Sketchnotes about how to fill the seats in a workshop

I’ve completed the five modules in Butts in Seats, which I first wrote about here. If you are considering adding a line of workshops to your business, I can’t recommend this webinar series strongly enough. It was worth every penny. I learned at least three things that I hadn’t thought about in each module. That means that I paid about $30 for each tip and they were absolutely worth it.

However, it’s got the same caveat that many how to webinars do. It teaches you what to do and how to do it. What remains after is that you now know how much work there is remaining.

This webinar is geared toward creating a new line of business and not about filling one workshop. That said, you are always free to select the tasks based on how much work you want to do and how badly you need to fill the seats.

I’ve posted my sketchnotes here for anyone who is interested.

Butts in Seats Sketchnotes

I’ve completed three of Daphne Bosquet’s sessions now, one that was a freebie and two that were part of her commercial Butts in Seats workshop.

Each one contains lots of real value, even to someone like me who was an ad hoc marketer for many, many years. But the most exciting pieces for me were three killer ideas with 1, 2, 3, instructions.  There was one in each session.

They are something that I can use right now and can add to a future toolkit. And I have never found them anywhere else. Thank you, Daphne, for sharing your secrets!!!

I have Sketchnoted all three sessions. You can see the two from the commercial workshop here. Still need to photograph the other.

Recommendation: If you are planning to develop and market a workshop, don’t move forward without Daphne’s brilliant assistance!

Another visual curriculum map and a quick lesson on buying learning online

Just in case you’re still interested in visual thinking, here’s another curriculum map.

First, an update on the course I was taking on Graphic Facilitation. For me, it was a bust. It was a course taught by a seasoned professional who didn’t have the heart of an educator.

Educators are generous with their knowledge and with their audience. This guy wasn’t. Most learner requests or suggestions were answered with a quick “No, we’re not doing that.” Often the response was that we were the test group so we were half price and shouldn’t feel as if we would get the full package. Or that they were really busy right now with their business and family and couldn’t really do more. Sorry. A variety of “No” answers.

I quit halfway through. I have to admit that I probably knew from the first paid course I took from this same group that this wasn’t going to be a great experience. However, I hoped I was wrong ’cause this was a more expensive offer. It wasn’t. Yeah, I fell twice. And now, NEVER AGAIN.

I am now taking a different paid online course, called Butts in Seats by Daphne Bosquet. It’s about how to market a workshop. . . to the right audience.

Here’s the lesson. It’s about buying decision making and it’s a bit of a “Duh.”

If you are going to spend a significant amount of money on an online learning product, do your research. If there is a free offering, check it out. If the free one doesn’t share BIG value with you, don’t sign up for the paid one. This is also true for white papers and research. If they don’t offer big value as a trial, they’re not going to offer big value. Period.

I tried Daphne out by taking her free one hour webinar where she shares 5 marketing tips for filling a workshop.  It was BRILLIANT!!! There were at least three tips that I walked away with that had BIG value. Two I might have come up with on my own, but the one was a mind blower. And it was practical. 1. Do this, 2.go here to do it 3. here’s what it will cost 4. here’s what you do once you have it.

The result of her generosity is that I have since signed up and paid for her Butts in Seats workshop and I’ve attended the first session. Again, she delivers value beyond the cost, from the first encounter.

My buying lesson is, if it’s not great from the start, it’s likely not going to get better. If there isn’t a free sample offered that blows you away, the chance that it will blow you away once you pay for it is slim. My selling lesson is, if you sell an online course (or any kind of course) based on your expertise, you have opened a window into the value of a relationship with you. Deliver big value or risk your reputation.

Okay, enough. That map. I put these up here so that you can steal any metaphor images you like and add them to your collection.

Visual essays

I’m not going to spoil the effect by posting a image here.

Click the link to see some lovely visual essays. This is a site to get lost in. I loved her Dinner with a Stranger story.

Do you think this is done with Prezi?

I also had to add this one which I found about about through  Anuschka’s new blog. Fantasy foodscapes. Wow.

Graphic recording styles

Great examples of a variety of visual recordings from this year’s conference of the International Forum of Visual Practitioners.

I have to go back and study ’cause I know there are a variety of tricks here that I can use. What did you find?

Oh! And my new printer will print index cards so my very own set of metaphor images is beginning!!!!

Glorious data

If you haven’t seen Hans Rosling’s 2003 TED talk on data visualization, you’re missing a treat. He animates the data to debunk several myths about the world economy. The concept resonates with the graphic facilitation stuff that I’m learning. I just don’t know where it fits yet.

