design

In-Person, Remote, Hybrid…What to Center No Matter the Method for Meeting

sketched images of ways to design for connection as listed above, black text on white background with teal highlights.

Why do we create? Why do we meet? What drives much of our action as humans? Expressing our ideas and connecting with others in different ways is core to who we are. 

Stating the obvious here, this connection has been shaken up the past two years, and as we begin navigating in-person and hybrid situations professionally or personally, we’re rediscovering how to be with each other in meaningful ways. 

“Whether your team is in-person, remote, or hybrid, one thing is true in any form: Connection doesn't happen on its own. You need to design for it.”  – Priya Parker

As a graphic facilitator, I get to co-design for connection with clients. How do we do this, even…especially in the virtual environment?  A few of the seeds we can cultivate toward connection include:

  • Building in time for participants to share experiences outside of the work goals of the meeting

  • Creating opportunities for small and large group conversations

  • Thoughtful questions that support vulnerability

  • Creating visuals that highlight connections, shared ideas and values, or intentional visual metaphors deepen the opportunities to connect

If you’re curious to read more, here’s a post on why human connection is so important. 

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?

Invasive Species Video: Watch the fresh digitally hand-illustrated video here to learn about the difference between native, non-native, invasive species, and pests from the National Park Service!

Screen shot of digital illustration reading invasive species with illustrations of nutria, bindweed, a pigeon, bull thistle, zebra mussels, and emerald ash borer

In the Studio: I’m working on several projects from graphic facilitation design to more videos to a guide for children to explore our local river. Here’s a snapshot of what River Investigators might observe about their watershed! This booklet will be available this spring for visitors along the Cache La Poudre River.

Screen shot of a page of a children's activity book about river high and low flows, with illustrations of each and a raindrop explaining about flows.

The Other AI

You know when you’re having a conversation with someone you admire, and pretty much every other sentence they say blows your mind?

Last fall I had the joy of getting to sit down with one of those people in my life, Heather Martinez, and something she casually dropped has been bouncing around inside me for months as I figure out how to chew on it and what it means for my graphic facilitation practice.

We were talking about process design for facilitating meaningful conversations, and I was gushing about Design Thinking and how complementary visual thinking is to that process.

Then Heather says something to the effect of “Yeah, but you can’t prototype humanity or emotions. That’s why I love Appreciative Inquiry!”

That brought me up short. I’ve dabbled with Appreciative Inquiry (or AI– not artificial intelligence AI), but with that statement, I immediately felt like it was a tool I needed to learn more about.

And this past week, the amazing and talented Christine Whitney-Sanchez facilitated over 700 IT professionals from across Arizona State University using Appreciative Inquiry and Open Space to build community, understand what’s most important to these people, and where to prioritize resources for the next year.

I think Appreciative Inquiry is a rad tool because it focuses on positivity, storytelling, human connection, discovery, and designing a path toward action. Unlike a lot of process design, it doesn’t assume to know the answers.

Here are the 5 D’s of Appreciative Inquiry, and you can learn more at this link.

appreciative-inquiry-design-conversketch-graphic-facilitation

Interested in applying Appreciative Inquiry to a question in your organization?

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,

karina branson signature





Where in the World is ConverSketch?

Provincetown, Massachusetts: Graphic recording for the second annual Broto Conference on Art and Climate Change where artists of all mediums and walks discussed how art could be used to scale climate action globally for good.

Photo: Michael & Suz Karchmer

Photo: Michael & Suz Karchmer

Las Vegas, Nevada: With a group of engineers discussing the future of tech, trends, and big questions they’re thinking about. I can’t share much, but here’s one small illustration from my digital graphic recordings:

GH_ConverSketch_Graphic Recording_Global Models.jpg

Tempe, Arizona: Back with the amazing Arizona State University Technology Office (UTO) who convened IT professionals from across the University to have conversations about what matters most to them and how the UTO can support a more cohesive IT network across the entire campus. This image was created from responses from an app in real-time during 21 simultaneous sessions!

asu-empower-it-2019-aha-moments-summary-graphic-recording-conversketch

Denver, Colorado: Supporting the work of Future Earth and H3Uni as they guided an esteemed group of individuals discussing the future of sustainability scholarship and how to address systems-level challenges to doing effective transdisciplinary sustainability research.

sustainability-future-earth-conversketch-graphic-recording

Yeah, it was a busy eight days!