Neuland social media correspondent Sandra Dirks will host me online May 16, 2018 from 12:00-1:00 EDT, as part of an “Ambassador Tour” series. During the hour, I’ll talk about Levels of Scribing and we’ll have a practice round, followed by Q&A.
Join through the live facebook event stream here. The session will be recorded – and we’ll make that available too.
Meanwhile, here is a sneak peak DOWNLOAD from the book Generative Scribing, if it helps to follow along with written text. Enjoy!
From the Edx / MITx / Presencing Institute MOOC u.lab: Leading From the Emerging Future, final digital images originally scribed on 16′ long blackboard during 60-90 minute live, broadcast sessions…
Co-Evolving session, December 14, 2017:
Crystallizing-Prototyping session, November 9, 2017:
Presencing session, October 19, 2017:
Co-Initiation session, September 21, 2017:
And here are the visual reviews for each phase of Theory U, created on an iPadPro with the ProCreate app, Photoshop, and a Bird font.
For all images on this page… please share as you’d like, respecting the creative commons information here and linking back to this page, so others can find the original images. Thanks!
Am happy, in these challenging times, to announce that registration for another visual practice workshop is officially OPEN. To sign up immediately, CLICK HERE. To learn more, keep reading.
It’s my strong belief that visuals serve as key facilitative aids for collective seeing and navigation. And as visual practitioners, we face a particular need and opportunity to expand the awareness, mindsets, and choices that feed our outward expression.
This latest program will push the boundaries of our current delivery model. Over three days – in a dedicated residence/retreat environment – we will combine theory, exercises, reflection, and peer learning to explore the following:
The immersive program is designed for intermediate and advanced visual practitioners who wish to strengthen and deepen their existing knowledge, towards developing mastery in the profession and field. While non-scribes facilitators are welcome, drawing will be the primary form of practice; be prepared to use this expression as the main means of application over the course of the program.
We’ll start getting to know each other over dinner on Tuesday, May 16th, and work at a sometimes intense and sometimes relaxed pace through Friday the 19th. The venue is well-known to me: Edith Macy Conference Center in Briarcliff, NY – a stone’s throw away from where I grew up in Croton-on-Hudson. It’s a particular joy to bring this activity back to the place that held my youthful, wooded wandering.
I won’t go into more details (you can find them here) – will just add some pics from the latest workshop in Bologna. Please email me with any questions. And please share this post freely with anyone who might be interested.
Having experienced a fruitful workshop in Taipei November 2106 (above photos), we are happy to announce an upcoming workshop in Bologna, Italy 15-17 February 2017. Costs: Individuals €1,800 – Students €600 – Scholarship on request.
This workshop is designed for intermediate and advanced visual practitioners and facilitators who wish to strengthen and deepen their existing knowledge, towards developing mastery in their profession and field.
DOWNLOAD FLYER: English – Chinese
REGISTER HERE or contact Alfredo Carlo: alfredo.carlo@thevalueweb.org
THE CALL:
In times of widespread transition, visuals serve as key facilitative aids for collective seeing and navigation. Live scribing–giving form to the content of a social body, in the moment and across boundaries–is a method especially suited to address today’s great challenges. As visual practitioners seeking to meet and influence these current realities, we face a particular need and opportunity to expand our awareness, mindsets, and choices that feed into our outward expression.
THE LEARNING:
Over the three days we will combine theory, exercises, reflection, and peer learning to explore the following topics:
PARTICIPATION:
Drawing will be the primary form of practice. It is not required that participants be skilled scribes – but be prepared to use this expression as the main means of application over the course of the workshop.
GUIDES:
The workshop will be led by internationally recognized practitioners:
Kelvy Bird has been working as a scribe in the fields of human and organizational development since 1995, with a focus on leadership, collective intelligence, and systems thinking. As part of the Presencing Institute’s core team since 2007, Kelvy has helped shape many of the global community offerings, most recently the edX course: U.Lab: Leading from the Emerging Future, for which she provides extensive visual material. In 2016, Kelvy co-edited the anthology: Drawn Together through Visual Practice, and is currently completing her manuscript: On Scribing. At heart, Kelvy is an abstract painter, having received a BFA and BA from Cornell University.
Alfredo Carlo, born in 1975 in Brussels, is a designer of collaborative processes and a graphic facilitator. He’s the founding partner of Housatonic Design Network and since 2011 partner of Matter Group. Together these organizations deliver graphic facilitation and collaborative sessions to facilitate complexity in organisations and in communication. Alfredo is a member of The Value Web, a not-for-profit organization made of an international facilitators and designers network, which helps big and medium organizations all over the world in their processes of research for systemic and complex problems solutions.
