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Leadership Austin Essential Class Curriculum Map

Leadership Austin is an organization that's been an integral part of the Austin community for more than 30 years. They offer a 9-month course that trains tomorrow's leaders, many of whom go on to be council members, business leaders, public speakers and so on. Heather McKissick, the CEO, asked me to create a large-scale graphic that would illustrate the milestones for the class and also serve as an symbolic document upon completion. So at the end of each monthly class, one of the participants is asked to color in the star next to the topic they just completed. It's a gesture of commitment and continued participation by the group, and we designed the graphic so that the digital can be modified and easily reprinted for each incoming class. Good fun.

Pluck Inc.

Pluck, Inc. is a company that represents the best of Austin tech and the best of Austin creativity. They offer integrated social media for publishers, retailers and brands, and their technology platform currently powers more than 2.5 billion monthly interactions. What?! I love these guys. Some of their clients include the Lance Armstrong Foundation, The Economist, and Whole Foods. I partnered with them for Socialize, which was an invitation-only event held at The Driskill for their current clients. I can't post the series of graphic recordings I created because they're proprietary, but I wanted to mention it on my blog because it was really an exciting event. The best thing I got out of the conversations was a reinforcement that community-building (for marketing purposes or otherwise) is happening here, now and on the web, and in ways that are anti-thesis of the traditional model of marketing and branding. Word.

Say It Visually Logo Brainstorm

This is one example (my favorite) of several logos I developed for SayItVisually.com, a start-up company specializing in animated shorts that tell organizational stories. The challenge was, and continues to be, how to express the idea of showing, not telling something interesting. The team will continue to work on it until we get to our best idea. We have to take into consideration if the logo itself will animate, since it will live the majority of its life in digital environments.

Sketchnotes - Virtuous and Vicious Cycles

I have always admired the work of the Public Conversations Project, so I was delighted to sketch note during the presentation of one of their Senior Associates. Maggie Herzig discussed the cycles (both virtuous and vicious) that occur during challenging group processes and shared a case study of resolving the problem of air traffic/noise pollution over the Grand Canyon. I shared the notes with her afterward and she was thrilled. I would love to have an opportunity to work with PCP. They do amazing work for society and conduct very difficult dialogues with a proven track record of success. A very impressive group of people.

Reflective Panel

The National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation has an annual conference and this year it took place in Austin! I was part of a graphic recording team (the Dream Team!) that was there to capture content from the plenary and from the myriad of breakout groups. The topics related to mediation, public policy, non-violent communication, etc. - all topics related to raising the standard of personal and public conversations. The image above is a live capture of the closing reflective panel.

VOIS Social Networking and Global Commerce

VOIS is the first website of its kind and my client needed to show it. The purpose of this piece is to give VOIS an infographic that describes not only what VOIS does but how it does it. It's the first sCommerce website in the world, which means it's the first site that combines the social networking tools of Facebook with the service providing tools of eLance.com. I met these guys during SXSW and the project gradually evolved into a computer-illustrated presentation piece they could use when talking to venture capitalists. It was a great experience and we are now moving into animation with another start-up company called Say It Visually. This is the final version of a graphic I posted earlier.

Texas Tobacco Summit

A recent mind map/graphic recording I did with UT Austin at their annual Texas Tobacco Summit. UT, in partnership with the Texas Department of Human Services and the federal government, is in the midst of a major initiative to prevent and curb smoking among various populations. I graphically recorded the presentation content of 6 coalitions in Texas and the participants loved it. It was a good way to display content outside of their PowerPoint presentations, and they hung this poster in the hallway for the duration of the conference so the messages were received, reinforced and discussed.

Leverage Plan Template

Just completed a template for Dell and Interaction Design, Inc. A fairly simple project, the template is 22"W x 17"H and will be printed for participant use during a Dell training session. The facilitators of the training were looking for a "wow" factor, a useful piece that was colorful, larger than standard training materials, and designed to capture content. We brainstormed some concepts and came up with this. The gear is supposed to invoke the leveraging of current Dell global initiatives.

VOIS Infographic

Whoa! I finally finished a project that was among the most complicated I've done. VOIS, which is a social networking and global commerce website (the first of its kind) saw me doing a graphic recording at SXSW and asked me to partner with them on an infographic. The challenge for this project was not only in the concept design and layout, but also in the distillation of what information needed to be displayed. VOIS is a start-up company and the guys involved are visionaries, but it was a task to have them illuminate the knowledge in their heads. I worked with them over weeks to get the right content - guiding them through BrightSpot's consulting processes - until we had what we felt was appropriate content. The is a presentation piece for venture capitalists or angel investors, to show them how VOIS works and what makes it different from other social networking or global commerce sites. I know it's busy, but when printed at the design size (tabloid), it looks good. The VOIS guys had a LOT of content they wanted on there, so the other challenge was using good design techniques to make the best of the real estate available. I really enjoyed this project and we plan to move toward an animation piece in the future.