What do you think? What did you learn that you didn’t know before?

Today, we draw

The next assignment was to draw how we would care for ourselves and post it near our desks. I always re-imagine my assignments ’cause they are for MY learning, not the instructors, just like I did when I asked my economics prof if I could answer a different question than the one he asked ’cause we had already covered that point. I wrote a haiku about real estate supply and demand. Well, someone had to.

So here is a drawing showing facilitation challenges and actions that I can take to address, compensate for or just redirect my attention away from.

I’m learning to draw big with these BIG Copic markers. I think what I need from them are light colors to use as washes. The ones that I love are these big brush markers — much more easy for me to control. What kinds of tools do you use in the moment on paper that work for you? I’m searching.

Journey Map

Our first assignment in my graphic facilitation course was to create and upload a video introduction. We could use anything we wanted and so far people had.

I started with a drawing and I thought I’d share it here. I’ll do the next one on paper. I have a 200 foot role of 4 foot wide paper and a bunch of OUTSTANDINGLY GORGEOUS big fat markers coming. Can’t wait to see what happens.

My favorite part is the kid with wildly flapping arms as I tried to fly. Ran into the fence when lift off fell a little short.

Do you have flying scars?

How Pictures Work

I just read a wonderful book titled Picture This: How pictures work written by Molly Bang. In it Bang, an award winning children’s book artist, explores color, shape, size and proximity to find the emotions hidden within the picture frame. She invites you into the experiment while she moves and changes simple solid color cutouts. Together you discover the following principles on how pictures work:

1. Smooth flat horizontal shapes give us a sense of stability and calm.
2. Vertical shapes are exciting and active.
3. Diagonal shapes imply motion or tension.
4. The upper half of a picture is a place of freedom, happiness and triumph
5. The center of the page is the center of attention
6. White backgrounds feel safer than dark backgrounds
7. Pointy shapes are scary; rounded shapes are comforting. [And I thought I came up with this myself when I finally drew the right wolf for my 3 Little Pigs sketchnote.]
8. The larger an object the stronger it feels
9. We associate shapes with the same color more strongly than shapes with the same shape
10. Contrast enables us to see

Just ’cause I’ve written the points down here doesn’t mean you’ve gotten it all. There are many nuances that she covers that aren’t included in the points above. It’s a brilliant book that covers a complex subject deeply. . . in 96 pages. And that’s the beauty of a children’s book illustrator. She can tell a complicated story simply, preserving all the story’ complexity.

Graphic Facilitation — I’m so EXCITED!!!

I just signed up for a 6 month graphic facilitation course on line through Alphachimp Studios.

If you too are  interested, there are a few seats left. You can find out more at: http://thatcreativespace.com/play

I don’t have a picture yet for the new course which begins next month, but here’s my visual introduction from a short, fun course that I took with them that merely got my feet wet. It was $250 and was worth that, but not more.

This next course is a full blown graphic facilitation course online. At first thought, it seemed expensive, especially if if weren’t 1/2 off as an introductory course. Half off is $2000.

However, here’s my reasoning for why it’s worth $2000:

1. There are two online modules per month for 6 months. Estimated working time per week is 60-90 minutes. That means that it’s 36 hours of learning time, or $55/hour, the cost of an in-state tuition college class.
2. The content is coming for experts in the graphic facilitation industry.
3. They’re willing to share ALL of their knowledge, not only about graphic facilitation skills but the total practice, all the way down to pricing. Pricing anything has always been a struggle for me.
4. It’s equivalent to the cost of a conference.
5. It’s tax deductible as a business expense.
6. It’s a framework for forced practice.

I’m hoping that it’s much more interactive than the fun course and that it contains MUCH more technical information, which it appears to have. So few of these courses, Sketchnoting and others have how to stuff. They seem to attract people with plenty of drawing how to who are looking for a way to apply their drawing skills to a new medium/methodology. I don’t have that kind of drawing skill, although I’m working on it.

I toyed with the idea of spending this kind of money and time on drawing rather than this specific application, however, they said seats were running out and before I knew it, my fingers had entered my PayPal information. Does the autofill in Google Chrome make purchases speed faster than thought for you too?

I’ll be sharing what I learn through this blog, which for a while seems to have become All Sketchnotes All the Time. Or mostly sketchnotes most of the time, anyway.

What do you think? Does graphic facilitation interest you? Want to know more?