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VizThink Europe 2008 Recap: General Session 1

The morning of day one came very early, or at least it sure felt like it, one of the side effects of these conferences is great conversation, the kind of conversation that somehow takes you deep into the night in the hotel bar without you realizing what time it is until the bartender turns the lights on (and then off entirely a little later). But there I found myself, at the registration desk by 7am that day as those who didn’t make it in for the reception the night before arrived to pick up their badges.

Upstairs, the room began to fill as everyone got ready for the next two days. Tom had developed an interesting flow for the conference, we had four general sessions, one to open each day, and the other to close the day out.

What is Visual Thinking & Language?

The opening session was themed “What is Visual Thinking & Language” and it was largely intended to set the tone and kick off some discussion. It’s funny because Visual Thinking and Language has a lot to do with clarity in communication yet it’s one of those things everyone has trouble explaining.

We started off much the same way we did in San Francisco. First off, Tom shuffled the tables by having everyone get up and move around the room to a few tables over (and then again).

Note: If you decide to join us in San Jose next February, take my advice and don’t unpack everything from your bag right off the bat on the morning of Day One as you sit at a table for the general session.

Once everyone was settled Dave Gray did a quick drawing lesson to loosen everyone up, and especially nudge those who have an inner dialogue of “I can’t draw” towards being a little more visual when pen comes to paper. Dave’s view: “Every five year old can draw. You were five once. Therefore, you can draw.” One of my favorite moments is below:

I just missed the moment where virtually everyone had their hands up but Dave was having everyone pose in the posture they were trying to draw, hands extended, as if they were a police officer trying to stop a car. The excercise was a lot of fun as people moved from the basic elements of drawing through to creating a simple picture, the highly skilled artists in the room seemed to be enjoying it just as much as the folks who five minutes earlier had insited they couldn’t draw.

With their new drawing skills in hand Tom moved into a new exercise we wanted to try out. We posed the questions “Why are you here?”, “What do you Do?” and “Where are you from?” and had each person draw their answers on the table in front of them (at VizThink the tables are all covered in paper and there are plenty of drawing tools on the table).

After a few minutes we had everyone share their answers with the group and then to close off the exercise had everyone draw a line from themselves to other people at their table who shared similar interests, home countries or interests, essentially creating a map of the tables common interests and experiences. It was a fun exercise and as I moved around the room I heard people discovering lots of interesting common ground. Photos of the table cloths from that exercise are below in a slideshow:

Finally we wrapped up the session with a conversation between Dave Gray & David Sibbet on their thoughts around the theme “What is Visual Thinking & Language?”

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Watch the blog over the next few days for a series of posts recapping the VizThink Europe event…

Missed the conference? VizThink 2009 is coming up February 22-25, 2009 in San Jose, California and registration is now open. The early registration discount ends November 30 so now is the time to get the best possible price to attend.

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