Tom Crawford from VizThink recently invited me to facilitate part of his pre-conference session, Visualization for Learning: Approaches, Tools, and Applications to Improve Effectiveness, at the Brandon Hall Innovations in Learning conference.

We asked each person to select photos in response to the question, Why did you come to the conference and this session? In small groups, they told their stories to each other. In the second round using the same question, each small group created an image together with input from each person.

These are the videos of the small group reports. Each small group used the same set of 200 images from the VisualsSpeak ImageSet. I highlighted the main points from each group below the videos.

• expansive nature of knowledge
• connected and web-like
• solve our own problems
• we will get tools
• truth shining light on things previously in shadows
• access for everyone
• stands out
• help pieces come together

• we are on a path and its all good
• learn tips to for keeping training from being boring
• inclusive of everyone
• universe to investigate
• keep it simple and on target

• taking things we are familiar with and recombining them
• origami sheets can become anything
• taking resources that we see at the conference, bringing them back and shaping them into something new
• excitement and energy form people who are here
• same building blocks, but new tools
• beating the drum to share the knowledge when we get back
• everyone putting their heads together to share knowledge

• people get together to share ideas
• discovery, people coming together
• discovery of each other
• interesting things
• path to discovery & knowledge
• learning new & interesting things
• contrast and same, create intriguing ideas
• measuring your progress

Working with the visual themes

What do you do with this kind of information? First, you can look at the visual quality of the images. Many of them are radiating forms, several groups using the exact images. So visually, radiating forms are attractive and speak to why people came to the conference.

When you look at the conference logo, all the words surrounding the brain are horizontal. They could have been arranged in a radiating pattern. It would have made the design more dynamic, and perhaps subconsciously more attractive to people who are looking for innovation.

The group participating in this workshop are particularly important to the success of a conference, since they were willing to make the investment of time and money to attend both the conference and a pre-conference workshop. Looking at the visual quality of the images these attendees selected, and repeating them in the marketing materials, could have helped to speak to them.

Working with the word themes

You can take the themes or the words people say, and build them right into your marketing descriptions. This group of people are interested in:

• bringing tools and ideas back to their organizations
• learning from each other, sharing knowledge and ideas
• making sure the learning is accessible and inclusive
• making sure the learning is on target and you can measure progress
• learning new things they can incorporate with what they know, restructuring and combining

When looking at these trends, you do need to be conscious of what the group has seen before. Like the advertising that brought them to this common event. Looking at the conference description in this case, the bolded section of the ad copy  is consistent. Perhaps that part of the message stuck?

The theme of this year’s conference is “Get your head in the clouds.”

Why clouds?

• Tag clouds, which are synonymous with Web 2.0 technologies
• Cloud computing, which refers to accessing shared computing resources
• Many original ideas come from innovators having their heads in the clouds.

We’re not inviting you to come daydream. Instead, this event will provide you with actual skills you can apply to advance learning within your organization.

You can also take this type of insight and apply it to physical space. This group wants to connect with peers. Are there conversation areas? Does the space support informal connections especially as people get tired? You need SEATING! Standing in the hall isn’t the same as being able to chat with someone at a small table.

What else do you see for patterns?

I hope this example gives you ideas for how you can use visuals to understand how people are thinking about something. In the process, they have fun and connect with each other more deeply.

Do you see anything else Brandon Hall might want to pay attention to for next year?

I will be facilitating a session, Using Visuals to Unlock Strategic Processes

In this experiential session we are going to tap into strategic problem-solving capabilities quickly and deeply. We’ll be using photographs as a way to unlock a group’s ability for innovation and creativity. This process is a way to bridge the verbal and visual, the tactical and strategic, and with the added benefit of building stronger teams. This is a low-tech process for getting high-tech results.

A number of my colleagues are facilitating pre-conference workshops.

Tom Crawford, the CEO of Vizthink, is facilitating a pre-conference session. Visualization for Learning: Approaches, Tools, and Applications to Improve Effectiveness. Here is a podcast with an interview I did with Tom.

During this one day workshop, we’ll explore what visualization approaches exist, how they can be applied, and what tools can be used to assist in the process. Visualization approaches can be used to improve the entire learning development process. Regardless of your specific development approach, visualization techniques can provide dramatic improvements to your analysis, design, development, implementation, and even evaluation processes. During this session, we’ll explore a variety of techniques that can be applied to each step of the development process. We’ll even put several of them to the test both on paper and online. No drawing skills are required.

Michele Martin from The Bamboo Project is also doing a pre-conference session with Janet Cleary, Social Media Jumpstart. Here is a podcast with an interview with Michele.

This pre-conference workshop is for those who want to maximize their conference experience by exploring the social Web before the conference begins. The workshop will introduce you to social media like blogs, social network sites, wikis, social bookmarking, photo sharing, Voice over IP, virtual worlds, instant messaging, videosharing, microblogging, etc. Delegates will be exposed to applications like WordPress, Facebook, Ning, wikis, delicious, SlideShare, Flickr, Skype,SecondLife, YouTube, Twitter, etc. Each media will be presented Pecha Kucha style followed by a brief, hands-on trial or demonstration. You’ll leave with the skills to explore each of these social media applications on your own while at the conference and later, at your workplace.

Gary Woodill and Anya Wood are doing a pre-conference workshop, Emerging Learning Technologies in Healthcare Training. Here is a podcast interview with Gary.

The use of technology in healthcare education has increased dramatically over the last decade, and none too soon. Because of rapid change, providing meaningful access to learning opportunities for both practitioners and the general public has become increasingly important. With the advent of the Internet the general public has become more knowledgeable and, in turn, demands access to healthcare education in a variety of different formats. Practitioners continue to experience time constraints and a need to relate training to practical, real-world experience, making accessibility and application to real-life top priorities.

I presented at this conference last year, and it was great. Not only were the sessions high quality, but the other participants were also very engaging. Here are posts I wrote about sessions last year:

• What is innovation in learning? This was the session I did.
  
• OilSim: Learning to explore for oil in an hour This session was facilitated by Olavur Ellefson who will be doing another session this year.
• Five Worlds of Learning 2.0 This session was facilitated by Lance Dublin, he is one of the keynotes this year.

I hope you will consider joining us in San Jose!