We’re very excited to announce Novamind as a VizThink ‘08 sponsor and exhibitor.  Novamind is one of the leaders in the mind mapping space with powerful software with lots of cool features like labeling the link lines, huge flexibility in colors, flexible shapes, and the inclusion of your own images.  For more details, check out their wiki page…

Do you write on the walls?  Do you want to take the walls with you?  Do you want to re-arrange the whiteboards in the room to better fit your needs?
We’re very excited to announce our next sponsor, Kinetic Energies.  In addition to their involvement, they are supplying their Nomad Dry erase boards (pictured below) for all of our rooms and areas.  The boards are durable, flexible, portable, solid, and, frankly, beautifully crafted.  We were at …

As the regular readers know, our goal at VizThink both in the community and at the conference is to represent a large diversity of visual styles and approaches used for learning and communication.  Well, we’ve got another exciting announcement in our next facilitator that adds the ability for us to find ourselves…or at least find places and things we want to find.

John Grimwade is the information graphics director of both Condé Nast Portfolio and Condé Nast Traveler magazines, …

Software design is a complex process.  Creating usable software that’s both intuitive and functional requires a variety of visual approaches.  We’re excited to announce the addition of Dana Smith and Doug LeMoine from Cooper.  Cooper, a San Francisco-based software development firm, was founded by Alan Cooper, author of two cornerstone books in the industry, About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design and The Inmates Are Running the Asylum.

Dana Smith is an Interaction Design consultant …

Software design, usability, and the user experience are complex processes.  From the initial concept to prototype to the final product, the process mirrors the development of almost any product or service.  The entire process is ripe for improvement with visual thinking.  The trio of Henning Fischer, Sarah Nelson, and Brandon Schauer from Adaptive Path are a great add to the VizThink ‘08 group of facilitators. They bring years of experience in software, interface, and user …

We’re very excited about the addition of BOSSdevas a Premier Sponsor and Exhibitor at VizThink ‘08.  BOSSdev is a global custom software application developer with a very broad array of capabilities and experience.  In addition to enterprise and Internet software, they also create interactive media, games, and advergaming for their customers.  Some of the games they create are even just for fun.  Check out this addicting pool simulation.  It taught me more in a few minutes about lining …

We’ve already had an amazing response to our inaugural event. We’ve got an incredible diversity of attendees. Here’s just some of the information about the attendees:

Companies
Titles

Avenue A|Razorfish
Bunge
Center for Creative Leadership
Google
Grove
Informatica
Mattel
McKinsey
Medtronic
Microsoft
Pixar
Stanford
Yahoo

…and many more

Director of Product Design
Information Architect
President
CEO
MD
Senior Consultant
Managing Director
Head of Marketing
Creative Director
Sr. Ux Architect
Director
General Manager
CTO
Chief Innovation Officer
Sr. Director
R & D Director
Web Designer
Vice President

…and many more

We’ve also got representation from quite a few countries such as Poland, Finland, Netherlands, United Kingdom, South Africa, Sweden, and New Zealand.  …

Many companies have good (or at least okay strategies).  Where they tend to fall down is on implementation.  There are lots of reasons that strategies fail.  Sometimes they fail because the leaders don’t have a common understanding about what the strategy means.  Sometimes it’s because the people who actually execute the strategy didn’t understand it or didn’t understand their role.  Root Learning uses metaphoric visualization and open-ended dialogue to help create a common understanding at all …

We’re very excited about the addition of Tableau as one of the sponsors and exhibitors of VizThink ‘08.  As a leader in the data analysis and visualization space, their software allows you to take data from any source, create instant summaries, analyze visual trends and use the visualizations to understand relationships and causes.  The software includes a wide array of visual formats for the data.  Be sure to check out their website for a free …

We’re designing this conference to be different from any other conference you’ve ever experienced.  You’ll not just be hearing or seeing new ideas, but experiencing them and talking about them with your colleagues.  We’ll explore new ideas, approaches, and concepts using a variety of formats.  Each pre-conference workshop, general session, and breakout session will use one or more of these types:

Hands On:Active participation in the concepts, ideas, approaches, and styles presented by the facilitators. We’ll …