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VizThink in Review

leelefever — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:37:01 -0500

Text and bullet points - they are dead, or at least used inappropriately. That was one of the overwhelming messages from VizThink, a two day conference on Visual Thinking. We agree.

This was the first (of hopefully many) conferences on visual thinking put on by VizThink, the brainchild of Dave Gray of Xplane. It brought together people from around the world who focus in communicating with pictures. More info on the wiki.

For example, on the first morning we sat down with three pediatric ER doctors from Loma Linda University. They often talk to parents in the ER about pediatric medical problems and a brochure doesn't work. They see visual thinking as a way to communicate complex problems in the emergency room situation. Indeed, there are near-infinite applications for visual thinking.

I wish I could mention everyone we met, but here are a few.

We had dinner with Ole Qvist- Sorensen of Bigger Picture who was there from Copenhagen, Denmark - I have a feeling we'll be hanging out with Ole before long - a great guy with lots of ideas.

Ryan Coleman of Clay Tablet Technologies turned out to be a friend of our good friend Will Pate. Ryan has started local Visual Thinking BarCamps around Toronto.

Cliff Atkinson of BBP (Beyond Bullet Points) came to our session and stuck around afterward for a chat. We really connected with Cliff - he loves being small and independent and we share a lot of the same ideas.

Speaking of our session, we had a great time and I hope the attendees did too. It was called "Solving Explanation Problems with Simple Online Videos" The session was mostly group activity where we asked teams to produce storyboards.

It warmed our hearts to hear the whole group yelling "yaay!" and
"boooo!" (appropriately) when the teams presented their storyboards. As Sachi said - it was like they were singing a song we wrote. :)

One thing I found interesting was that we didn't meet anyone else doing video. It was like the visual thinking world and the video world had not previously intersected. I hope that we inspired some of the attendees to take another look at video.

We owe a big thanks to Tom, Chris, Denise and the VizThink folks for inviting us to participate and pulling off a great conference. We'll be back!

VizThink in Review

leelefever — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:37:01 -0500

Text and bullet points - they are dead, or at least used inappropriately. That was one of the overwhelming messages from VizThink, a two day conference on Visual Thinking. We agree.

It warmed our hearts to hear the whole group yelling "yaay!" and
"boooo!" (appropriately) when the teams presented their storyboards. As Sachi said - it was like they were singing a song we wrote. :)

VizThink in Review

leelefever — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:37:01 -0500

Text and bullet points - they are dead, or at least used inappropriately. That was one of the overwhelming messages from VizThink, a two day conference on Visual Thinking. We agree.

It warmed our hearts to hear the whole group yelling "yaay!" and
"boooo!" (appropriately) when the teams presented their storyboards. As Sachi said - it was like they were singing a song we wrote. :)

VizThink in Review

leelefever — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:37:01 -0500

Text and bullet points - they are dead, or at least used inappropriately. That was one of the overwhelming messages from VizThink, a two day conference on Visual Thinking. We agree.

It warmed our hearts to hear the whole group yelling "yaay!" and
"boooo!" (appropriately) when the teams presented their storyboards. As Sachi said - it was like they were singing a song we wrote. :)

VizThink in Review

leelefever — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:37:01 -0500

Text and bullet points - they are dead, or at least used inappropriately. That was one of the overwhelming messages from VizThink, a two day conference on Visual Thinking. We agree.

It warmed our hearts to hear the whole group yelling "yaay!" and
"boooo!" (appropriately) when the teams presented their storyboards. As Sachi said - it was like they were singing a song we wrote. :)

VizThink in Review

leelefever — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:37:01 -0500

Text and bullet points - they are dead, or at least used inappropriately. That was one of the overwhelming messages from VizThink, a two day conference on Visual Thinking. We agree.

It warmed our hearts to hear the whole group yelling "yaay!" and
"boooo!" (appropriately) when the teams presented their storyboards. As Sachi said - it was like they were singing a song we wrote. :)

VizThink in Review

leelefever — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:37:01 -0500

Text and bullet points - they are dead, or at least used inappropriately. That was one of the overwhelming messages from VizThink, a two day conference on Visual Thinking. We agree.

It warmed our hearts to hear the whole group yelling "yaay!" and
"boooo!" (appropriately) when the teams presented their storyboards. As Sachi said - it was like they were singing a song we wrote. :)

VizThink in Review

leelefever — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:37:01 -0500

Text and bullet points - they are dead, or at least used inappropriately. That was one of the overwhelming messages from VizThink, a two day conference on Visual Thinking. We agree.

