Posters, colour, ideas: capturing thinking during a conference workshop

Posted by Guy Downes on March 19, 2010 under Graphic Recording | Be the First to Comment

Providing people with the opportunity to stand back and see their collective ideas during a conference workshop is important. One way to achieve this is by using creative posters that are drawn beforehand as templates. They are then used as a recording tool during the session allowing participants to capture their critical thinking.

Mirella Di Genua (a facilitator, stakeholder engagement and change management specialist), with whom I work regularly and highly recommend, recently facilitated a preconference workshop to explore how to better integrate community/stakeholder engagement in policy development. The conference was called ‘Community Engagement in Policy Development’ held in Melbourne in late February. Mirella tasked me with preparing some posters that she could use during her workshop.

The aim of the facilitation process was to identify with the participants:

• the edgy and top of mind questions that brought them to the conference;
• their views around community engagement in Policy Development;
• ways to explore the barriers and opportunities for engagement; and
• a vision and preliminary framework for greater community engagement.

As the workshop was highly participatory it provided the participants with a heightened focus for conference learning and facilitated the creation of relationships through the sharing experiences in the workshop.

Here are some of my posters beforehand and in use during the workshop (with some close ups to show some creative detail).

The Outcomes/Agenda/Roles (OAR) poster - beforehand

The OAR poster: full with workshop thoughts and ideas

A large poster to capture workshop questions

Afterwards: the poster full with questions using coloured post-it notes

Blank poster to capture ideas on vision integration

Completed vision integration poster full of ideas and colour

Poster detail: outcomes

Poster detail: outcomes, roles, working together

Visioning poster detail: image to represent 'setting the course'

Visioning poster detail: image for leadership/direction

Questioning poster: image to show people in a Q&A process

Cartoon (life considered): have a cuppa

Posted by Guy Downes on March 15, 2010 under Cartoons | Be the First to Comment

Cartoon (life considered): autonomy

Posted by Guy Downes on March 14, 2010 under Cartoons | Be the First to Comment

Cartoon (life considered): attention erosion

Posted by Guy Downes on March 12, 2010 under Cartoons | Be the First to Comment

I’ve been doing some reading online recently about how well we’re coping (or not coping) living in a hyper-connected and ’want it all now’ society. I came across this book, which looks fascinating. It’s called ‘Distracted – The Erosion of Attention and The Coming Dark Age’ by Maggie Jackson.

It triggered this cartoon based on my own experience. Trying to get big chunks of work done and uninterupted time for creative thinking is getting harder as we are bombarded with Twitter, email, IM, phones, SMS etc. My best solution: switch everything off when you need to.

Cartoon (life considered): process junkie

Posted by Guy Downes on March 10, 2010 under Cartoons | Be the First to Comment

Ever had a client that is more obsessed with the internal process (and doing lots of it…and then some more) as opposed to getting to the final result?

Cartoon (life considered): standards

Posted by Guy Downes on March 9, 2010 under Cartoons | Be the First to Comment

Cartoon (life considered): letting go

Posted by Guy Downes on March 8, 2010 under Cartoons | Be the First to Comment

A great mate of mine and a former colleague, David Sims, has a great turn of phrase. Maybe it’s because he’s Californian. He’s equally good at putting words eloquently onto paper. I should know – I spent just shy of 5 years sitting next to him day-in-day-out at Weber Shandwick Technologies and then Howorth, hearing him skillfully work the phone, craft documents and chat with colleagues and clients. Over a beer recently, he dropped the words ‘letting go of the side of the pool’ into conversation. I forget the context but the visual metaphor really got into my head.

Whatever we face, love, fear, want, aim for or hope for, there is always a point where we’ve got to ‘let go’ and get moving. If we don’t, nothing changes or happens – no matter how easy or hard it maybe.

Cartoon (life considered): running from the rain

Posted by Guy Downes on March 5, 2010 under Cartoons | Be the First to Comment

Lots of rain here this evening – people running for cover under awnings, newspapers or just trying to dodge the drops.

Cartoon (life considered): trouble shooting

Posted by Guy Downes on March 4, 2010 under Cartoons | Be the First to Comment

Anyone who has ever struggled with setting up an internet connection of any type that just won’t connect, may be able to relate to this one. I had a few issues changing ISPs last week and had to jump through hoops – some felt not too dissimilar to these instructions…