Cheers to 12 Years!

ConverSketch is twelve!

Thank you for being the reason for many years of discovery, creativity, fun, and making meaning together.  Am I proud of what we’ve done together? You bet I am!

If you asked me when I picked up my first chisel tip marker where I thought this would take me, I probably would have said something like “I don’t know, but this just feels like what I’m supposed to be doing.”

Through creativity, strategy, and deep listening, we've co-created to bring your visions to life and spark new possibilities. Each project has been a unique opportunity to learn, stretch our minds, and explore diverse perspectives.

Here's to another twelve years (and beyond!) of cultivating imaginative solutions and drawing your meaningful ideas together.

Thank you for your collaboration, humor, and what you do to make the world a better place.

Cheers,

Where in the World is ConverSketch?

Virtual Global Driving K-12 Innovation Summit: Working with Laura at PumpkinBerry Consulting is always a delight, and collaborating on this Summit was no different. Our job was to bring educators and IT professionals together across the US and world to hold space for connection, creative problem-solving, and celebrating the work they do every day.

Sunrise, Florida: I joined the City of Sunrise to digitally graphically facilitate the community’s vision for the future of their city. I visualized what was most important to community members including parks, recreation, good government, safety, and multiple transportation options. After hearing more via surveys, the County Commissioners will add their ideas too!

Colorado State University: As part of a larger retreat for the Climate Adaptation and Management Planning Program, I graphically facilitated a visioning session with the Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands (CEMML). These folks are passionate about our planet and wildly smart – it was a treat to be in the room with them.

No Travel Budget? You Can Still Have Graphic Recording

Are you planning an event that could use graphic recording, but you don’t have a budget for travel? Let’s talk about remote visuals.

I recently had the pleasure of supporting Wayne State University’s Center for Leadership in Environmental Awareness & Research (CLEAR) as they held a symposium on environmental justice for maternal and fetal health in the Detroit area.

Though most participants attended locally, I was able to join remotely to capture visuals in real-time. The team projected my work on large screens around the room in tandem with presenters’ slides so participants could see multiple ways of engaging with the information as it was being shared.

Here are some of my tips for success:

• Good sound is a must. Make sure your people have easy access to microphones so the graphic recorder can hear well.

• What’s your why for having visuals? Answer this question to decide what’s most useful for displaying the graphics. Is it important for participants to see the graphics as they emerge? Or as a reveal at the end? We can work together to design a strategy that best serves your needs.

• Before, during, after: we can work together to make the most of your investment by thinking about how to leverage the visuals to support your goals for the event.

• Practice makes everything better. Schedule a tech test to make sure sound and displays are showing up well so everything goes easy on the day of.

“The first comment about the CLEAR presentation was about how wonderful it was to see your graphic recordings and what a great idea it was to interpret the research in this way.

Thanks again for your excellent drawings that so innovatively communicate the work of CLEAR in such an easily accessible way.”

— Judith Moldenhauer, CLEAR Team

Once again, thank you from my heart and soul for your support, great senses of humor, brilliant minds, collaboration and what you're each doing to make the world a better place.

Cheers,

Where in the Virtual World is ConverSketch?

Though I’m still very much easing into working as a new parent, I’ve been loving the projects I’ve gotten to support this spring:

Wayne State University: Here is one of the graphics I created for the CLEAR symposium mentioned above. I loved learning about the community-centered and interdisciplinary approaches this group is taking around maternal and fetal health!

Learner Voice Symposium: Partnering with the Attainment Network is always a treat because they center learner voices and walk the talk of including youth and non-traditional learners in conversations that matter!

WildfireSAFE App Video Series: I’m delighted to finally get to share the WildfireSAFE app videos with the world! Matt Jolly and his team at USFS have developed an incredibly sophisticated and simple-to-use app that helps fire responders and residents understand fire danger in very specific locations and times. This app can help save lives – if you live in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI), please check it out!

Tech Leadership: Supporting a leadership team as they navigate big shifts in the organization. I was impressed by the vulnerability and authenticity with which folks showed up in a completely remote environment!

Watershed Perspectives

September brought fascinating work with clients across the country and across sectors, but one theme kept emerging organically. This is one of my favorite things about being a graphic facilitator – we get to listen, learn and make connections.

