Exploring with Images

Sending Visual Tools to Africa

Safe Passage to Motherhood was heading back to Bware Kenya for the third time. On the first trip, they conducted an assessment of the community in relationship to maternal mortality. The second time, one midwife conducted a training in Home Based Life Saving Skills, a program designed by the American College of Nurse-Midwives for use in the developing world. The program teaches simple skills to the women in the community that save lives in childbirth.

Multiplying Effect

Maggie Alexander, a nurse-midwife from Oregon taught life saving skills to four lead trainers. Together they taught 12 more. That group taught 44 during the two weeks Maggie was  in Kenya.

During the next months messages arrived from Kenya about training hundreds of people. Then thousands. Women from a rural village. Without transportation. With very limited resources.

Excited Skepticism

Each time a report would arrive in the US, there was excitement. The program was working. People were learning skills to identify when a birthing mother was having potentially life threatening symptoms.

Then there was skepticism. Were they really reaching all those people. What did training really mean? Were people actually learning?

Going Back to Assess

The only way to really know what was happening, was to go back to Kenya. This time there was one midwife, one physicians assistant, and their two teen-aged boys and one midwifery student.

One problem. How were they going to get people to tell them what was really going on? They didn’t want to hear the stories people thought they should tell them. Culturally, it was not considered polite to talk about problems. Especially to guests who were coming to offer help.

Using Visuals to Get to the Real Story

People struggle to tell the story that really matters. Instead we tell stories that we are comfortable with, or ones that tell a flattering version of our part. Or the story we think the listener wants to hear.

When visuals become part of the mix, something else happens. Other memories get triggered. Less conscious aspects surface. You can talk about things that are awkward or hard to talk about because you are now talking about a picture. Not another person. All sorts of different stories surface.

Would the Images Work in Africa?

We know the VisualsSpeak tools work in many places in the world. We know they work with different backgrounds. But would they work in rural Africa? We weren’t sure. But we were willing to try.

Next parts of the story:

Part 2: Adjusting Images for Africa

Part 3: Stories from Africa

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I’d love to hear your comments and stay in touch with you.

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From the Studio: Passion Within

Visual Food 2

Gardens and the Creatures who live in them

Ecosystem Gardening is a site about attracting wildlife to your garden, dealing with invasive species and making better choices in your garden. It’s also a feast of photographs of wildlife by Carole and her readers.

Creative Uses of Paper

Everything but the Paper Cut: Eye-popping Ways Artists Use Paper

Amazing Pencil Carvings

You can see a gallery of pencil sculptures: miniature masterpieces carved into graphite by Dalton Ghetti

What have you seen?

Anything caught your eye? Love to hear about it. You can put links to interesting things in the comments.

Blog Under Construction Live

I’m doing something some would say one should never do. I’m redesigning this blog while it is live.

I’ve been working on all sorts of new stuff, which I have been talking about for a long time, but nothing much is showing yet. It would probably be wise to work behind the scenes, get everything working and looking just right. It would just take forever before anything shifted. Instead I am going to pick away at it and slowly morph the site into its new form.

Am I insane?

Maybe. But the approach serves two purposes. First it keeps me focused on the next step rather than being overwhelmed by the scope of the whole project. Second, it forces me to let go of perfectionism. I’m not particularly good at achieving perfection, so I might as well just throw all caution to the wind.

Shall we play find the changes?

Think of it as a game. See if you notice anything different. Or as compassion training, become curious. Of course if you read in a RSS reader or on email or Facebook, you won’t see much right away since the changes will be mostly to the theme itself. But you may have noticed I am diversifying the content, shifting its focus. Lots more to come. Hope you can be patient with the mess!

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I’d love to hear your comments and stay in touch with you.

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follow me on twitter @cmartell or visit my online gallery

From the Studio: Offers

Planet Barbecue Obsession

It all started with an article, The Globetrotters Guide to BBQ in Epicurious in July 2009. A story teasing a new cookbook full of international barbecue.