It warmed our hearts to hear the whole group yelling "yaay!" and
"boooo!" (appropriately) when the teams presented their storyboards. As Sachi said - it was like they were singing a song we wrote. :)

VizThink Conference - Jan. 27-29, San Francisco

leelefever — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:41:00 -0400

VizThink is a conference about visual thinking. We'll be there leading a yet-to-named session that will focus on our story and the role of video and simplicity in communicating ideas with clarity.

Since we started making videos, I had been meaning to talk to Dave Gray, the chairman of Xplane, author of the Communication Nation blog and the person who got VizThink off the ground.

We had a great chat recently and I learned more about VizThink, which is not just a conference, but a community for people who are interested in visual thinking. Dave and Xplane have been working with visuals to communicate more clearly for over 15 years.

Tom Crawford is the CEO of VizThink and is putting together what will be an awesome event. I'm excited to meet people like Scott McCloud of Understand Comics, Kevin Cheng of OK/Cancel and Nancy Duarte who worked with Al Gore on the presentation used in An Inconvenient Truth.

I hope we'll see you there.

New Friends from Bar Camp Vancouver 2007

leelefever — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 20:20:01 -0400

Pink shirts - that may be the one thing that will stick out years from now - the pink, er, fuchsia, shirts of BarCamp Vancouver 2007. This is not to say that the content and people weren't amazing - they were. But the shirts were unforgettable.

This was my first actual Bar Camp, but I've become accustomed to the unconference format and really dig it. It gives everyone an equal chance to be involved in a low-key, highly diverse, fun environment with interesting people. It's no surprise that there are so many "camps" these days - the format works.

Sometimes is feels like Vancouver is our second home - we have a lot of friends there that we see often. It's easy to have a good time around the Vancouver Tech Mafia. I talk about those folks enough - what I really want to say is how much I enjoyed meeting new folks.

It was a pleasure to be a part of a panel discussion run by Jordan Behan on Marketing and Social Media. The co-panelists were Monique Trottier, Linda Bustos, Tanya Davis and Geoffrey Gachallan. Lots of interesting questions.

One of my favorite experiences of the day was a session on DIY ads and AdHack, a business from James Sherritt of Work Industries. We divided the room into three groups who each had 30 minutes to produce an ad for a local pizza place called "fatih's pizza" - pronounced "fatty's pizza". Of course, with such a name, the ideas wandered into less-appropriate territory. The three videos are on YouTube here, here and here <-- ours. So fun.

I also enjoyed a session with Todd Sieling of Ma.gnolia, who talked about how he is using their Ma.gnolia Twitter Account as a way to work with their fans and customers. His advice was solid and focused on how twittering for business is different - you should be responsible and twitter with meaning and relevance.

My own session ended up being called "Fighting Complexity with Video" and I was happy with the results. Lots of great questions and interest. Monique has a nice write up here.

The conch played a huge role in keeping us organized and Dave "uncle weed" Olsen was a pro, but risked the health of his sinuses with each blow.

I'm sure to miss some folks, but I wanted to give a shout out to some people that I enjoyed meeting for the first time. I've known about Tod Maffin for a long time, but never got a chance to interact - great guy. Simon Koldyk of Scribblewiki and I have talked in email, so it was great to put a name to a face. It was a pleasure to hang out with Derek Miller after seeing his head 30 feet tall at Gnomedex. I'd seen John Ounpuu before, but I never realized he had acting chops (from our Fatih's Pizza ad). I'm not sure but I think Scott Laird from Google was the only other Seattleite there. Matthew Trentacoste showed us his amazing video screens at the lab at UBC at Northern Voice, but this time we got a chance to hang out. John Biehler was someone who got the crowd of Canadians revved up about hacking the iPhone (Canadians can't use iPhones). It was great to get to Wordpress and Automattic low-down from Lloyd Budd. James Andres and Dave Gratton of Donat Group and Project Opus hosted an afterparty (maybe preparty?) with Lyal Avery and the Outcome 3 folks (yay1 more pizza!!) in their loft offices. Phillip Jeffrey got everyone on the same page about Facebook and came out with us for post-event Chinese. Those Canadians really are nice folks.

And of course, a big ole thanks to the organizers, who pulled off a wonderful event - I'm coming again next year.

Kris Krug Roland Tanglao Robert Scales Zak Greant James Sherrett Ianiv Schweber Megan Cole Jordan Behan Aaron Gladders

To this list I would also add Bill from Workspace, which was a great host for a perfect venue (window view below) for the event and to Travis Smith for hosting a homeless American for a night (I have my fingers crossed).

But the pink shirts - that's what I'll remember most. ;)