Today is the presentation of "The Visual Faculty of Survival Academy" at VizThink.

It will be interesting what the response will be - and if it will create a potential build up of faculty members for the Acedemy.

What do you think?

IUCN Council Retreat

IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, is a network which represents more than 1000 organisations and 10.000 experts and scientist worldwide, that all work together across boundaries and cultures in solving some of the planet's greatest challenges, conserving biodiversity and the well-being of all species. 

IUCN has achieved many great results in the 60 years, that the organisation has existed but the world still faces grave challenges in a rapid changing world. The IUCN council held in January the 31st a two day retreat in Evian, France, to discuss the role and opportunities of IUCN in the future. 

Bigger Picture was a part of the Council Retreat as graphic facilitators creating three visual walls during the two days. Furthermore after a introduction to Graphic Facilitation, the participants contributed with their own illustrations of the challenges that their organisation faces. Besides the personal contribution to the shared picture the IUCN Council started to build a unique visual language database together with Bigger Picture to be used in communication of the complex research and knowledge that IUCN holds. 

Stine Arensbach Szlavik

Young Leaders for Nature

Leaders for Nature is a global network of business leaders under IUCN, that together strive to ensure sustainability and nature conservation agendas as a inherent part of future business.

Young Leaders for Nature, Holland – a programme of LFN – host an annual Forum, where young business leaders from some of the biggest dutch companies together with their CEO’s and members of the board lay down directions and commitments for the companies’ sustainability actions for the coming year.

This year in January the Young Leaders for Nature Summit was held at Cap Gemini in Utrecht, Holland, where Bigger Picture contributed as a part of the facilitation team. During the summit Bigger Picture created a 18 meter big picture with summary from key note speakers, highlights from the day, the participant’s ideas and commitments plus statements that the participants contributed with.

Bigger Picture gave also an introduction to graphic facilitation, where the 250 young leaders and board members was introduced to the power of visual language by putting their own pen to the paper and drawing their challenges and wished for the future. 

www.naturefornature.nl

www.iucn.org

Posted by Stine Arensbach Szlavik

Have you seen/re-seen this?

If you have not yet seen “The Story of Stuff” with Annie Leonard. If you have watch it again. It is a great way to use visuals to communicate something complex. We work with big pictures (templates, posters) which can help people engage - offline - around important topics.

Ole Qvist-Sørensen

Double up + Zooming in on sustainability

Starting January 1st 2009. Stine Arensbach has joined Bigger Picture. Stine is a skilled graphic facilitator with a sharp mind and pen.

Watch out for things to change in our communication and deliveries. (Photo is made by Andreas Szlavik, click for further information)

We have also doubled up on sustainability and will increasingly work with organisations and projects which deal with some of the real complex issues facing the planet we are stewards of.

Ole Qvist-Sørensen

Arrived in San Francisco

I have just landed in San Francisco, where I will be for almost a week. First to prepare, then to participate in the second VizThink conference in San Jose. Over 250 people form the visual language, thinking and practice community will be here and explore the many different ways in which visuals can used.

Take a look at the website and download the program. There are plenty of sessions - also ones which can be followed online. Tuesday morning I will be hosting a session around how visuals can create a better world (and this includes a presentation of the Visual Faculty) and Wednesday morning I am facilitating a workshop called "The Power of the White Canvas".

Ole Qvist-Sørensen

The Bigger Picture Blog

Today we at Bigger Picture are launching our blog on visual thinking, visual language and visual tools. The blog will reflect on both our work as process consultants and visual practitioners and on tools and guidelines for improving and developing the visual language.

We are especially interested in how the visual language can provide a communication platform for sustainable and world change issues and projects. In our daily work we therefore strive to connect the visual community with people and organisations with sustainability on the agenda that face a communication challenge. 

We invite you to comment, asking questions and helping us bringing this blog to life. 

Enjoy!

Ole and Stine