Last week, Scott Thomas (aka @SimpleScott), Design Director for the 2008 Obama campaign joined us here at VizThink for a conversation about his experiences during the campaign and how design played a key role in helping their candidate deliver a …

Following the success of “Drawing & Design”, Karl Gude is back for part 2: “What Should I Visualize?”

Visualizing content in the form of maps, charts, diagrams and a variety of other ways can help people understand complex information. Graphics done well communicate data quickly and precisely. A well-executed diagram gives a much more powerful and memorable experience than a mere verbal description.

During this approximately one hour-long workshop Karl introduces you to some formulas for spotting opportunities where visuals can be effectively used.

Struggling with Writer’s Block? Taunted and daunted by that blinking Microsoft Word cursor? Do you feel like you have a lot to say, but can’t figure out how to get what’s in your head into words?

Writing is linear. Your brain is not. Visual thinking is the tool to wrangle your non-linear thoughts into clear writing.

In this hour-long webinar, we ‘step away’ from the computer and look at techniques for making writing with our head and our hands.

Consistently rated as one of the favorite facilitators for our conferences and workshops, Karl Gude is back with an all-new workshop for VizThinkU called “Show Don’t Tell: Drawing & Design”.

Often, concepts need to be sketched out so that others can “see” what is in a person’s head, and this requires confidence in one’s ability to do so. Most people are visual learners who can more easily understand highly complicated concepts when they are drawn out as opposed to only being written about, but people can worry that their visualization skills are no match for the task at hand, and so they write…and write, and write.

In this two hour workshop, Karl teaches you the two “D’s” of visual communication, drawing and design and gives you simple visual tools and rules that anyone can use to sketch out your ideas and then package them all together.

Idea Mapping is a powerful whole-brained visual thinking tool that enhances memory, note-taking skills, thought organization, planning, productivity, creativity, communication, and clarifies thinking. It uses color, key words, lines and images to connect thoughts associatively. Idea Maps are the natural expression of the way the brain processes information associatively.

This interactive session covers the fundamentals of mindmapping, will give you ideas on how and where to use them, and give youthe opportunity to apply what you’ve learned during the session.

While there’s little question about how visuals can be used to better communicate your ideas not a lot gets said about how visual thinking can be used for brainstorming & planning, even less with respect to personal development techniques.

In this VizThinkU workshop, we explore how visual thinking can be used in personal, and professional development.

Our two facilitators, Joy Meredith & Sean Griffin, have made names for themselves with their individual techniques so be ready for an amazing session of self discovery & planning.

What can two comedians teach you about making your presentations better? More than you might suspect.

Imagine the work environment of a stand-up comic: Performing in an unfamiliar environment, to an unfamiliar crowd and they know there are at least one or two people out there in that dimly-lit room who probably want to take them down a peg. Sound familiar?

Maybe remind you a little of your last speaking engagement or sales presentation?

While we’ve focused a lot at VizThink on making your presentations look more appealing and be more effective from a visual stand-point, we haven’t spent a whole lot of time on the skills around delivering it – which is why we started assembling this VizThinkU course. While not directly a visual exercise or skill the art of delivering your presentation is a very important component of telling your story. This workshop will introduce you to new ideas about engaging and interacting with your audience as well as approaches to think quickly on your feet and react to unexpected situations.

During this three-hour session, Nancy Margulies, a master visual facilitator, demonstrates the process of using words and images to convey ideas. Using example projects from participants, Nancy creates visual images that conveys all the ideas and relationships among them while teaching you tools and techniques that can be taken back to apply to your own work.

Nancy has taught thousands of people to develop skills that enable them to record their ideas using images as well as short phrases. This skill will enable you to “think on paper” to gain a deeper understanding of complex systems.

With the skills Nancy teaches, you can map a given activity and then look at the consequences, unintended consequences, resources needed, and other factors so that you have the “big picture” and a truly systemic view. Or you can use visual recording to convey an idea you want to present to others, with images that make your presentation more engaging

Instructors: Austin Kleon, Sunni Brown & Mike Rohde Run-time: Approx. 3 hours Format: VizThinkU Recording Fee: $99 Get Access Now Course Description Ever since Leonardo put pen to paper, visual note-taking has been a route to improve the quality of …