Exploring what we’ll take into the world

Exploring Possibilities

Agenda, Day 3

8:30 EuViz-Tracks (Part Two): Exploring possibilities in the Field of …

11:00 Exploring Possibilities Together: Discovering new ideas and potential collaborations. An Open Space with Holger Scholz & Roswitha Vesper and inspiration from the Tracks (PLENARY)
12:15 – 1:15 Open Space: Session 1
1:15pm Open Space Lunch
1:45 – 2:45 Open Space: Session 2
3:00    Connecting the Dots of the Day: Open Space Harvesting (PLENARY)
3:45    Reviewing the Journey: Synthesis & Closing with Brandy Agerbeck (PLENARY)
4:45    Thanks You!  EuViz 2014 concludes (PLENARY)

2014-07-25 EuViz Conference Berlin 1 rSandraDirks

It’s hard to believe it’s our last day together — so much has happened! We’ve made new friends, admired our colleagues unique styles and great insights, been challenged on all levels, enjoyed the sights and sounds of Berlin and felt at home in the bright pink of the nhow Hotel. We’d also had the opportunity to let the inquiry we started in our Tracks on Day 1 percolate — time to dive in again! Behind the scenes many of the Track leaders had been working hard to incorporate the input they’d received from their participants and some totally changed their plans! The energy was buzzing from every room.

At 11:00 we reconvened together. It was time for news and to sing Happy Birthday to a few of our participants. And, we had the invitation to the IFVP conference in 2015 given by Jenny Trautman — yeehah! We’re going to Austin, Texas!!!

Hearing back from the Tracks

Then we heard back from our Track Hosts with a recap of what had happened in their second session.

Track 1: MENTAL MODELS for ADVANCED VISUAL FACILITATION

On the third day, we had a mix of returning people and new participants, so we distributed the returning anthropologists among the tables to get a good mix. We gave the group a few minutes for the old hands to explain the framework of the seven types of mental models to the new folks, and then we asked them to share the metaphors they had heard during the conference. Each table picked one metaphor, explored it, and drew it on a section of a huge page at the front of the room, so that we ended up with a mural that illustrated ten or eleven different metaphors that people heard during the conference. We also talked about using metaphors as a visual practitioner to ‘contract’ for your role — to work with a client using a metaphor familiar to them that helps to clarify what you would be doing as the visual practitioner. Then we explored cultural factors that come into play when accessing mental models and metaphors, and talked about how to observe and work with cultural differences around perception of metaphors.

Mental models are a little like memes or viral ideas in that it’s easy to pick them up and pass them along, and the seven types that we talked about allow for a lot of diversity. The self-expanding/plant metaphor, for example, allows us to look at parts connecting, moving, reproducing in groups. Animals (self-moving) allow us to think about flocking, swarming and moving together. We identified four questions to ask about mental models:

1. Are you holding your mental model as a blueprint or a lens? We explored the differences and asked participants to be aware of whether their models were a map to follow, or a filter to look through, and how each might lead to different conclusions.

2. How do you use mental models for storytelling? All storytelling needs a setting/frame/window through which the story is a journey. Is your model a frame or a journey?

3. Is the model a figure of speech or embedded (playing with words or a life experience)? How can you tell the difference, and what does it mean for your practice? Is it culturally connected? What are the implications of cultural understanding when using of mental models and metaphors?

4. Are you using the model to answer the question of ‘right or wrong,’ or to answer the question ‘what next?’ Be aware of how you are using it, and the possibilities it creates or blocks off.

My insights/challenges/hopes:

I learned a lot working with David and Meryem on this track. They both have such rich experience in this area and it was a real pleasure and privilege to partner with them. I know that I will be more aware of hearing and using models and metaphors in my work, and my hope is that those who attended the session walked away with a heightened awareness of how our internal models, different as they often are, can affect our understanding and perception of what we are hearing and seeing.

Rachel

 

Here’s what I learned from our second session: They loved drawing on the wall the metaphor chosen by their table. Besides the energy the exercise brought to the group, by comparing the different images and frame of references, the participants could see the wide variety of metaphors present in the room and how each group would attach very specific meaning to their images. Listening to and respecting what people mean when they talk about an image they have in mind are essential skills here.

PS : Many participants asked for book references about Clean Language, here they are :

  • Metaphors in Mind, by James Lawley and Penny Tomkins, Crown House, (2000)
  • Mining Your Client’s Metaphors, by Gina Campbell, Balboa Press, Vol 1 (2012), Vol 2 (2013)

Meryam Le Saget

Track 2: BUSINESS, COLLABORATION & LEADERSHIP

During the track we gained a new appreciation of how to see the world. We need to stop saying what we’re doing and reach out to the client as a starting point. We need role models for collaboration/contribution so we can really work well together and embrace the unknown through visuals and facilitation. This needs faith and trust. We also need a global, visual catalogue to help us work well between cultures. Aspects from all the other tracks came together here.

 Track 3: EDUCATION, LEARNING & TRAINING

Track 4: VISUAL METHODOLOGIES

In session 2 we took “mapping“ literally: while interviewing our partners, we sketched a map showing the different aspects of their jobs and and the meaning of visualistion within. We were enabled to do so by the inspiration of Frank Kaspar, a journalist and passionate walker who spoke about historical maps and the shift of meanings and signs in maps over the last few centuries. On the other hand, the Kommunikationslotsen offered an easy, ready-made repertoire of pictures, symbols and signs that can be used to design a map without a lot of preparation.

