The Center for Graphic Facilitation

Roadstrips

In researching a recent job––creating a graphic novel for Swiss bankers(!?)––I visited the local brainy comic guy near Carnegie Mellon University.

He turned me on to the collection of American artists, who illustrated their childhood memories and adult-oriented antecdotes, illuminate the great American roadtrip, titled Roadstrips.

The essayists and artists comprise a veritable Who's Who of American comics and an excellent primer on delievering powerful and whimsical visual narratives through storyboards.

Together, the stories reveal the bizarre geographies and snarled personal self images for every flavor of American: a Mexican-American punk rocker; an African-American working in an international youth hostel; a Phillipino-American kid fretting over nuclear war; a liberal Jew raising a family in Chicago; or a whitebread redneck turned yuppie who is torn between Seattle and New York.

On Tech Nation, Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with professional cartoonists Pete Friedrich, Keith Knight and Lloyd Dangle on the technology and techniques involved to create "Roadstrips...A Graphic Journey Across America." [hear podcast]

The Faces of Innovation

In more and more innovation sessions, I've seen the project kick-off meeting begin with the Nightline coverage of IDEO. This inside glimpse of a real product design session, shows us IDEO's motley crew of designers, anthropolists, accountants, programmers and poet reinvent the design of the shopping cart.

IDEO director Tom Kelly discusses the make-up of just such an innovation team in his newest book, The Ten Faces of Innovation : IDEO's Strategies for Defeating the Devil's Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization.

In three personality types--clustered as Learning, Organizing and Building Personas--Tom delineates the roles and modes of thinking going on behind each "face".

The aptly named roles (anthropologist, hurdler, caretaker, cross-pollinator, etc.) are certain to make any CFO and MBA squirm until they are reminded that the mission is to accelerate game-changing products, services and strategies.

Beyond Bullet Points

At Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools, there is a great review of Cliff Atkinson's book, Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft PowerPoint to Create Presentations that Inform, Motivate, and Inspire.

Check out the more at Beyond Bullets Blog .

It is especially noteworthy in that the review is by noteworthy public speaker and acclaimed author, Howard Rheingold, who's 2002 book Smart Mobs has influenced the evolution of business and technology.

Office Speak

So, I am no polyglot. In Spanish, I can only ask for directions to the bathroom, and "Where is my donkey?"  (¿dónde mi burro?).

My high school German enabled me to hitchhike and make friends across united Germany. My vocabulary in conversational Polish was honed by late nights in underground bars-- making for an animated oral defense of my master's thesis at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow.

I can interview my elders for tips on insurance, the pros and cons of a second mortgage and martial advice. I've hung out with young slavic orphans, East Tennessee hillbillies, sports fans and budding hip hop artists. And for the most part, except for golf fanatics, I've pretty much understood most of what my new friends have said.

However, there is one language in which I was sorely unprepared to make friends and influence people: Officespeak.

The World is Flat

Since I'm always using my hands, I don't put down my work to pick up newspaper or a magazine. And network news makes me crazy. Therefore, 90% of my news gets to me through NPR and The Charlie Rose Show.

Last night, Tom Friedman was on Charlie Rose. I'll always stop to watch him. Why? Because he's a Great Explainer. Always happy to listen to a clear speaker and well organized thinker. Friedman was talking about his new book The World is Flat.

Graphic Facilitation, Children's Books, and Practice

[from Alicia Diane Durand's blog, This Little Fish]

Today was a very fun day with my one-year old daughter at Barnes & Nobles. She and I spent an hour playing in the children’s section of the store. I was looking through the books while she played beside me. At one point, I stopped and laughed as I watched her take turns hugging her friends, Olivia, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and Curious George.

RIGHT: Pages from Diane's journal during a trip to Tanzania in 1999

I am very familiar with the children’s books characters these days not only because I am a mom, but also because I am a graphic facilitator. As a mom, I read to my daughter all the time and as a Graphic Facilitator I draw in my journals almost daily. My journals are filled with thoughts, mind maps, models and sketches. The sketches are of things I see… a pattern on a carpet, art on a label, a character in a book or the details of a mantel.

Scientific American's Quarterly on the Mind

Walking through Boston Logan airport--my mind numbed by TSA's gentle touch, beeping people movers, businessfolk yakking on cellphones and the glare of a thousand florescent suns--I spotted an intriguing magazine hidden amoungst the alternating covers of John Paul II and various and sundry midrifts.

Scientific American has put out a quarterly magazine addressing the brain, consciousness, learning, creativity, neuroscience and the nature of the mind, titled, simply enough, Mind.

On Visual Management

Stewart Liff has improved the performance of his own federal workplace, and worked with a number of other federal offices to support their performance improvement efforts. Namely, he has brought his experience as a sculptor and fine artist to his work with vetrans, private companies and the US government.

This book address the need for--and the challenges of--converting employers, employees, unions and other stakeholders to embrace the value of visual learning in the workplace.

Graphic Guru: Edward Tufte

Whenever I spot one of Tufte's elegant publications on someone's shelf, I exclaim: "Hey! You know Tufte!?"

This usually serves as the springboard for a conversation about truth, beauty and the evils of PowerPoint.

Edward Tufte is the closest thing that the charts-n-graphs crowd has to a rock star. And, just as Irish rocker Bono has raised public awareness for the desperate need to relieve Third World debt, Tufte has elevated public appreciation for the desperate need to save us from bad graphics.

Learning to Draw? Start Simple.

People often ask us: "How did you learn to draw so dang good!?!"

We usually reply: "Doodling our lives away!"

If you need some help with how to get started, here are some of our favorite books by Joy Sikorski, Mark Kistler and Ed Begley. (Great for adults and kids!)

Read the rest of this post for links.