An online celebration of Rosviz!

After 10 years of offering a graphic facilitation workshop I was looking forward to a community gathering in Rossland to celebrate and share with people we have met over the years. With the pandemic the idea of a gathering in person wasn’t possible. Together with my co-conspirators Lisa Gates and Nancy White we turned to an online session to share visual tools, connect with our community and hear what others have been doing and learning online. 

We had a small group come together and share in late July. In our quick hour and a half we managed to show and tell 10 different ways to visually engage your participants online. It was a rapid introduction with the intention to give a taste of what one can do to engage visually without pen and paper. 

Some of the fun we had included: 

Changing your name in Zoom to add emojis

Annotating the Zoom Whiteboard – our intro to the gathering:

Annotating slides in power point – for example asking people to mark how they are doing on a line (in person we do this with our ‘feet’):

Visual templates – the ecocyle

Nancy White shared her slides for a practical visual template and suggested to go to Liberating Structures for more info! Here is an example:

Padlet: https://padlet.com/ -thank Ingrid Liepa for sharing!

Jamboard: It’s a part of the Google apps- thank you Lisa Gates for sharing!

Quick tip! Jamboard is better for small groups (as opposed to Mural, our next tool).

Mural & Zoom breakouts: playing with Mural in small groups (Thanks Theresa Healy!)

Quick tip! When sharing to non-members make sure to use the ‘visitor’ link, rather than the ‘invite’ link! 

Graphic recording by hand – thank you for sharing Theresa (Tess) Healy

Graphic recording on the iPad– thank you for sharing Lisa Gates!

Mentimeter word cloud: We used ‘just 3 words’ as a quick evaluation:

Quick tip! When working with a group online, remember to put the code in the chat.

Thank you to all who came to share and play! So many more tips and tricks were shared along the way which I am grateful for. Feel free to share below!

Lisa and I are considering a December workshop on creative and visual facilitation online. If this interests you or someone you know, please leave a comment so we can connect with you!

DIY Wall Board for Graphic Facilitation

A few months back I posted a question on the International Forum of Visual Practitioners Linked In Group asking:

Has anyone made a portable ‘wall’ (that fits into a car) to bring to meetings that don’t have great walls and if so, do you have tips or a guide to share?

People shared loads of ideas including buying walls from Neuland or Athenaeum as well as home made ideas such as using foam core, gatorboard, and rigid insulation to name a few.

I spent time visiting the local hardware stores, sign making shop and office supply store trying to find my material of choice.  I knew it was experimental so didn’t want to spend too much money.  In the end, I came across some 1/4 inch foam core that had been printed on one side for a project but had errors so was destined for the landfill.  The backside was plain white.  Aha – my chance!!

Due to odd sizes of the 4 foam core boards, I cut them to fit a 4×8 piece of paper and taped it together with white duct tape.

The widthwise seams are solid and don’t fold as one is on the top section and the other is on the bottom section.  The center seam is taped on the back and foldable so it fits in the back of my car.  The best place I found is in the backseat, straight up and down, leaning against the seat.  It also fits in the hatch back on an angle.

I clip paper to the edges of the board rather than using tape which is great and keeps the paper looking nice.  To date, I have leaned the board against the wall on top of a table and stretched across to write or use it simply to tell a story via a pre-drawn mind map or something.  It’s a little flimsy for a tripod which may be due to the less-than-thick nature of the board.

I am somewhat satisfied with the output as for a practically free experiment, its useful for holding visuals where the walls aren’t great and a good back-up to bring along when you aren’t sure of the room you are going to work in.  I am pleased to say I used it last week when I encountered mediocre walls in a condo meeting room setting.  I leaned the board (holding a large mind-map ‘visual summary’) across a mantle over a fireplace  and people could view it and discuss it from different parts of the room.  It seemed to work well!  On the flip side, I don’t find it rigid enough to really write on with haste.

Thanks to the IFVP discussion group for all the ideas and motivation 🙂

 

Workshop ends…community begins

Drawing on Walls at the 2011 Graphic Facilitation Workshop in Rossland, B.C.

It’s been 2 weeks since the Graphic Facilitation workshop ended in Rossland, B.C (July 13-15, 2011).  What have I learned that I will take with me in the future and can share with you?  Here are a few of my reflections:

1. The workshop was a full 2.5 days of learning, practice and sharing ideas with a diverse range of fantastic people.  While the workshop may have ended, the community is strong with active postings and sharing on our community Facebook Page (Rosviz10), Flickr (search rosviz) and Twitter (#rosviz).  It’s amazing to see the back and forth and ongoing support of each others’ work.
2. Graphic facilitation, recording and using visuals helps me (and us) to crystallize our ideas.  It’s a method within the facilitation toolbox to get people to focus and deal with the overload of ideas and information out there.  It’s true that often an image speaks a thousand words.  As Nancy likes to say, “We are making the invisible visible.”
3. Small things make a big difference when communicating with visuals.  For example a little shading, a few shapes, and choosing a great colour palette make the visual pop and grab peoples’ attention.
4. Technology could help strengthen the future of graphic recording.  As more and more people use iPad’s and other devices with drawing technology, I believe we will see more use of visuals in mainstream work.
5. Our workshop created an incubator for risk taking.  Each person took risks in their own way.  For some it was the art, for others it was telling a story and for others it may have been sharing their feedback.  The workshop setting and group vibe created a safe place for people to step out of their comfort zone and try new things.

During the workshop, 2010 workshop participant Sylvia Currie, took on the role of ‘social reporter’.  This video captures the essence of the workshop really well! 

