papershine

This past weekend we had the last two days of the 20 hour mediation course. I have posted all of the notes I took during the four days. We spent a lot of time in role plays and natural, flowing conversations, which I did not document. Graphic notes such as these are intended for people who attended the course, but are fun for anyone to decipher. I did these with Sharpie’s and watercolor pencils on regular paper. I did them at my desk. Notes done on big paper with a whole class create a different record, one owned and understood by everyone in the group.

We talked about what do to in case of an

We had a most interesting discussion about what to do when a brainstorming session goes south…

I am taking a basic mediation course put on by The Mediation Center in Asheville. The course is based on facilitated conversation, micro-lectures and lots of role-playing. It’s been enlightening. I’ve been taking graphic notes during the talky parts of the curriculum. Page two, below, includes a collective definition of mediation, and compares the process against litigation and abitration, in which a guy wearing a floppy tophat decides the solution to your conflict. Not sure what I was trying to accomplish there.

On the first day we did fairly typical, if blazingly fast, introductions. On day two, we started with this slightly more unorthodox and familiar approach.

This is a description of the process of active listening, an essential skill of good mediators, facilitators and trainers. It’s about being present and being curious, which are probably different ways of saying the same thing.

The final graphic from the co-op board meeting posted inside the store.

Last week Amanda George and I did another day of Postive and Productive Meetings training, this time just outside of Macon, Georgia. Eighty people involved in Georgia’s Good2Great project attended the daylong session.

We used this poster as a way to help people focus on the various parts of the process. We colored each of the four main points as we began our discussions on the topic and referred people back to the questions as a way to frame the day.

This poster captured the group’s feedback about what was working and not working in their current meeting practices. My favorite picture is the little man who is ’sticking to the agenda’ under the ‘working’ heading.

Last week I ventured down to Atlanta to train a group of human service organizations on Positive and Productive Meetings. Here are a handful of the action-graphics created during the course. There’s a full posting on the day at the PPM site.