Dell recently did a very impressive thing: they invited influential bloggers who had ranted about their products and services online to come to their headquarters and have a real conversation about what they’re doing wrong and how they can do it better. It’s not easy to get feedback on things that matter the most to us – and these “ranters” didn’t mince words – but it says a lot about the dedication of Dell’s team to figuring out who the company should be in the future and how they can best serve their customers. The event lasted 2 days, and they did get relief from the initial barrage of critiques when they hosted people on the second day who were actually happy with Dell. But I’m seeing many more of these interactive, face-to-face, collaborative sessions because of the rapid shift to the “social” marketplace. Businesses have to be responsive to stay alive…and that includes my own.

I was absolutely impressed with the Zappos Insights Bootcamp. It’s a 2-day workshop designed to expose people to their famous culture – the values that drive it and the people and policies that keep it growing. I was so impressed, in fact, that I’ll write another blog post soon showing the video with interviews from some participants. The images above were the four 32-square-foot murals I created for the group while they were in the workshop. Tony Hsieh, the CEO, and Alfred Lin, the CFO, made presentations during the session and I think people were a little bit starstruck. The Zappos guys have officially reached celebrity status, but they remain humble. One principle I took away from the session (among many) was that hubris gets you nowhere, quickly. More to come.

I always say, when you can SEE a challenge, you can solve a challenge. This graphic recording session was with Dell’s Higher Education Marketing team. They have a comprehensive and executable strategy for moving hi-ed institutions toward virtualization, but the team needed to see how the many moving parts fit together and determine how they should be labeled. This was a 1/2-day conversation wherein I facilitated and graphically recorded. The output you see above represents the large-scale visual archive created with the group. And FYI, I do not envy marketing people. I know how hard it is to articulate services and their value to clients. I suppose that’s why I prefer to draw pictures for explanations.

Again this year I was lucky enough to be invited to participate as the graphics curator and a graphic recorder for SXSW Interactive. Above are the murals I created live during Valerie Casey’s keynote (Founder of the Designers Accord) and Twitter CEO Evan William‘s keynote. The crowd during the keynotes was 4,000 strong this year, so there were a lot of eyeballs and a lot of energy. Enough to make a girl want to take a nap. Many thanks to Shawn O’Keefe, SXSW Interactive Director, and Hugh Forrest, SXSW Event Director, for letting sunnibrown.com bring the live graphics crew. SX isn’t a bad place to showcase. And Fred Lakin was kind enough to create a stop-motion video showing how the process unfolds. Take a peek here.

Below are pictures from the event so you get the general idea of what I was up to. The first is a picture of other people taking pictures of the graphic I created live. The second is a snapshot from our Visual Notetaking 101 panel and the third is the crowd – which was awesome. I’ll soon post the actual graphic records from Twitter CEO Evan William’s keynote and from the keynote with Valerie Casey, Founder of the Designers Accord. In the meantime, may all your SX dreams come true. Assuming you’re getting some sleep.

]]> http://sunnibrown.com/2010/03/19/sxsw-interactive-2010-done-and-done/feed/ 5 http://sunnibrown.com/2010/02/23/producing-tedx-austin-at-klru-austin-city-limits/ http://sunnibrown.com/2010/02/23/producing-tedx-austin-at-klru-austin-city-limits/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:37:33 +0000 Sunni http://sunnibrown.com/?p=1199

Producing TEDx Austin felt like birthing some kind of gigantic baby. I think I can speak for the entire team – Nancy Giordano, Jen Spencer, Kelley Burrus, Shannon Mehner, Chris Justice, Mary Baird-Wilcox and Stacy Weitzner – when I say that it would be impossible to capture the experience in one word. There were triumphs, frustrations, elation, teamwork, tough decisions, and absolute overjoy at what we were putting together. And through it all was the undeniable knowledge that Austin, TX needed and deserved a killer TEDx. That our little town is growing up, transforming into a big city with a big heart, a big brain and ideas that are big beyond belief. I have to give thanks to my graphics team, composed of Honoria Starbuck and Austin Kleon, but if I started thanking all of the other heads and hands that were involved, you would probably stop reading this blog post. (We all know that in this day and age, people want pictures.)

