Upcoming events

Geneva workshop, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane.

I'll be participating in a number of events in the coming months. Here's an update on some of the events where I'll be speaking or delivering workshops.

• Visual and Iconic Languages (VaIL) conference — Jul 21 - Jul 22, 2008
  At the VaIL conference I'll be speaking about visual language. If you can make it to San Diego, there's no charge to attend the conference.
• Visual thinking workshop — Jul 25, - Jul 25, 2008
  On July 25th I'll be delivering a full, one-day workshop in Toronto. In the workshop you'll learn how to visualize your ideas so you can think and communicate with greater clarity and effectiveness. Working individually and in small teams, you will learn and practice visualization techniques that have been successfully used to improve innovation and accelerate change at some of the world's leading companies. After completing this workshop you will have a toolkit for thinking and presentation effectiveness -- your presentations of complex information and strategies will never be the same. More.
• Visual thinking in practice — Aug 19 - Aug 20, 2008
  CONNECTICUT: What's the difference between theory and practice? In theory they're the same. In practice they're different. We'll look at some proven, practical tools and techniques for turning complex or potentially confusing information into clear, concise, concrete visual images. At this event I'll give a short talk followed by an afternoon workshop. Get more info at the CAIS Summer Institute.
• IDEA 2008 — Oct 7 - Oct 8, 2008
  I'll be speaking at the IDEA conference in Chicago. The IDEA Conference is a yearly conference about Information: Design, Experience and Access that is sponsored by the Information Architecture Institute. More.
• VizThink 08 Berlin — Oct 12 - Oct 14, 2008
  I'll be facilitating at VizThink 08 in Berlin. VizThink is an international community of visual thinkers. More.
• Sarasota Design Summit — Oct 27 - Oct 28, 2008
  More than 350 designers, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and business and technology professionals, exploring how design and design thinking are transforming technology and innovation. I've had a hand in proposing some of the speakers for this one, and can promise that some very interesting people will be there. More.
• CANUX 2008 — Nov 16 - Nov 18, 2008
  I'll be speaking/facilitating at CANUX 2008 in Banff, Alberta. CANUX is a small gathering, limited to 70 participants, with a focus on practical skills for user experience professionals—web designers, software developers, information architects, interaction designers, interface designers, communications, and anyone else who's passionate about making things work well for people. More.

I hope you'll decide to join me at one or more of these events!

Keep in touch! Sign up to get updates and occasional emails from me.

London Calling!

Geneva workshop, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane.

London is calling my name again.

Next week I'll be in London for two events, July 9th and 10th.

On July 9th, from 4pm-9pm, I will be leading a workshop called Thinking visually to tackle business challenges: A creative and innovative approach to problem solving.

Statistical surveys have shown that design and visualisation have averifiable impact on business performance. Visual articulation is important when solving a problem that involves strategic goals and initiatives. At its core, it helps bridge the problem or opportunity with the solution. That is why helping decision makers to think and express themselves visually gives organisations a competitive edge in the marketplace.

Joining me will be a couple of XPLANE clients, who will share case studies of how they employed visual thinking in their organisations.

There is a fee for the workshop and a 10% discount if you register by July 2nd. You can download a pdf description and register for the workshop here.

On July 10th I will be leading an interactive session and discussion at VizThink London. That event goes from 5:30-9:00pm.

I hope you can join me at one or both events -- and I am sure there will be drinks afterward in both cases, so if you can't make the events I hope you'll join us for the drinks!

The picture above is my friend Alex Osterwalder, from one of my previous workshops.

Keep in touch! Sign up to get updates and occasional emails from me.

Who are you?

VP of NO, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane.

A comment from Cindy, a new reader, prompted a realization that Communication Nation has quite a few new readers who have recently discovered this blog.

I have met many of you over the years and found you to be a unique and fascinating community of people. You need to be aware of each other! I did this a while back but I think it's time for an update.

Tell us:

Who are you?

