Category Archives: facilitation technique

ConverSketch: Graphic Recording and Facilitation

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ConverSketch provides high quality multi-media explainer videos for businesses and organizations to succinctly share their story or a product. These popular videos use hand-drawn illustrations and narrative to connect you with the right audience and encourage them to learn more about your story. Using graphic recording helps the group synthesize information, facilitates collaboration, creative thinking, sustained motivation for action, and brings energy to the group. Complex systems are visualized and the conversation is organized so that the group can free their minds from keeping track of details and focus on solution-making and innovative thinking.

Karina-GraphicFac

These graphics are an engaging way to:

• Help people track and engage with complex information
• See organizational systems and seemingly disparate ideas are connected
• Encourage action and maintain motivation after an event
• Distill and share the key ideas from an important event such as an executive retreat or strategic planning meetings
• Teach a new concept in a way that facilitates better memory of information
• See a different way to approach a challenge
• Find common ground between different stakeholder groups
• Get a group on the same page quickly
• Energize and have fun with your group!

More about Karina Mullen Branson
Karina_headshotKarina Mullen Branson is a graphic recorder and facilitator based in Fort Collins, Colorado and founder of ConverSketch. Graphic recording is a method of visual note-taking; simply put, Karina listens to your group talk and distills key ideas from the conversation/meeting/presentation/etc. She uses hand-drawn images and text to make a large-scale map of your ideas in real-time so participants can see the conversation as it emerges and develops. Karina was a member of the graphic recording team at NCDD’s 2012 conference in Seattle. She has also worked locally and internationally with clients including the United Nations University, BASF, the City of Fort Collins, the National Park Service, Colorado State University, and the Center for Public Deliberation.

Follow on Twitter: @ConverSketch

Resource Link: www.ConverSketch.com

Read the Room for Real

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Read the Room for Real: How a Simple Technology Creates Better Meetings (2015) by David Campt and Matthew Freeman is a 200-page book intended for facilitators, presenters, conference planners, or anyone who is curious about how to use increasingly accessible audience polling technology to improve meetings.

Read the RoomCampt and Freeman have a deep background in facilitating dialogues about difficult diversity issues and as well as refining dialogic processes on all matter of topics for very small to very large groups of people.

From the DWC Group…

Read the Room for Real answers these questions:

  • In my speeches and trainings, how can I make sure my my audience is with me?
  • In my conferences, how can I make sure the attendees feel connected to each other?
  • In my workshops, how can make sure that the group is using all of is brainpower?
  • In the meetings I pay for, how can I make sure that my organization gets information it can use, not just a big bill for an experience that participants may or may not not remember?

After reading, you will be able to use the newly accessible technology that can transform meeting audiences into participants. Knowing how to leverage the new interactivity will give you a competitive advantage over peers who are slow to apply the worldwide trend for greater participant voice and interactivity so every meetings merits praise.

Purchase it on Amazon here.

About David Campt
Dr. Campt currently provides consultation about race relations and diversity issues with United States congressional representatives, the foundation community, and national community organizations. In addition to his work as a program evaluator and trainer, Dr. Campt also has extensive experience as a designer of large-scale community engagements, dialogue facilitator and university lecturer. His first book, The Little Book of Dialogue for Difficult Subjects (2007), provides practical guidance about how individuals and organizations could use skills of dialogue to better solve shared problems.

Follow on Twitter: @thedialogueguy

About Matthew Freeman
Matthew is a facilitator and trainer with over 10 years experience working on race and diversity issues, civic engagement, and organizational development. He is the President of TMI Consulting, based in Richmond, Virginia. He has pioneered the use of cutting-edge audience response technology to make group conversations more productive and participatory. Matthew has published numerous articles on the subject, including “Using Keypad Polling to Make Meetings More Productive, Educational, and Participatory” in the National Civic Review.

Follow on Twitter: @rvamf

Resource Link: www.thedwcgroup.com/RTRFR

Six Tools for More Effective Nonprofit Board Meetings

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In this paper, Dr. Rick Lent of Brownfield & Lent provides directions for six tools that he finds particularly useful in improving the effectiveness of board meetings in nonprofit organizations.

All meetings have structures that influence which participants speak, how they sit, how time is managed, how thoughts are shared, and how decisions are made. People act as they do in a given structure because that’s what makes sense to them to do—without even thinking about it. Most structures go unnoticed even as they influence the way the meeting works. Nonprofit board meetings are no exception and may face additional challenges due to their large size (more than 10), mission focus, role of volunteers and so on. Fortunately, you can easily implement more effective structures—a more effective structure naturally builds productive discussions and helps the board stay on track and on time.

Resource Link: www.4good.org/rick-lent/five-tools-for-more-effective-non-profit-board-meetings

This resource was submitted by Rick Lent from Meetings for Results via the Add-a-Resource form.

Meeting for Results Tool Kit: Make Your Meetings Work

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MFR Tool Kit cover onlyThe Meeting for Results Tool Kit by Dr. Rick Lent of Brownfield & Lent provides a different approach to running effective meetings because it:

  • Helps you structure a naturally effective meeting instead of relying on rules or norms for guiding behavior.
  • Provides 12 clear choices and 31 supporting tools for planning, conducting and achieving results from meetings.
  • Serves as a job aid to plan and run meetings. As an e-book you can have it with you whenever you need it.

