papershine

Someone somewhere has already written the post-it novel. Mini chapters or scenes are plastered on telephone poles, mailboxes and in other public places. The lucky reader finds them in sequence, but each sticker stands alone. There are more pragmatic post-it applications for novelists as well.

I use post-it notes to lay out almost everything. As a visual thinker, post-it’s represent the easiest way to see and move raw ideas and information. There are countless little apps for my computer that claim they can get me organized. Fact is, organizing isn’t an outcome, but a process. How cool and tidy it looks as I do it is less important than how it helps me think. Post-it’s are sloppy and low-tech, but they allow for spatial and sequential understanding. I can see how the story moves. I can try out alternate scenarios in ten seconds. The post-it’s show all, all at once.

This image below shows a novel in progress laid out in color coded post-its on my bedroom wall. The small pink numbers represent chapters already written. The orange chapters aren’t done yet. In addition to allowing for free-flowing narrative manipulation, the post-its provide motivation and keep track of my progress. Notice that chapter 18 got done before 17. I write my chapters in sequence but noticed that crucial narrative elements were missing. The post-its made it easy to identify this issue and try out possible fixes. Manipulating narrative like this is very difficult in a word processing program, where no more than two pages can be displayed at a time.

The bigger blue and green notes are brief summaries of the chapters. In some cases I draw little pictures that help me to remember the scene later, when the idea is less fresh. The other tiny notes are a hodgepodge of dialogue ideas and smaller, but equally compelling details. I also use the tiny notes to track back on changes that have to be made to earlier chapters. This helps me to keep my writing process moving forward without forgetting to go back and introduce a bit character’s name in chapter three.

Using post-its like this has some drawbacks, like vacuuming, visiting toddlers and potential embarrassment if you’re story contains more explicit elements and happens to be posted in the living room when your boss drops by.

To make data migration easier, stick the notes to blank flip chart pages. They can be rolled up and stored in place or carried into the bedroom before company comes over.

This series of three graphics are based on work done by organizations taking part in Oregon’s Good to Great system’s change project, facilitated by OTAC. During their last quarterly meeting, each agency sketched out a visual depiction of their journey thus far, during the first 18 months of the project. They all chose different metaphors, but similar themes surfaced. Each agency had trouble getting started and each reached a turning point. The power of their individual metaphors allows them to share these ideas in different, but equally compelling ways.

I did not take part in the last quarterly, as Abe was fresh to the world in those days. It made redrafting the images hard, because I did not hear their words explaining the metaphor and the images chosen. I particularly struggled with the analogy of a race, as used by PCL. The project certainly has elements of traveling, but hopefully not over the same ground again and again. And the real competition is to improve upon our own work, not to defeat anyone else. And yesterday when we looked over the images again, the people who drew the original brought up the same concerns.

Visual metaphors are incredibly powerful, but that power can turn against the creator quite easily. The strength of a metaphor lies in its depth. So the race metaphor worked as movement or even as an organized team approach, but failed at the crux of what racing on a track is, going over your tracks again and again. As one of the creators pointed out, their effort was more like the Baja 500. It’s a straight race, where you never know what’s over the next rise. Sounds a lot more like system’s change work. The easy fix was to put a ramp off the race track. If we were to develop this further, we would pursue the Baja 500 metaphor, if for no other reason than the fun of drawing off road vehicles.

The images below link to the OTAC page where the full-sized files reside.

I created this quick tutorial to help people understand what a P.A.T.H. is and how to read and contribute to one. This is part of a larger personal project to launch our family back to the East Coast. This tutorial is no substitute for full P.A.T.H. training; it’s merely intended to help the unfamiliar navigate the process.

A P.A.T.H. is a planning process that uses graphic facilitation and a specific template to guide people towards taking action. It is a shared process in which a community of people come together to support a person or group to make a dream happen.
1 The title defines the P.A.T.H.’s purpose.
2 The conversation begins with the North Star or the dream. This is the global view, the big dream, the themes and values that guide the actions.
3 The goals are clustered around themes and must be Positive and Possible.
4 The first column in the arrow, Now tells us where we’re starting from. This should set up tension between where we are and where we want to go.
5 P.A.T.H.’s build community. Enroll invites people to take specific, productive action that makes the goals happen.
6 Stronger captures the things we need in life to keep going, to push towards our goals over the long term.
7 We start with a mid-point 7 and work back to set tasks.
8+ Further mid-points help to break down the long and demanding parts of the P.A.T.H. into manageable chunks.
9 The last and most important step tells us how to begin, starting tomorrow to make these dreams come true.

A reminder from P.A.T.H. training to facilitate and record the process as a duo.

Disruption is the one constant for young people with developmental disabilities in the service supports system. Many kids move from placement to placement, pushed along by rules regarding age and suitability of setting. All young people must move from their existing program, generally a group or foster home, when they turn eighteen. Even under the best of circumstances, this transition is difficult. There’s great uncertainty; it is often very hard to find any openings, never mind a place the kid really wants to move to. The process is cumbersome as well, involving a host of people sometimes dispersed across the vast expanse of Oregon. There are often people involved with overlapping roles, but with very different expectations. This graphic was created to help clarify the process and who is responsible for the various steps.

The “Transitioning Youth” graphic demonstrates a complex, yearlong, 18 step process on a single page. Icons and text reinforce each other and tell a story. This learning graphic is laid out to invite note-taking, engaging users on many levels all at once. The color key at the bottom clarifies role accountability within the process and is clear even when printed or copied in black and white.

Click the image below to link to a larger, more legible version. Many thanks to Amber Desjarlais for her help.

There are so many strong mission statements guiding weak organizations that I mistrust all mission statements. Thick with buzz words and platitudes, they represent an average of thought and conviction,

A true mission is not static and neither should be its description. A statement that guides a group towards their greatest potential good would not be a statement at all; it would be a conversation, a rich and turbulent dialogue. It would be ongoing and ever-changing and include the voices of everyone in the organization. Modern tech and old school sheets of big paper are ideal ways to facilitate this conversation and make it an active part of organizational culture. Without regular dialogue, missions become stale. They lose their relevance and ability to guide.

Reinvent.

Songlines is an online journal or blog that I started in March 2005 when my wife and I discovered she was pregnant. Abe was born in October, but I continue to maintain the journal. The blog includes my stories and essays and Kristin’s artwork and other images from the pregnancy and Abe’s early days. Family and friends visit often to stay connected to newest of the tribe. For Christams this year K and I decided to collect the writing I did for the blog and her artwork into a book for those closest to us.

I laid the book out in Adobe InDesign, easily the coolest software ever. I printed all twelve copies at home on an Epson Photo R1800. This machine does magnificent inkjet prints at up 13″ by 19″ (or more with rolled paper.) The pages were printed on tabloid paper (11″ x 17″), cropped at Kinko’s by an inept young man, creased with a bone folder and stapled together, magazine style. The finished book is 8.5 inches by 8.5 inches.

Here are a couple of page spreads from the Songlines book. The images below link to more legible, larger versions.