Even if you don't regularly comment on blogs, please consider taking a minute to tell me and the other readers:
1. Who are you? If it's not too personal, what's your name and job title?
2. What industry or field do you work in or most strongly identify with?
3. What do you most want to see happening on this blog?

And/or anything else you want to talk about.

You also might want to check out the last post like this, from March of 2006, here.

And even if you left a note the last time I did this, it would be great to know what you're up to now and what's on your mind.

So please leave a note in the comments section and introduce yourself! We'd love to meet you.

Keep in touch! Sign up to get updates and occasional emails from me.

Communication Nation named as top productivity blog

Communication Nation has been named one of the top 50 productivity blogs of the year by Evan Carmichael. Woo-hoo!

Keep in touch! Sign up to get updates and occasional emails from me.

How Obama reinvented campaign finance

How Obama reinvented campaign finance, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane.

Barack Obama is the first major candidate to decline participation in the public financing system for presidential campaigns. He’s found a more effective way to raise money – by leveraging the power of the American people through online Social Networks. Get the pdf version here.

Keep in touch! Sign up to get updates and occasional emails from me.

Stories from the world's children

During the United Nations Special Session on Children in May 2002, children discussed eight key issues and wrote a statement reflecting their views, ‘A World Fit for Us’.

Five years later, XPLANE worked with Unicef to develop a booklet to report back to children what progress has been made in their name; it also presents stories and concerns of children around the world.

In the video above, the XPLANE team offers a peek behind the scenes as they reflect on the project.

Click here to download a PDF or buy a print copy.

Keep in touch! Sign up to get updates and occasional emails from me.

Q-tools for design and discovery

Q-tools, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane.

You can think of a question as a tool that you can use to increase your knowledge or reduce uncertainty.

In fact, a question may be the most basic tool for gaining knowledge and working with information.

If this is so, then it makes sense to ask which kinds of questions are best suited to different kinds of information challenges. A set of standard questions that can be applied consistently to different situations might form the basis of a standard toolkit for information discovery and design.

Read the full post and share your thoughts here.

Keep in touch! Sign up to get updates and occasional emails from me.

Garr Reynolds talks to Google

Garr Reynolds of Presentation Zen talks to Google about how to make an effective presentation. Excellent talk.

Keep in touch! Sign up to get updates and occasional emails from me.

Why PowerPoint rules the business world

Working through windows, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane.

The problem is this: PowerPoint is a visual tool, and we are a visually illiterate society. Read more.

Keep in touch! Sign up to get updates and occasional emails from me.

Cartoonists make the best PowerPoints

Great post by Austin Kleon:

FOR SUCCESSFUL POWERPOINT PRESENTATIONS, LOOK TO CARTOONISTS by Austin Kleon: "Powerpoint (or Keynote) slide software solves the problem of presenting an audience with a narrative that demands both verbal and visual elements. A slide presentation succeeds when the visual display works with the verbal communication of the speaker to create a narrative in the audience’s mind. The juxtaposition of pictures and words conjure connections and meaning that pictures or words alone could not.

Some of the best uses of Powerpoint come from the masters of verbal/visual, picture/word communication: cartoonists."

Keep in touch! Sign up to get updates and occasional emails from me.

Ladies Ned

Ladies Ned, originally uploaded by Pankcho.

Great image I found on Flickr.

:)

Keep in touch! Sign up to get updates and occasional emails from me.

Visual language conversation

go, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane.

Recently I participated in a webcast where we discussed the emergence of visual language and debated some ideas about what it is and what it is not.

Here's the description from the Vizthink blog:

VizThink Blog Podcast 11: What qualifies as visual language anyway?: "In the visual thinking community, we frequently use the term visual language. Some would say that it gets used pretty loosely. So, today we began that discussion with 3 experts in our field in order to begin to understand what visual language really means. Neil Cohn, Yuri Engelhardt, and Dave Gray joined us to discuss topics like:

What is a visual language?
Does a visual language require a grammar?
What components make up a visual grammar?
Are certain forms of visualization a language and others not?"

There are quite a few visual examples that support the discussion.