The Tool Kit is designed to help leaders who need to run effective board meetings, team meetings or staff meetings—in a nonprofit, academic, business, or community setting. It is for leaders who want to engage others in getting work done through their meetings. This e-book helps you structure meetings for success and a better structure naturally supports more effective discussions and better results.

Resource Link: http://amzn.to/PJEyJY

This resource was submitted by Rick Lent from Meetings for Results via the Add-a-Resource form.

The Art of Convening: Authentic Engagement in Meetings

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Art Of Convening coverIn their book, The Art of Convening, authors Craig and Patricia Neal explore their “Art of Convening” engagement model and how it goes “beyond facilitating”. According to their book, convening creates an environment in which all voices are heard, profound exchanges take place, and transformative action results. The heart of this book is the Convening Wheel — a series of nine steps, or Aspects, that bring the practices and principles needed for authentic engagement together as a whole. The book provides exercises, stories, and questions to help you master both the inner and outer dimensions of this work — because, in convening, the state of the Convener is equally as important as the physical preparations. The book…

  • Details a powerful set of principles and practices for making any gathering productive, meaningful, and transformative
  • Draws on the authors’ decades of experience convening meetings in all kinds of settings
  • Offers practical wisdom on both the inner and outer aspects of convening

Convening works in any setting and can be adapted to virtually any group process. With this book you have all the tools you need to develop this essential life and leadership skill, one that will lead to improved outcomes in your organization, community, family, and relationships.

Some “back of the book” quotes…

“In this wise and thoughtful book, Craig and Patricia Neal help readers understand what’s needed to create the kind of authentic ‘meeting’ where true collective wisdom can emerge in group settings. They remind us that convening is an ancient art, one that can be critical to our capacity to survive and thrive in today’s challenged world.”
- Juanita Brown and David Isaacs, Co-Originators, The World Café

“Few people have refined the process of bringing people together as gracefully and elegantly as Craig and Patricia Neal. How we convene is much more than simple technique or facilitation; it is an expression of who we are and what kind of world we want to create. If their thinking and methodology were to become common practice, there would be more peace and connectedness and good will all around.”
- Peter Block, Author & Troublemaker

“These days we spend so much time working together in groups, doesn’t it make sense to learn how to do it better, smarter, deeper, and more authentically? If your answer, like mine, is “yes,” then like me you’ll love this book! It is both wise and worthwhile, profound and practical.”
- Alan M. Webber, co-founder, Fast Company magazine

As co-founders of Heartland Inc., Craig and Patricia Neal have led over 170 “Thought Leader Gatherings” with leaders from over 800 diverse organizations. Their new book shares their Art of Convening model — developed in these gatherings and refined over six years of intensive trainings.

Resource Link: www.heartlandcircle.com/aocbook.htm

This resource was submitted by Patricia Neal, co-founder of Heartland Inc., via the Add-a-Resource form.

Training and Facilitation Tools from The Communications Center

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The Communications Center, Inc., based in Columbia, Missouri, is a consultancy led by Sarah Read and Dave Overfelt that helps individuals, organizations, and communities improve communication and thinking skills so they can work better together.

In addition to a workbook, The Communications Center has developed a number of products that support training and facilitation services. The following products are offered:

Dialogue Cards and Techniques
This set of cards helps individuals understand and practice dialogue skills. The cards can be used in training by small groups for a matching exercise, used in a mediation to help people better understand and evaluate communication patterns, and provided to individuals to help them on an ongoing basis to think about what is working and not working in their communications. We have successfully used these cards with a wide range of audiences — everyone from corporate teams to teens at a juvenile justice center.

Each purchase of the dialogue cards comes with a summary of dialogue techniques and a written procedure for using the cards.

Cognitive Error Worksheet
This worksheet can be used in training facilitators or to engage and educate participants before or during difficult dialogues.

Cognitive Error Worksheet for Schools and Teens
The examples in this worksheet have been adapted for use in trainings for teachers or teens.

“Conflict Resolution in a Box”
Originally designed for trainings, this bookmark has become one of our most useful tools. We use it for anything from quick introductions to the basic principles of conflict resolution to coaching in mediation or facilitation sessions. Once participants understand the graphics, it becomes an easy diagnostic tool that can be used by facilitators and participants to identify “the sticking places” in a difficult dialogue, and “unpack” the conversation so that it can move forward.

Set of Bookmarks
Our trainings frequently include “food for thought” slides that set forth a quote which highlights a particular point. We then include these quotes on “bookmarks” that clients take at the end of a session. Our clients have told us that these are easy to keep on hand and that they help with ongoing learning. These bookmarks, sold in individual or mixed packs of 10, can be customized with your name and address on the back for an additional cost of $10. Please contact us for this option.

These products can be purchased for individual use by other trainers and facilitators. We can also license these for use and provide electronic files to organizations for more regular usage. If you are interested in learning more about licensing arrangements, please contact us at info@buildingdialogue.com.

Resource Link: http://buildingdialogue.wordpress.com/products/