Tell Your Friends: See What I Mean Workshops

I’m speaking at two events in the next month. The first is VizThink, a conference on visual thinking. The talk there will be a short 90min hands-on session. The conference is fantastic and includes many experienced and talented visual thinkers. Register with the promotion code FCKC01 for $200 off the registration.

The other event is a more comprehensive full day workshop at the ASIS&T IA Summit 2009. However, there is also a strong possibility that this workshop will not happen if there are insufficient registrations. If you’re interested in the workshop, I encourage you to look into registering before the early bird deadline which is this Friday!

My full day workshop covers a lot of the material that will be in the book in a very hands on manner. Here are some quotes from participants who have attended prior workshops:

“The most important thing I learned was that comics can be useful — seriously I need to get this into my official toolbelt of tools.”

“There was a nice balance between theory and practice.”

“He got everyone past the fear of drawing.”

The technique is one being employed at companies like eBay and Google as well as agencies like nForm and Adaptive Path. Anna-Christina Douglas, Product Marketer for Google Chrome, said,

“[Comics] let us illustrate what was really happening with the technology in an abstract and digestible way. If we just had a white paper, very few people would have read it.”

For those of you that have some concerns, here’s a few common questions I get:

I don’t know how to draw. The workshop teaches how to use tools or simple patterns to get ideas across. If you can draw a square, even an ill formed one, you’ve got all the pre-requisites you need.

I’m not a designer. As Google has illustrated, the medium is useful for marketing as well as design. In addition, product managers and engineers have found it to be a great tool for specifying the product’s features at a high level.

I’d love to but I can’t convince my manager. Comics are being used in organizations of all sizes because they save money and time. They get the point across quicker, they paint the big picture and most importantly, they help your team get on the same page early on so they’re not building the wrong thing later.

I’m very excited about giving this workshop again but as I mentioned, this can only happen with your help. If you can’t make it, do spread the word to those whom you think might enjoy such a workshop. Once again, register for the pre-conference workshop before the Friday early bird deadline!