We first encountered graphic recording a few years ago when we were living in Glasgow. We attended a training association's visioning process and an individual graphically recorded the results of our conversations. Given our own rather limited experience, expertise and confidence in drawing, we were impressed with how this person was able to capture the "ethos" of that conversation.

We were excited to hear about a one day graphic facilitation workshop being offered here in Victoria in May by Christina Merkley of Make Your Mark. We conquered our fears and registered! It was an engaging, enlightening and fun day of addressing long held beliefs about creativity and art, and actually uncovering a bit about what's possible for us in terms of enhancing our own facilitation. We still have a long way to go in terms of developing the skill to actually facilitate or record graphically, but at least our flipcharts and workshop materials are starting to come alive!

Christina is an inspiring and gifted graphic facilitator and we would highly recommend her. Check out her website for a full description of her services and lots of examples of her work!

Business Blogs: A Practical Guidebook By Bill Ives, Ph.D. and Amanda G. Watlington, Ph.D., A.P.R.

Self Published in 2005
ISBN 0-9766180-0-1

If you want to find out more about blogging and you're looking for a single resource that has everything you'll need then this could be it. It's well written, has plenty of screen shots and is an easy engaging read.

This guide to blogging is divided into three sections. The first deals with the business side of blogging and answers questions such as - What is a blog and why would a business have one? The short answer is that blogging is a new way of communicating with people on the Internet which combines online journaling, discussion groups and subscription. Their popularity is rising dramatically; of particular interest to Muse readers might be the final chapter in section one that looks at how to use a blog within an organization to help improve communication, build community, manage knowledge and provide a platform for learning.

If section one has convinced you that you need to start a blog, then section two provides all the information you need to get started. It begins by discussing the various ways to get your blog hosted, and includes tips on defining your blog's audience, growing that audience and "writing powerful posts".

The final section provides details of 70 blog case studies. These are divided into five chapters covering Small to Mid-Size Business, Consultants, Non-Profit Organizations, Individuals in Large Organizations and Blog Tool and Service Providers. The authors interviewed 70 bloggers for this section and state "we decided to have them present their experience in their own way, using their own language . . . editing their words only in the interest of brevity and clarity."

The book is available in various formats (downloadable PDF, CD and paper), it's bang up to date (the interviews took place between July 2004 and March 2005), and I found it wonderful having all this information collected together in one place.

As we noted in the last issue, we had a number of Royal Roads graduate learners complete their major projects using LearningEdge. This month we provide a short summary of work done by Faye White of Faye White Consulting.

Faye worked with the Dr. Peter Centre in Vancouver to help them develop and sustain a learning organization. The Dr. Peter Centre is the legacy of Dr. Peter Jepson-Young who died of AIDS in 1992. For two years, beginning in 1992, he personalized the face of AIDS through his weekly "Dr. Peter Diaries" on CBC-TV. Today the Dr Peter Centre offers a Day Health Program and a 24-hour Assisted-Living Residence for those with HIV/AIDS. As Faye notes of her communications with staff there, "Living with and caring for people with HIV/AIDS represents a continuous path of learning. The nature of the illness, the efficacy of the treatment modalities, and the demographics of the affected population have changed since the initial onset of the illness and continue to do so."

Faye provided many valuable recommendations to the Dr Peter Centre on how to sustain their vision of being a learning organization and continues to work with them following the completion of her research project. She notes that she found 2 aspects of using the Learning Signature particularly valuable for her research:

1. The dialogue between the diverse stakeholders: The various perspectives provided richness to the dialogue and the learning that would not have been possible, if they met separately. This experience fully supports the democratic characteristic of action based research and which I believe has resulted in a level of shared ownership in this project that will sustain its future implementation.
2. The visual depiction of the Learning Signature provided an arms length focus for the group dialogue. It served as a vehicle that helped the disparate perspectives assess their situation with a level of objectivity that resulted in constructive, shared outcomes.

Visit Faye's website to learn more about her services.

Here are the scheduled workshops for 2005:

Vancouver - October 3-5
Toronto - November 21-23

Please contact us if you'd like more information about one of these or would like to suggest other dates and/or venues.