The Center for Graphic Facilitation

Katrina: Micro and Macro Views

From Bo Maupin:

I got a call this morning from my friend Jason, who lives in the DC area. His sisters family left Slidell and traveled to Nashville to get out of the way of Katrina. She’s a web designer and started a blog about the experience. Evidently they did a desk story about it on CNN this afternoon. The link to her site is:http://katrinarefugee.blogspot.com/

The link to the NASA before and after images is: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3
(although, I think I started something – you can’t load their site right now.)

For informational graphics you can’t beat USA Today’s custom map of the hurricane. From an informational standpoint, it’s just absolutely one of the best designed things I’ve seen. It obviously didn’t suffer the ill effects of “testing”

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/graphics/hurricane/hurricane2005/flash.htm

Just thought I would share. Here’s hoping the folks down south can get things back together as soon as possible.

The BIG Draw!

HOW excited am I about this?! The Big Draw is a big, month-long event encouraging everyone to get out there and draw.

This is the sixth year and the aim is simple - to get everyone drawing.

Personally, I need to learn more about John Ruskin, who inspired this event and believed drawing is the basis of visual thought. Sadly, drawing is a discipline that most folks are told they can't do, so they stop. But the importance of drawing is clear, "Drawing can develop skills of perception, communication and invention transferable to any subject and helpful in a variety of educational settings."

Make sure to click through links on their site, because there are many, many great events and quotes. It'll make you want to get away from computer and pick up a drawing instrument!

(Anyone know if there are any sister event on my side of the pond (Chicago)?)

Graphic Coaching

This comes to us from coach, mapmaker, master hypnotist, and graphic facilitator, Christina Merkley, based in British Columbia, Canada. See www.makemark.com for information, articles and the informative SHIFT-IT E-zine about Graphic Coaching.

Did you know that researchers estimate that upwards of 72% of the North American population are visual learners and thinkers?  This means that the vast majority of our coaching clients think and learn better when visuals are used.  However the standard mode of coaching - over the phone - is an auditory medium that naturally benefits only 12-18% of the population!

For the last six years, I’ve been experimenting with using visuals or graphics with my coaching clients.  I work both face-to-face (using large sheets of poster paper to graphically ‘record’ my client’s thoughts, ideas and experiences) and also over the phone (using pre-prepared visual templates either assigned as homework between calls or filled out live while on the call). 

Doc Serls says "It's the Story, Stupid!"

The crowd shuffles to their seats, the lights dim, a brief echo of feedback, and the speaker begins. The death ray projector beams, fluffy motes drift in the shaft of light, a cascade of bullets tumble, a throat clears, another PowerPoint presentation has begun.

These moments are when humans gather together in dark sancutuaries to listen to a story in hopes of transformation. Hope is the last thing to die!

OK. We trash them, we suffer through them, but how do we begin to create a good presentation?

Thanks to Visual Being, I've learned of a whole community of people who are wrestling with the physical gear and psychological prowess involved in making presentations engaging and relevant.

Thanks to a recent post by Lee Potts, I learned of sage advice from "back in the day" before the Tech Bubble went bust. Part software history lesson, part self-help manual for the presentationally-challenged, it's from Doc Serls and it's great:

IT'S THE STORY, STUPID: DON'T LET PRESENTATION SOFTWARE KEEP YOU FROM GETTING YOUR STORY ACROSS

 

Person-Centered Planning

From the director of The Center of Creative Play, I heard of a technique being used to enable persons with disabilities to plan their own life strategies.

Mara is the mother of a special-needs child, and her experience lead her to create and direct the CfCP. The facility was built according to Universal Design Principles to accomodate the diverse physical and emotional needs of all the patrons: children, parents, autistic children and adults, and those with accute physical challenges.

Person-Centered Planning is aptly described by Tom W. of Colorado Springs.

Tom is the third generation in his family with the same genetic disability, however he has completed three college level degrees, despite his disability. His blog, Living Our Ability addresses many issues in society and the media reguarding living fully, even with unique challenges.

Videoblogging Software

As the long tail of podcasting grows shorter and shorter, the medium is being swiftly integrated into the big bucket of new media.

Along with email, websites, and now blogs, streaming audio and video are swiftly becoming yet another form of broadcast media. Normal folks with a hankering to broadcast their thoughts can now afford the technology and master the skills to be broadcasters, especially now that iTunes has incorporated podcasting into the iTunes store.

New on the scene is one of the simpliest and cheapest solutions out there: Videocue from Vara Software.

At only $39.99 for the streamlined version and $89.99 for the professional version, the software has some swank features including the ability to have an on-screen teleprompter, green screen, podcasting, videoblogging that syncs up with most of the popular services, Quicktime support, multiple camera support, and on and on.