Jayce Pei Yu Lee is big at heart, small in size, and organic in spirit. Born in 1972 in Taipei, Taiwan, she studied Typographic Design and Fine Arts while lived in New Zealand for 8 years. She has diverse professional experience ranging from graphic design, visual merchandising, retail marketing, and sales. She devotes her time to creative work and bilingual graphic facilitation (Mandarin/ English) with the MGTaylor Methodology and, since 2010, in collaboration with The Value Web at the Summer Davos in China. She is a member of The Value Web, a fellow traveller of Theory U, and a visual collaborator with the u.lab MOOC since 2015.
LOGISTICS:
Dates: Wednesday 15th February (starts 09.00) to Friday 17th February (ends 16.00)
Venue: Housatonic Studio, Via Battindarno 159/2, Bologna, Italy
Costs: Individuals €1,800 – Students €600 – Scholarship on request.
Fees include lunches & coffee breaks every day, as well as course materials and basic supplies. Accommodation and dinners are not included. Recommended hotel options will be sent with registration info.
REGISTRATION: CLICK HERE or contact Alfredo Carlo: alfredo.carlo@thevalueweb.org
To receive notices about the upcoming North America workshop 17-19 May 2017, please sign up for our general mailing list here.
Images by Tsunami Lin from the Taipei Workshop, November 2016
Under all distraction and perceived fragmentation lies a coherent whole.
In any moment, under pressure–at a wall ready to draw, or in the midst of an argument with a loved one–when we want desperately to understand of things, we can inquire into an underlying order. “How does this make sense?”
We only need to look into the woods to understand this principle. Once on a mini “solo” retreat, I remember the feeling of awe when looking closely into a patch of richly entwined roots that lay with mushrooms and moss and twigs and insects and lichen and leaves and bark and earth. They represented pieces of the forest, all jumbled into one spot. And, at the same time, there was absolutely no separation between the parts. There was a perfectly natural co-existence of life forms in simultaneous decay and growth.
Another way to explain coherence was presented by physicist and dialogue pioneer David Bohm: “Ordinary light is called “incoherent,” which means that it is going in all sorts of directions, and the light waves are not in phase with each other so they don’t build up. But the laser produces a very intense beam which is coherent. The light waves build up strength because they are all going in the same direction. This beam can do all sorts of things that ordinary light cannot.”
This is probably where my practice starts to lean towards the mystical, because I correlate coherence with a belief in universal oneness.
Aikido master Richard Moon, writes: “The universe is one system, a unified field of energy of which we are a part. When we feel ourselves a part of the universe, we feel where we are in the flow of Creation, we naturally experience a connectedness with the earth. Feeling this connection effortlessly heals the isolation that characterizes modern life. Life becomes connectedness and we find ourselves in empowered alignment with the universe as it unfolds.”
In applying this principle at the wall, sometimes I will draw a large curve or shape, seemingly out of nowhere. No one in the room has said “And it all starts with a large circle…” But in the moment, I am likely feeling ungrounded and am seeking assurance, and this is where coherence comes in.
I quiet the rambling mind, look at and into the wall, and have a quick conversation with that surface: “What is your story today? What wants to be seen on your gleaming white surface?” Obviously the wall does not talk back. But… in a way it does. I receive some sort of impulse towards a certain gesture, a direction, even a color. And I go from there.
I trust that the mark will fit with all marks to come, that the mark is originating from some deep unseen place of aligned intent – like Bohm’s laser – and, through my hand, will manifest into something that makes cognitive and aesthetic sense.
There is a similar alignment to be found in conversation.
If I find myself ramped up and ranting about how someone has “done me wrong!”, latching onto the face value of the exchange will likely limit my growth. Instead, seeking the coherence in the situation can increase compassion and development. “How and why are these things playing out in this way, at this time?”
Putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes is a first step to shifting awareness about where that person might be coming from. Trying to see the entire exchange from above can enhance perspective. And seeking sense in the underlying root causes can further increase understanding.
We have to see a larger, more entwined, interconnected picture to be able to discern any one fragment.
If I draw isolated elements, it’s as if I display an arrangement of rocks collected at the beach. They’re beautiful, and dismembered from their original context. (And I do this all over my home!) When scribing, we do re-contextualize elements all the time, and that is where coherence can aid us; we can re-order with our will and impose structure on content and/or we can inquire into a natural, whole emerging state that is seeking birth.
Seeking coherence demands a lot of trust.
Whether it be a picture on a wall or an awkward conversation with a coworker–trust encourages us that this picture or conversation is exactly what is meant to unfold in this window of time. It’s a piece of a greater context, not yet known.
Influences to this thinking: Bill Isaacs, Barbara Cecil, Glennifer Gillespie, Beth Jandernoa – and this post is for the mighty, always coherent Alicia Bramlett