She captured interviews with participants on their experience posted here, she blogged about the workshop here (fantastic post by the way!) and she posted photos here.  She also recorded the Elluminate session with alumnus Susan Stewart on iPad graphic recording.

Nancy White, my co-conspirator, posted her photos here, the icon drawing jam here and .

Violette Clark (workshop participant) also created a blog post and likely there are more.  This is a call to all workshop participant’s to share your blogs if you posted something (use the comments feature, thanks!).

If you are on Flickr, Twitter, Facebook or other sites and looking to find posts – use rosviz as your search term.  As twitter posts change so quickly, our #rosviz tweets are archived here.

If you know others who want to learn about graphic facilitation and graphic recording, please stay in touch and let us know.   If we can gather a critical mass, we may be able to do this next year….it really is so much fun!

Before signing off,  parting words to those who participated…..practice when you can, continue learning and use the community for support and inspiration!

Thank you again to all the workshop participants in 2010 and 2011, co-organizers/ supporters and to those who followed along via social media.

Kick Off Graphic Jam

Hi all,

This is a re-post from Social Reporter Sylvia Currie and her blog “Webbed Feet“.

Thanks to Sylvia, I will be posting several links in the coming days to workshop interviews, videos, photos and blog posts!

Enjoy!!

Welcome sign by Michelle Laurie

Our workshop agenda

Yesterday we arrived in Rossland, British Columbia from a variety of locations for the 2nd annual Graphic Facilitation workshop. A few of us did some prep work to get ready for the kick of graphic jam — hanging paper, prepping the floor space with plastic to catch chalk dust, and throwing open the curtains to let the natural light in.

It was exciting to put names to faces and learn about the various backgrounds and reasons for coming to the 3-day workshop. The first activity was a visual introduction. In 5 minutes the 20 participants came up with drawings that gave us a lot to talk about! We toured the room and participants described what they saw. Not your traditional round robin intros!

Violette Clark creating her visual introduction

Next Nancy made sure we warmed up properly and became aware of space around us by using our whole bodies. BIG circles! Rockin’ straight lines!

From there Nancy introduced participants to basic concepts around lettering, spacing, colour, and everything else that emerged from the group. One thing I really appreciate about Nancy White’s teaching style is that she uses the work of participants to point out different styles, design principles, impact of colour, use of space, and so on. We don’t always work through all skills and concepts systematically. By the end of the evening graphic jam we were talking about what works, what frustrates us, what we’re curious about… because we had plenty of time to experiment.

Yes we can! Close up of drawing by Sara Davis

We’re capturing bits and pieces that will give you a glimpse of what happens in the #rosviz graphic facilitation workshop. On to day 2!

• Flickr — tag: rosviz
• Twitter – tag: #rosviz, archived here
• Facebook – RosViz10 group
• YouTube – still uploading

Drawing on walls update!

Our graphic recording from #Etug keynote by @cogdog in Nelson, B.C. June 2, 2011

It’s been an exciting month for me as a novice visual practitioner.  I owe a lot of this to taking the advice of Nancy White who told the students of our graphic facilitation workshop last year to simply ‘step forward’ and start drawing when opportunities arise.  It’s a bit scary however after the first line is drawn on the paper it seems to come together.

Above is a graphic recording created by myself (@Mklaurie) along with two colleagues Sylvia Currie (@currie) and Rachael Roussin (@beetgreens) during the keynote of Alan Levine on the topic of Amazing Stories and Openess at #ETUG 2011.  This was the first recording any of us had ever done for a keynote in public 🙂

As lead up to this fun event, Sylvia Currie and I gave a talk at Northern Voice in Vancouver on the topic of Visual Thinking.  Approximately 60 people put their pens to paper to illustrate themselves in visuals with minimal text.  The room was buzzing and energy levels were high.   The best part was having people practice in Moose Camp (open space) and seeing them get out of their seats to co-draw in the room.  Thanks to everyone who partook – it was a lot of fun and very inspiring.  Below are a few pics from the experience.

Drawing on Walls session at Northern Voice 2011

Drawing on Walls together at Moose Camp at Northern Voice 2011

Participatory graphic from Moose Camp sessions, Northern Voice 2011

I continue to be inspired by the power of visuals to make more meaning from the work we do and the world we live in.  Furthermore, it helps for retaining information, creating shared understandings and having fun!

People perspective and empowerment

Rachael and Nadine using their entire body to draw arcs on the paper

Today was Day 1 of the Graphic Facilitation Workshop I have been organizing with Nancy White.  I organized the workshop with the ulterior motive of wanting to take the workshop and learn more about visual practice.  It was a great day!

Some of the things we talked about and experimented with included:

–        Perspective

–        People

–        Build repertoire of icons

–        Sense of motion (e.g. lines)

–        Foundational work at the bottom

–        Linking ideas and thoughts, theme in center with circles around this, river as connector,

–        Colour as meaning (for people you work with, for cultures, warm/cool colours)

–        Recording – Listen, synthesize, share

–        Participatory – visuals are negotiable, stimulate divergent thinking

–        Space and size

–        Framing of the page

Everyone learned a lot in a few short hours…and people found this evolution very empowering.  Creativity was flowing and now everyone wonders…when and where can we use this in practice?  Are there safe spaces?  Will people be willing to play along?  Some advice we were given: Be Obvious, Accept Offers, Fail Cheerfully.

My first practice piece - circles, lines, letters and chalk

My 2nd practice piece - people, shading, W's

And at then end of the day, people were asked to provide 3 words each.  This is what we were feeling as a group:



16 people, three words each

Looking forward to Day 2 tomorrow!