1 by registering here.

Michele Martin and I had a long discussion over the phone yesterday. It was part of an ongoing conversation we have been having over the last few months. We have used email, wikis, IM, face-to-face, and phone. The point being, this is not a new conversation. It has been developing over time.

And the conversation is not about images, rather about the use of social media as learning professionals. It’s an interesting topic, and I would encourage you to go over to Michele’s blog for the conversation about the content.

This post is about how we each saw the image we were talking about.

It started with Michele sending me a tall pyramid. As we were talking I said I thought it was more of a spiral, and we talked about what I meant by that. From the conversation, I would have guessed we were aligned and were seeing the same things.

Michele’s Image

This morning, Michele posts this spiraling image on her blog. Wow, really? A tall skinny spiral? A tornado spiral? When I think about it, aspects of the lower levels do kind of get sucked up into the higher level areas. And bits and pieces of the top levels filter down and layer on top. I can get there, but it was surprising when I first saw it.

Christine’s Image

I was seeing a flat spiral. Different, and more so than I would have guessed.

Does this matter?

Are these differences that matter? In this context, maybe not. This was a conversation between colleagues, one where we were challenging each other to expand our thinking. But what if we had been taking action based on this conversation? Would these different perspectives matter then? Especially since we thought we had come to alignment?

How images can make a difference

If we had been able to see what we were each scribbling down while we were talking, we could have had a deeper conversation about why we were seeing these differently. Or if we really were. Or was it just the way we were sketching? I suspect from these drawings that there are areas where we could tease out more differences in our understanding, places where we each could learn more from each other.

Because we relied on just words in the moment, we limited the depth of our potential conversation because we assumed we were in agreement. And we have a tendency to search harder for the places we agree. It affirms our connection, and feels good.

This is happening all the time, all around us

Words are wonderful. But we bring all of our unique experiences and understanding to them. How many times a day do we think we are saying something that is in alignment with someone else? How many times are we sure?

Not that visuals are the answer. If you show a picture to five people they will often tell you five different things. But there is a concrete starting point in the image. You can see more of the thinking, you can ask questions. Added to the words, you might be a step closer to really understanding each other.

The Sharing Foundations bid to win $50,000

Beth Kanter has been participating in Parade Magazine’s America’s Giving Challenge. $50,000 will be awarded to the project that gets the most unique donors before January 31, 2008. Beth has selected the Sharing Foundation, which provides education for children and young adults in Cambodia. With a little help from her blogging friends, she is now number three on the leader board. You can participate by donating as little as $10 through the widget above set up by Michele Martin at the Bamboo Project. The effort is gaining momentum, as Beth has requested donations in honor of her birthday on Friday.

It has been a fascinating campaign to watch. Beth has done some interesting things with photographs. I am learning how to screencast, and that is another topic Beth has been incredibly generous in sharing of her knowledge. In honor of her birthday, I have made this screencast about her use of images in the challenge.

And here is a real pro-screencast done by Harry, Beth’s 10 year old son with a little help from Mom.

This post is part of a series on Visual Language. Starting with the premise that you have to be able to see the various aspects of a visual in order to be able to create visuals, each post is exploring a different aspect that goes into visual language.

Shape
Shape is comprised of several things. For simplicity, we will talk about a line drawing, which uses a line to define the outside shape of an object. There are several things that affect the perception of that shape. These include the positive (foreground) and negative (background) space, contrast and color. The following screencast talks about each of these while showing examples.

So What?

When we begin to understand and can identify the various elements that go into visual language, we can begin to use them to convey what it is we want to say visually. There are many ways you can bring emphasis or attention to an area of an image. We learn what they are so we can utilize the best ones to create the effect we are after in the particular instance. It’s like learning vocabulary. After a while you start to discern the difference between rain, sleet, downpour and drizzle. Then you can select the word that hones in on just what it is you want to say.

There are related posts about Line and Color and Contrast.

Does any of this help you see the various aspects that contribute to effective visuals?