A lot of wonderful maps emerged – and a lot of interesting questions emerged as well:

  • Do maps only show static situations or can they show processes and experiences as well?
  • Does it make sense to mix traditional map material with metaphors drawn from other sources?
  • And once having finished a map – how can you use them for your work?

As a follow-up to our workshop, our participants keep sending us examples of their working with maps and hints for further reading. Thanks for that and thanks for the inspiring cooperation.

Track 5: APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY & POSITIVE VISUALIZATION

Two participants spoke about the track: We learned to listen and to ask for stories and we used the focus of View – Think – Do – Go. We learned to ask questions that make people think and then be silent.

These were the qualities practiced: Freedom, trust, challenge, creativity.

Open Space

With the framing of our inquiry as a basis, Holger Scholtz and Roswitha Vesper welcomed us into Open Space. It was time for anyone and everyone to propose the topics they most wanted to work on, bringing their passion and responsibility to the fore and being prepared to be surprised. We didn’t need much encouragement to leap into the circle and post our topics, and there was every possible theme to choose from, including a session that took place at the Berlin wall and invited people passing to make their contributions about freedom. Here’s a whole list of the topics we discussed into the afternoon:

  • Find the steps to go move toward Graphic Facilitation (moving from graphic recording to graphic facilitation
  • Technology
  • Visual improvisation — some playful experiments
  • One good thing visuals do for people
  • How to bring visual thinking to students – in & out of school
  • Let’s talk about playing with different materials and tools
  • Maps (continuing Track 4)
  • What practices as a global learning community do we need to engage to help create our new story of the future?
  • What do you want from an elder?
  • Visual practices & group dynamics
  • Visuals
  • Let’s make a Berlin/historical/wall/drawing
  • Singalong
  • Resonance
  • Best Practices to take our work to the next level (ToP Consensus Method)
  • Push the boundaries
  • Prototypes alive
  • How to use visualisation as teacher/student
  • How to start your VizBiz (learn from you, find peers, share/not compete)
  • How to build a visual consulting company?

We closed this part of the conference with a Four Directions Feedback Round. In the West, we heard from four people about the Physical aspects of tools, nourishment, the body. People spoke of the tools they had discovered and how they felt refreshed after the Open Space, even though they’d felt over-full and overwhelmed coming in. The North was about leadership and wisdom, the rational and mental realms. Again four people spoke and one said she’d decided to put her mind on hold and join the singing session. And then the singing happened for the whole group! Amazing what words you can put to Frere Jacques! In the East we had voices speaking for the spiritual, for enlightenment and illumination. Someone said there was such a sense of presence during and after the elders’ contribution, especially when David spoke of the work ringing in him like a bell — there was silence as we let our dominant senses relax. “It moves me when I’m really touched — what are the other ways we can listen? What are the other intelligences trying to share with us?” Another person noticed how they felt the deepest connections with people they’d had very little interaction with. And the last person talked about igniting the right mixture.

Finally in the South, we heard about the emotional aspects, about trust and innocence. “At first I didn’t know how to take all the rest of you, but now I feel so much trust that I can throw anything at you!”, someone said. Someone else said they’d learned something during the elders conversation, the power of first formulating then holding questions consciously and felt there was an invitation from the elders to express that, so we all can grow. And the last person to speak was amazed at how “I can be fed from these conferences, still grow what I want to produce in the world. This is the first time I’ve felt others have also wanted to be in the same discussion. ‘Drink as you pour’ is a teaching I know is a model of collaborative, positive community.”

Final session: Synthesis

Brandy Agerbek took the floor to give us a perspective of visualising practice. She began at the beginning, by reminding us that information and text are linear and that the visual and spatial give us new perspective and understanding. We all use imagery to talk, make, see, shape, engage and learn. We use images to help move confusion and isolation into clarity, connection, shared understanding, co-creation and collaboration. We use it to move from one dimensional to multi-dimensional.

Facilitators need to use visual tools and we need to remember that the word drawing is both a noun and a verb. It is about process over product. Drawing is a tool to get to the next step.

Her call to action is to GROW. Serve, share (and cite other’s work when you do!) and support (watch what you reward). And she suggested a lab format for taking action — first question (create a hypothesis), then text (experiment! Give it a go!). Next observe (what happened?) and finally share — and find some new questions to work on together.

Reviewing the Journey: Synthesis & Closing Brandy Agerbeck by Roberta Faulhaber

Closing

We closed the conference with THANK YOUs to all those who had created and supported this amazing event and with the final moving thanks from Guido and Holger. Well done, everyone — this has been a conference unlike any other and an opportunity to create community, stretch our practice, see and be seen and glimpse the future for our practice. THANK YOU BERLIN! Mary Alice closed with this poem (and the universe responded with a giant thunderclap to accompany the first two lines):

We never know how high we are
Till we are called to rise;
And then, if we are true to plan,
Our statures touch the skies —

The Heroism we recite
Would be a daily thing,
Did not ourselves the Cubits warp
For fear to be a King —

— Emily Dickenson, American poet

It was amazing to be around the fire of learning and sharing together.  And here’s a little reminder of our final campfire song.

SEE YOU IN AUSTIN NEXT YEAR!

BRAVE

During EuViz 2014 we used the song BRAVE from Sara Bareilles to remind everyone to keep engaging their courage, stretching their boundaries and creating community.  Here it is to keep you motivated at home, on the road, or whenever you need reminded that you and your work matters: