Facilitator – Information Designer – Speaker

This past weekend I had the opportunity to speak at the Canadian Association of Journalists' conference "Innovate News" - I had been asked to come and give a topic on Visual Thinking and how it could be used by journalists of all types. I deliberately focused on how visual thinking can be used early on in the process for activities like brainstorming, information gathering & organization and story development. It was a brief session (~30 minutes) so my goal was really to present enough information to get people interested in the idea of visual thinking and give them some ideas for directions where they could dig deeper. The Presentation I've uploaded the deck and included it here below: [slideshare id=3034629&doc=visualthinkingthewritingprocess-upload-100130133108-phpapp01] Dig Deeper with VizThinkU Of course, if you want to dig deeper into some of the techniques mentioned here (and more!), I highly recommend you check out the VizThinkU library - ...

As you may recall, last month I spoke at Ignite Toronto 2. I'm happy to report that the video is finally up and I've embedded it below: (those reading in feedreaders may need to click through to the post to see video) [vimeo clip_id=8317770 height="" width="550"] Unfortunately the move from my PC to the presenting Mac's software garbled a couple of slides, but it's not the end of the world. I would love to hear your thoughts and comments - You can also check out my original post about this evening to see the slide deck in it's non-mutilated form as well as the full deck from my FITC talk, which this ignite was based on. For more videos of the IgniteTO talks check out their Vimeo account. Related posts:My Deck from IgniteTO: Designing for Visual EfficiencySwamped – talk amongst yourselves…Slightly new look….

I know, I know - half of you clicking through just cringed when you read the term "personal brand" - I'm not a fan of the term either, but up until now I've been hard pressed to find a term that summed the concept up better. Also, I'm approaching this thought exercise not from the notion that you can directly control or shape a 'brand' for yourself but rather trying to understand what the underpinnings of the concept are and how  someone can ensure they're putting the right foundation out there for people to build their own impressions, and thus your "brand" on. For the specialists of the world I'm not sure this is as big an issue, but I think a lot of generalists (like me) struggle with it. As I've pondered on my blog in the past here, it's not ...

A few weeks ago I got introduced to the Global Campaign for Climate Action (GCCA), an organization which had been assembled to help achieve a ambitious, fair, and binding agreement in December at the UNFCC Climate Conference in Copenhagen. As they enter the final run-up to the event over the next few months they were looking to spruce up their presentation deck in advance of their official launch - the only catch? it had to be done in roughly 48 hours. Before: The Process Up for the challenge, I got started. Over the next 48 hours I helped them entirely reflow the presentation to create a story that built up a case for action and showed how the GCCA would play a pivotal role in coming away from Copenhagen with a deal that was best for the planet, and all its stakeholders. ...

A quick post to update you on the Translation World session, "The Integrated Lifecycle: Creating a Foundation for Envisioning and Planning an Integrated Translation Lifecycle" that I facilitated last month - A summary of the session, as well as the visual outputs, including a high-rez PDF, are now available on my site, here. Overall I think the session went really, really well - we had a perfect mix of attendees (we had three of the four major stakeholders represented) and all had mixed levels of experience with integrated systems. I'm really happy with the final visual as well - I think we captured the important points and I know the attendees themselves gained a much deeper understanding of the process and discovered areas where integrating systems might prove valuable. Be sure to check out the full rundown of the session (including ...