I think the points where we disagreed are more intriguing than the points where we agreed. After you listen to the webcast I'll be interested to hear your thoughts.

Keep in touch! Sign up to get updates and occasional emails from me.

Introducing the global collaboration cue card project

Dan Rose has posted an interesting exercise to demonstrate some of the differences between verbal and visual language.

Introducing the Global Collaboration Cue Card Project: "words are in fact models that are loaded with assumptions and values and... communicating with graphics is an effective method for conveying underlying and unspoken meaning."

Keep in touch! Sign up to get updates and occasional emails from me.

Ten tips for global communicators

The difference between local and global markets is like the difference between the fishbowl and the ocean. To understand and engage successfully requires a shift in perspective. Here are a few tips to help you get the most from your global communications efforts:

1. Get outside your fishbowl.
To go global you’ve got to get out from behind your desk. Your culture surrounds you like the air you breathe, and you can’t understand it until you get outside it. Spend some time – an extended period, if possible – completely immersed in another culture. When you return, you’ll be surprised how many things you notice that were previously invisible.


2. Be authentic.
Being global doesn’t mean losing your identity. If you’re a global company that was started in Germany and is headquartered in Germany, it’s perfectly ok to be German. It’s a multicultural world and you are a part of it too. The key is to be respectful of other cultures while being true to your own unique identity.


3. Remember that you are a guest.
When you are visiting another country, or when you open an office there, you are a guest. The same rules apply that would apply if you were visiting a friend’s house. Be polite, respectful, and thoughtful in your communications.


4. Think visually.
There’s a reason why TV is booming while newspapers are going out of business. People understand pictures faster and more easily than words. With pictures you can communicate complex ideas instantly, and virtually nothing is lost in translation. And words need to be translated, while pictures are a universal form of communication.


5. Ask for feedback.
Share your ideas with global teams early, when they are in the napkin-sketch stage, and ask for feedback. When you ask people to participate in defining the message, you build trust. If you build your message globally, then deployment becomes much easier.


6. Engage.
To communicate you need to engage with people, and when you engage, you will make mistakes. If you never make a cultural error, you’re probably not communicating at all. Try to get outside your comfort zone. There is such a thing as being too safe. People will forgive your mistakes if they believe you are well-intentioned.


7. Respect is a two-way street.
If you work for a global company, your company’s culture may be as strong and important as the global cultures you interact with. There will be times when your company culture is directly at odds with the local culture. When those times arise, you need to have a clear policy on what is negotiable and what is not: Is fluency in English an absolute requirement? You may not want to hire interpreters for every conference call.


8. Localize strategically.
Localization is a slippery slope. You can localize to the regional level, to the country level, and beyond – there are nine officially recognized languages in South Africa alone. Balance the expense of localization against the benefits you expect to gain.


9. Listen between the lines.
Many cultures have subtle or indirect ways of dealing with conflict and communicating sensitive information. Watch people’s faces and body language for cues. If you sense something may be amiss, ask politely if you are missing anything, or take an associate aside for a quick chat. In conference calls it’s much more difficult: silence can be an indication of many things, including disinterest, confusion, displeasure, and even agreement.


10. Socialize.
In many cultures, communication outside of the office is as important as what happens inside. Take invitations seriously. Many of your most important lessons and ideas will come from informal conversations, where people feel comfortable sharing their thoughts.

Keep in touch! Sign up to get updates and occasional emails from me.

VizThink workshop in NYC

VizThink workshop in NYC, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane.

Last week's workshop in New York last week went very well -- it was the debut of my latest thoughts on visual language, which synthesizes the work of many visual language researchers and information designers.

It's a major project but I am trying to boil down all the research into a simple "ABC book" -- a primer of visual language.

I believe my thoughts were well-received by the group, which included a broad mix of people, from designers to bankers. The group even included a brain scientist who said that the visual language concepts map very well to current concepts in brain science. I am looking forward to talking more about that.

There's still time to register for the Chicago workshop, which is coming up this Wednesday, May 7. You can register here.

Keep in touch! Sign up to get updates and occasional emails from me.