Idea Log - Tobacco Cessation

The UT Austin Tobacco Prevention Program holds a Texas Tobacco Summit every year and this year I got the opportunity to partner with them. I was to conduct a graphic recording at the conference during coalition presentations about efforts to prevent smoking, and UT also requested that I generate an 'Idea Log.' The log was included in participant handouts and is designed to give people a space to capture ideas, actions, resources, etc. I chose a cartoon panel set-up because I wanted to show (not tell) a mini-story about the real purpose of the conference.

VOIS: Social Network and Global Marketplace

A black and white thumbnail sketch of an infographic I'll be producing for VOIS - the world's first online social network combined with an on-demand global marketplace. VOIS is a start-up company that needs to be able show potential investors how VOIS works and what it's value for the user is. The next phase of this project will involve tweaking the content and process flow and generating a computer-illustrated version. Good times.

Holland Board of Public Works

Collaboration Unlimited, a consultancy for strategic planning and business performance, requested that I create a template for use with the Holland Board of Public Works. This was a fairly quick computer sketch made for use during group brainstorms about core values. The thought clouds are where the content they generate is captured by a facilitator.

Victor Frankl 'Man's Search for Meaning' Quote

Policy Studies, Inc. asked me to create a 'goodbye' graphic dedicated to an employee who was promoted and moving to a different division in the company. Nancy Starling Ross, the woman who received this, deeply admired Victor Frankl - an Austrian neurologist and psychologist who survived various concentration camps and went on to create logotherapy and Existential Analysis.

Momentum Leadership Sales Presentation

A straightforward graphic I created for use during a sales presentation. The president of Momentum Leadership, Kerry Anne Ridley, used this chart (4' x 4') to highlight her company's capabilities with respect to the needs of the audience, composed of HR professionals specific to the technology industry.

VizThink Austin, April 30

On April 30, we held our first VizThink Austin Session! The goal of this session was three-fold: to get a "pulse" of the community interest, to gather content about how people want to or are currently using visual thinking in their lives and work, and to build momentum behind the larger movement toward establishing visual literacy as a skill tantamount to reading and writing. The turnout was fantastic - thank you, Austin - and there was a lot of interest expressed in what happens next. The next session will likely involve a workshop about e-Learning and, of course, we'll have to throw in a good visual thinking game. Can't wait.

Breaking Ground: VizThink Austin

Exciting news! There is a VizThink community forming throughout the world and I, Marilyn Martin and Charlene McBride are the first ambassadors to Austin. We are putting Austin on the map to show that there IS a community of creative, intelligent thought leaders here and we will move the momentum of visual language toward critical mass. We're holding a ground-breaking first session on Wedneday, April 30th from 6-8 pm. The intention of the VizThink School is to employ visual language to build consensus, increase group learning and simplify complex problems. Each workshop will involve hands on activities and visual "play," and we plan to grow this community AND consequently, this movement, by bringing together current and future visual practitioners. All hail the visual word. Click on the link below to find information about VizThink and the Austin partnership.
http://www.vizthink.com/blog/2008/04/18/vizthink-london-austin/

Policy Studies, Inc. Leadership Forum 2008

I just flew home from Denver, CO, after having worked with one of my favorite clients, Policy Studies, Inc. I partner with PSI as a graphic recorder and at the end of their annual Leadership Forum, I summarize the content of the charts I generated. The photograph on the top is of me reinforcing the messages of the forum, and giving the audience some good laughs at the same time. I make frequent use of humor in my presentations, because I believe humor is serious. People engage, pay attention, and learn when comedy is woven through the content.

CenTex NCDD

CenTex Summit on Dialogue and Deliberation

This is one of five customized templates for the Central Texas Summit on Dialogue and Deliberation. The purpose of the Summit was to bring together practitioners who focus on constructive conversations and dialogues, mostly in the public sphere. The convening committee wanted to mine the group for information about their lessons, needs and challenges around the practices of constructive dialogue. So I customized five large-scale templates which allowed the group to work together to capture this content. I created the central images and they added details around it. It was amazing to see how readily people dig in when given a tool they can actually use. Click on this link to see the flickr stream of the day: http://www.flickr.com/photos/texasforums/sets/72157604620123306/.