Some personal highlights for me:

• Seeing the program designed by the Butler Brothers and the video that showed its creation. One of those ‘wow’ moments.
• Establishing a relationship with Shiny Object – a film production company whose work I admire and enjoy.
• Connecting with Philip Berber and his wife Donna of the Glimmer of Hope Foundation.
• Hanging out with a freaky astronaut and a sexy firefighter.
• The fact that we had 10,000+ individuals who watched the livestream (29% of which were in New Zealand!)
• Working with a team of women who were indomitable.
• NOT working during the event itself. I so often graphically record or contribute to the group process in some live, visual way that I just wanted to be present and enjoy the birth of our big ole idea baby. (The graphic architectures above were created by me beforehand and the audience populated them with content over the course of the day.)
• Being thanked on stage for our efforts and feeling how much the crowd really did appreciate it.
• Going to the TEDx Rejects party at Conjunctured afterward. Word up, rejects.
• Slowly absorbing long after the event was over how truly incredible it was. Is it too dramatic to thank God for the TED people? I mean, it’s not just an event they’ve created. It’s a humanitarian movement. And I think that’s worth saying thank you for.

Onward to TEDx Austin 2011.

HMSA (Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Hawai’i) has risen to the top of my client list due to the nature of the projects we’re involved with and my deep respect for the efforts of the leadership and the Innovation Team. They are transforming the organization in service to their customers and I’ve been lucky enough to become a part of their team, partnering with them on visual thinking training, graphic recording for leadership meetings, design consultations on presentations and workshops and a large history mapping project in the making. My projects with them are always rewarding and I appreciate the partnership. I also appreciate that I get to go to Hawaii to work with them. Nothing wrong with doing the hula while you work.

BrightSpot had its first international invitation this year, to attend the CLIC Conference at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, India. The conference was hosted by the Centre for Leadership, Innovation and Change and it gave a forum to CEOs and other high-level execs to discuss business and spirituality – yes Americans, I did use them in the same sentence. Each presenter in his or her own way described the possibilities for overlaps in those two fields. It was very inspirational content and I did my best to graphically capture it given that I’m not a cultural native and the acoustics were, ahem, insane. But I was so happy to be invited to work for the Indian School of Business that I could have gotten a parasite and still felt it was worthwhile. Click here to see the murals I created as well the conference itself. And Namaste to you and yours.

Nothing like seeing a prospective cover for your book makes you feel inclined to start churning chapters out! (I hope it’s having the same effect on my co-authors.) Ladies and gentleman, I’m thrilled to show you for the first time the cover for the magnum opus that Dave Gray, James Macanufo and I have been working on for what seems like the last eight years. Please click on the link to see the blog for the book. (O’Reilly may partner with us to create a more formal site, but in the meantime, all the action is happening at Knowledge Games.) The purpose of the book is to give people games to help them access solutions to business problems that–if they follow traditional problem-solving methods–they may not otherwise access. It’s going to be awesome if I do say so myself.

The Centre for Leadership, Innovation and Change holds an annual conference in India called Igniting the Genius Within. So, due to a string of seemingly random events, I was invited to participate as a graphic recorder in this year’s conference in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India. The participants in this conference are representative of a sort of new breed of business person – one who combines wisdom and spirituality with management skills and entrepreneurship. Since (a) I had never been to India and (b) the combination of business and spirituality was intriguing, I decided to go. It was at the Indian School of Business – a school that is so prestigious that when U.S. presidents go to India, they visit it. All told, it was a wonderful professional and cultural experience that marked my first international partnership. And now that I am stocked on up Azithromycin and malaria pills, I hope it won’t be the last.

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