This was my third visit to the IFVP conference, and I believe the experiences are getting better and better all the time. It's not just a great opportunity to catch up with friends, colleagues and generally like minded people, but a chance to practise, learn and take your skills to the next level.

Day 1 opened with a keynote from Marc Schonwiesner (Prof at Uni fo Montreal) on “The Seeing Brain – Neuroscience and Vision”. At first, I felt like I was back at Psychology 101 doing the physiology of the eye. However, once he got past that stuff, it became a fascinating exploration into how the eye responds to various stimulus. VERY relevant for us as recorders, and explained to me why some charts cut it, and others don’t. I suppose my biggest take aways were how the eye response to borders and contrast (positively) and that face pattern detection is an innate part of how our eyes and brain work. Meaning – we see faces everywhere because of our highly tuned ability to do facial recognition. I’m paraphrasing and summarizing here, however, take a look at this link provided by Nick Payne to see what I mean:

www.facesinplaces.blogspot.com

What does this mean for us as scribes/recorders? You can nearly draw anything and as long as it vaguely resembles a face, our audience will recogise it as such. It also explained to me why some charts can be over done. Marc talked to us about “over stimulus” and the eye becomes “overwhelmed” and sees nothing. This is why I think the style demonstrated by Jim Nuttle is so effective. He uses little colour and often allows the eye and brain to finish things.

Here are my notes from Marc's session:

The rest of Day 1 was dedicated to practise. I spent the day with Lynn and Brandy in Graphic Recording 101 (again…for the third time) and enjoyed watching the development of new practitioners, and practicing some new things myself.

Day 2 opened with a panel discussion with 4 experienced pracitioners talking about everything from how they find their work to how they price their work. It was interesting to hear that all of them find their work through word of mouth.

The second session came from Nick Payne who has been doing a lot of work with World Cafes and his spin on how we can add more value. He opened with a very controversial statement “content is not king” which sent shock waves around the room! His process for capturing world café was extremely interesting….I shall try and summarise here:

1. As people enter the room, you are on, capturing people standing and talking and having casual conversations (in drawings)
2. After the first full conversation takes place, you (the recorder) gather all the “table cloths” and use a process of Affinitising, Sythesizing and Visualising.
3. Work really fast, because as you are doing this for conversation 1, conversation 2 is taking place, and you will then need to be ready to repeat 2 above for this conversation.
4. The third conversation is the hardest one, as you then need to be doing the ASV process in time to do the big REVEAL at the end.
5. The reveal involves you talking back to the group and presenting what you have captured and why you have presented it this way.

Nick says that he wants the client to see non stop hard work and a range of skills. Here are my (very rough) notes from his session. I confess to being sucked into his content, and forgetting to write things down.

After lunch we heard from Al Selvin on the topic of Coherence, Engagement and Usefulness in Graphic Facilitation. In simple terms, it is about getting the group engaged in meaningful work that is also useful. OK, so I'm paraphrasing, however the gist of his stuff was how do we get groups more involved in the charts that we create. Allowing them to come up to the charts and add, remove, change, etc as part of the facilitation process. I heard several gasps at the thought of having a participant draw on a chart!

In the afternoon, Nick Payne was on again, describing an AMAZING experience/job he had just had in Las Vegas working with a summer school of gifted children

He taught the kids basic graphic recording skills and taught them how to make notes of their own classes in a more visual way. The kids LOVED it. Nick came with examples of the work and, although the participants were aged between 11-14, their work stood up and was not out of place with other work being done by IFVP members. It was a most inspiring session and I am intending to speak with my contacts in education to see if we can’t get Nick down to present the case study at a conference down here.

Here is a link to a local newspaper with some slides: http://www.lasvegassun.com/photos/galleries/2009/jul/29/Drawing/

The evening bought about the annual Graphics Jam, and arguably my favourite part of the conference. Not nearly as much as a “hoot” as last year (Deb will know what I’m talking about), this year was still fun as 40 visual practiioners draw the same concept in 30 seconds. There is always overlap, however it’s a good source of icons and images for difficult concepts. I think my favourite this year was suicide prevention and the range of drawings that came with that.

Day 3 opened with Dawn Sutherland, a facilitator based in Montreal who spoke to us about client relationships, how to build and maintain them. She also spoke a little about networking. I recorded Dawn’s session (see graphic below).

Probably my biggest take away was her very simple model of understanding the client engagement model and where 50% of complaints come from.

Chris McGoff then took us to lunch with a session on the notion of “primes”. Hard to exactly describe in words (because it is so visual) but I’ll do my best. I would say, the simplest way to describe a prime is that it is a Model or Icon, one part of which cannot be absent or the whole won’t make sense.

I think, for example, the 4-mat model is a bit of a prime. Take one part away and the training doesn’t make as much sense. He has developed a series of “primes” for problem solving and strategic planning, which were very cool. I am awaiting a deck and once I do, I’ll share.

After lunch, I was on. I did a very quick (90 mins) introduction to designing training that “rocks”. Below are a couple of examples of the charts that were created. It was a very interesting experience being recorded (having not had it before) and then looking at a chart and seeing what you said (and sometimes what you didn’t say).

Here is the official recording of my session by Tania Von Allmen

Here's a recording done by my English buddy Nick Payne...I love the very Aussie iconography.

The conference concluded with an improv comedy troupe coming in and running a few activities with us. It was kinda fun, however I think my energy was already out the door and sitting at the bar. I was the last official speaker of the conference, and didn’t realize how nervous I was, or how much energy I had given to (worrying) thinking about my presentation. So, once it was over, I was really spent.

It didn’t stop me from participating in, and winning, a storytelling on the fly competition. Not unlike VAK Fairy Stories…….I bamboozled my opposition with words like “Billabong”, “Swagman” and had kangaroos shooting people in their backsides with their little koalas. Was I cheating???

In the end it was a fantastic event where I learned A LOT!

Oh….I also decided to put my money where my mouth is. After 3 years of traveling extraordinary distances to attend these conferences, I decided to try and influence the location of the 2011 (2010 is already set for the San Francisco bay area).

I did a bit of a pendulum on them……On the one hand, we could go to Fiji, which is very close to me and a gorgeous location. On the other hand, we could stay on the continental United States….which could also be good.....however, I’m suggesting Hawaii……bit of both. Would you believe it, it was seconded and confirmed within seconds!

We then started an excitement campaign. We made little address label stickers with “Aloha 2011” on them, and stuck them on every participant. By the end of the conference people were talking more about Aloha 2011 than SFO 2010. Ooops!