The article whetted my appetite and I started watching for the release of the book. Finally Planet Barbecue!: 309 Recipes, 60 Countries showed up, along with a couple other Steven Raichlen books at Costco. They were mine.

For the last few months, I have been trying new recipes from it a couple of times a week. The VisualsSpeak weekly team meeting have been barbecue experiments which get reported on our Facebook page. Then we rate the recipe and make notes.

The Five Star Rating System

* would only serve it to an enemy
** would eat it again, but wouldn’t go out of way to do so
*** would eat it again
**** would serve it to guests
***** would serve it to very special guest or when you need to make an impression

If you join us, you get involved in rating. It’s made for some lively debates. Majority rules, unless someone just dislikes the ingredients. My husband is banned from rating peppers and onions. My business partner can’t rate eggplant. I can’t rate anything with gluten in it. So it truly takes a team.

Ratings so far

No one star ratings have been given. You have a good chance of making something pretty tasty from this book.

Two stars

• Grilled Shishito peppers with sesame oil and salt

Three stars

• Cambodian Steak with Salads and Condiments
• Laotian Rice Pops with Dipping Sauces
• Moroccan Sliders
• Kosovan Grilled Mushrooms
• Salmon Glazed with Belgian Cherry Beer
• Butternut Grilled Squash
• Turmeric Grilled Prawns

Four Stars

• Grilled Cheese Kabobs
• Lemongrass and Curry Grilled Chicken Breasts
• Chicken Brochettes in the Style of Fez
• Two Chicken Tikkas
• Francis Mallmanns Burnt Oranges with Rosemary
• Knish on a Stick
• Bacon Grilled Enoke Mushrooms
• Stuffed Grill Roasted Jalapeno Peppers
• Mauritius Shrimp with Ginger Turmeric Glaze

Four and a Half Stars

• Jordanian Grilled Chicken
• Korean Grilled Pork Belly

Five Stars

• The Best Sates in Singapore
• Apostles on Horseback

Mashed Potatoes and Rice are Really Hard to Grill

Let’s just say I have quite a variety of skewers now and have yet to find the one that actually stays inside the starches. We can just leave it as potatoes and rice are tasty even when scrambled.

Any grilling suggestions?

Got any favorite techniques, recipes, or books to share?

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I’d love to hear your comments and stay in touch with you.

Subscribe to this blog in a reader

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follow me on twitter @cmartell or visit my online gallery

From the Studio: Hills

Visual Food

Things I found inspiring this week:

Jennifer Maestre Sculptures

In an article in Women’s Day, she mentions how her hands hurt if she doesn’t take a break. I’m trying to figure out how she gets the points all so perfect (I want her sharpener.) Then how she keeps them so perfect. Her website is worth a visit, a feast of color and form.

IVFP Conference

The International Forum of Visual Practitioners conference is going on this week in California, with lots of interesting graphic facilitation examples.  being posted around the web. The Center for Graphic Facilitation has posted a very interesting series of videos from the conference on the history of the field.

Brandy Agerbeck Graphic Facilitation Videos

Speaking of graphic facilitation, Brandy Agerbeck has been doing a series of videos demonstrating graphic facilitation for a variety of purposes. Here is one on the use of color. You can see the whole series on loosetooth.com along with her other creative work.

What have you seen this week?

Anything caught your eye? Or have you done something interesting? Love to see what you are finding inspiring. You are welcome to share your visual food in the comments.

VisualsSpeak Online Icebreaker

VisualsSpeak makes experiential visual tools which are hard to explain. Or maybe not to explain, but to convey the magic that happens when you use them to facilitate conversations.

Our latest attempt to show some of what it feels like is our new Online Icebreaker. It’s free, it’s fun, and I invite you to try it.

I hope it shows you a bit of how the images work to surface similar and different viewpoints. Enjoy!

From the studio: Cliffs

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