Renaissance Souls meet to sharpen Sketchnotes skills and practice the pictograph path

Once in a while, a meeting occurs that leaves me grateful for the truly thoughtful, innovative, and resourceful people I have in my network. Yesterday I had one of those meetings. Because I took a few photos (see below), you can briefly come in the room (actually the music studio of Colorado Jazz Workshop) with us.

The purpose of our meeting was to practice a form of visual communication called Sketchnotes. (Click to read about the guidebook to this process of visual notetaking and to read a book excerpt.) The practicing did occur (see photo of an example above drawn by Susanne Hoogwater; click on it to see a larger version) but just as valuable was our free-wheeling conversation (freewheeling is what you'd expect from a group of Renaissance Souls). We considered the roles of cognitive development as well as of innate aptitudes in discussing the kinds of visual communication that would be most helpful to different people; visual communication generally and Sketchnotes specifically are not one-size-fits-all.

Among many other engaging topics, we talked about how templates* or patterns could drive the processes of information gathering, organizing, planning, and communication, and some pros and cons of those effects.

The get-together was very beneficial: A valuable way to learn, a prime way to provoke thinking. We will be gathering again for more mental drilling (and frolicking) and continued pictograph path practicing.

And here are the photos I promised (click on them for larger versions).

Susanne Hoogwater, Nikki Carpenter, Trina Hoefling

Susanne Hoogwater, Nikki Carpenter, Trina Hoefling

Susanne Hoogwater

Susanne Hoogwater

Web sites of those participating: Nikki Carpenter, Trina Hoefling, Susanne Hoogwater.

*A couple of the points we looked at can be found here:

Templates or Models
+ Framework to work within
+ Shared language
+ Can revisit
- Poor matching of template/model to issue is problematic
- Fill-in-the-box mentality can lead to less complex thinking

Note (added April 7, 2013): My Inspired Conspiracy™ poster for you is below. Conspire has been one of my favorite words since I first learned its derivation in law school: Breathing together is so potent that it alone can be a crime. "Wonderful! There's a bit of poetry in law school," I thought.

Comments

[Nancy White]

Yay, I love reading this. And small world, I know TWO of you!

[StephanieWestAllen]

I am glad you like the reading, Nancy. We mentioned you at this get-together.