This month I keep hearing a similar idea from a team working on resilient coasts and watersheds, to social and ecological scientists working in mountain systems around the world, to community-led conservation practitioners:  

The same small perspective just doesn’t cut it. To really solve problems for our environment and people, we need to look at challenges from a larger perspective, like a watershed. If we’re only looking to solve problems for one community or piece of the ecosystem, there are bound to be repercussions or solutions that don’t last. Looking for system connections

Is there a way for you to take a “watershed” approach to a problem or challenge to look for a solution in a place you may not have thought of?

Once again, thank you from my heart and soul for your support, great senses of humor, brilliant minds, collaboration and what you're each doing to make the world a better place.

Cheers,

Where in the World is ConverSketch?

Seattle, WA: Facilitating with the Wilderness Society’s Community-Led Conservation team as they explore what it would take to create a supportive, inclusive, and effective community of practice.

Basalt, CO: With mountain researchers from around the world exploring the potential of creating a new alliance to elevate indigenous and mountain community voices for better climate policy.

Denver, CO: With the Attainment Network learning and sharing about different career pathways to support students who may not choose to or think they can attend university.

Virginia Beach, VA: With the Environmental Defense Fund kicking off a series of systems thinking workshops for the Resilient Coasts and Watersheds team – the rest of the workshops are virtual throughout the fall.

How to Co-Create a High Engagement Virtual Event: Best Practices from the ShapingEDU Community

Every time I get to work with the ShapingEDU community, I’m blown away by the creativity and passion of the team at ASU to positively “shape the future of learning in the digital age” as they say. 

Even in a world of remote meetings, ShapingEDU walks the talk to convene for meaningful work driven by the community, which means it’s then carried on afterward? 

So, what best practices can be transferred to YOUR organization? 

For highly engaged virtual or in-person events, let participants guide content. This was done through crowd-sourcing then voting on nine wicked problems facing education in the weeks leading up to the Unconference. 

Minimize talking at, maximize talking with. Most of the three days was spent in working groups focused on the content participants upvoted. There was a framing plenary panel, then off folks went to share their insights and cross-pollinate ideas. 

Provide some structure. These hours-long working groups were guided by community members who volunteered to facilitate them ahead of time, who had knowledge, expertise, and the ability to step back to let the group do the work when it made sense. Each had their own zoom meeting, and participants were encouraged to work together across Slack.

Infuse creativity and play. The opening reception was a ridiculously well-curated Wicked Mystery Party where participants discovered there were self-guided and team-oriented mysteries to solve by talking with characters in different breakouts, exploring clues in different settings online, and working together. Not to mention a graphic recording “ghost” who floated around to capture snippets of the process and offer sometimes helpful hints. 

The base map for the Wicked Mystery Party opening reception. Participants could click on yellow buttons to explore different rooms, looking for clues!

Finally, each day was facilitated with reconvening the groups to share ideas and look for connections, patterns, and insights together. These report outs were graphically recorded in real-time and reflected back to the participants visually and verbally for comprehension, memory boosting, and looking for new ideas together. 

Cheers ShapingEDU – you all are truly remarkable and I’m proud to be part of the community!

Once again, thank you from my heart and soul for your support, great senses of humor, brilliant minds, collaboration and what you're each doing to make the world a better place.

Cheers, 

Where in the Virtual World is ConverSketch?

ASU ShapingEDU Unconference: As you may have read above, the Unconference is a lively event. This year, we created quite a few materials ahead of time, including this explainer video on what Black Swan Events are and why we should care!

Communication and Symbioses Workshop: I’m in the midst of graphic facilitating a two-day workshop for a team of researchers exploring connections between microbial symbioses and signaling and communication.

How to Help Participants Cocreate, Connect, and Inspire at Your Multi-Day Event

The full synthesis map from five days of the virtual GCSE+Drawdown conference.

Once again for the people in the back, you CAN have an interactive and participatory virtual conference with over 3,000 participants from all over the world! 

In early January (let’s talk about how these folks know how to start a new year!), the Global Council for Science and the Environment (GCSE), and Project Drawdown brought together researchers, leaders, and community members to learn, share, and create solutions for people and planet.  

As a visual thought partner for the virtual event, I wanted create ways that graphics could support meaningful work with the huge number of participants and volume of content. There were eight Thematic Pathways with concurrent sessions, and more than 50 simultaneous Collaborative Action Groups which emerged from brainstorming sessions over the course of the week. 

How could we work together to look for patterns and themes across multiple, very full days? 

How could we make sure participants could see their ideas emerging throughout the week? 

And how do this as just one recorder? 

We needed a plan!

The organizing team and I collaborated before and during the conference to develop communication systems, like a designated note-taker in each Pathway with access to a shared Google Doc template for key ideas. I could then distill and illustrate these notes, and combine them with insights from real-time graphics of plenary panels and keynotes (these drawings were included in the final piece as well). 

Communication of key ideas? Check. 

We decided to use Miro as a virtual platform to host the emerging map. Similar to shared Google Docs or Slides, with a shared link we dropped into the chat each day, participants could view the Synthesis from start to finish throughout the week. They could zoom in to see details in graphics I had drawn real-time in plenaries, or zoom out for the overall flow, and could share it with others they thought would be interested.

Participant observation? Check!

The result was a massive Synthesis Illustration mapping how research feeds action for climate solutions, which participants could SEE AS IT GREW throughout the week on the conference website’s gallery, as well as via the link shared frequently in the chat box throughout the conference. 

So, what emerged as key themes for science and solutions for people and planet? Explore for yourself! For me, a theme I’ve hear not only at GCSE+Drawdown, is that for these solutions to work, it comes down to one thing: people working together. 

Once again, thank you from my heart and soul for your support, great senses of humor, brilliant minds, collaboration and what you're each doing to make the world a better place.

Cheers, 

Where in the Virtual World is ConverSketch?

Adobe Creative Campus Collaboration: Learning from creative educators and students how to nurture the “magician” in each potentially creative student. 

Filming a New Drawing Connections Video: Did you know that mosquitos are not native to Hawai’i? In the newest video with the NPS, I can’t wait to take you through a journey of endangered birds, avian malaria, and climate change. 

Natural Areas Strategic Vision: I’m delighted to finally be able to share this studio illustration created last year in partnership with the City of Greeley’s Natural Areas program, showing the history of the land, input from the community, and vision for the future.

Windows to the Future of Learning, or, “I Had S’More Fun at Camp with You!”

Did you ever go to summer camp? Remember those late nights filled with laughter, quiet early mornings to reflect, tight friendships, and learning about yourself?

This past week I was Camp Art Director at Learning[hu]Man, aka “Summer camp for weird adults”, aka the best virtual non-conference I’ve ever attended.

Once again, Arizona State University’s ShapingEDU community brought together Dreamers, Doers, and Drivers – “a global community of education changemakers – to push the creative envelope for how we serve students and advance learner success”.

As the Camp Art Director, I had the delightful job of listening and digitally graphic recording more than 20 live sessions over the course of the week. Then, from key ideas submitted by presenters, participants, and what I’d illustrated, I created a Synthesis Map summarizing themes and important ideas from across Learning[hu]Man.

Some of the most salient themes that emerged were recognizing the technology are tools that allow for us to be creative, playful, and curate learning environments which welcome the whole person. To build a space like that, educators can leverage the power of storytelling in learning, which helps build connections and community, even in virtual spaces. These connections become networks capable of creating change at scale, which is imperative to get at the root of challenges EdTech has been fighting for years: power, access, and equity.

Here are some snapshots of a few of the sessions I illustrated. To see the full gallery, check out the LearningArtist page. I also have been posting them on Twitter and Instagram.

If you missed Learning[hu]Man last week, don’t worry! All the sessions were recorded and are being shared on the ShapingEDU YouTube channel, and there are plenty of ways to connect - join us on Slack!

And if you want to read more reflections on Learning[hu]Man, I highly recommend checking out the series of “letters home” from Paul Signorelli and this blog post from Tom Haymes, two of ShapingEDU’s Storytellers in Residence.

Once again, thank you from my heart and soul for your support, great senses of humor, brilliant minds, collaboration and what you're each doing to make the world a better place.

Cheers,

Where in the Virtual World is ConverSketch?

Camp LearningHuman: From morning gatherings Around the Flagpole to evenings by the Campfire, LearningHuman was anything but typical, in the best way possible! Did I mention there was a 3D VIRTUAL CAMPUS with a graphic recording gallery!? Check out the VirBELA platform - it blew my mind!

Children with Medical Complexity: Continuing the series of virtual site visits with universities and health campuses across the country, these graphics capture lessons learned, accomplishments, and where teams can focus in the future to support families and children in their health.

USB Implementers Forum: The annual updates got a visual spin this year – from marketing to compliance to the future of USB connections.

Let’s talk about how to level-up your virtual event with visuals and artistic experiences!