VizThink 09 Highlights VII: John Wards' Kinesthetic Modeling

John Ward leading our workshop

I saw some outstanding talks at VizThink 09, and met some really interesting people - but the greatest takeaway from the three days was definitely my introduction to Kinesthetic Modeling.

The workshop was led by John Ward of Many Minds. John is one of the nicest men you'll ever meet. I'd been introduced to John last year, when he was doing the graphic recording of the Leadership Challenge event I attended in Sonoma, so I was happy to see him again.

I knew that John was on the agenda at VizThink, but apologized to him - I wouldn't be able to attend his workshop, because I needed to see another one.

John, gentleman that he is, scheduled a follow-up session for myself and a number of others who also expressed disappointment at missing his session.

So, Tuesday night we all gathered to learn about Kinesthetic Modeling.

I am a camera...

John issued each table of 4 a bag of 'holy scrap' - odds and ends that possess no inherent meaning - and asked us to dump the bag on the table. Then he walked us through a quick process:

1. Each of us were to grab 3-4 pieces that 'spoke to us'.
   
2. Organize the pieces in a manner that said something about us
3. Let the other members of our table tell us what they see.
4. Share what we saw and meant to convey.

My arrangement is displayed above. My tablemates saw a swimming pool with aliens.
I saw a collection of technical hardware (I'm an engineer), that were very toy-like (I still love to play), and I arranged them into a camera (my favorite toy, tool, and mode of expression).

That was interesting, but the big project was yet to come:
Our team project called for us to model the current economic situation and its impact on the visual thinking community. To say we were skeptical would be an understatement.

The four of us modeled in silence. It was really bizarre to model and utilize resources with no conversation. I had no idea what my colleagues were making, so just did my own thing and tried to stay out of their way.

After about 15 minutes, John asked us to stop.

We were left with what you see below.

The current economic situation and its impact on the visual thinking community

John asked us to walk around the table, commenting on items we didn't construct, and write down what we saw in those objects. After we did that, the people who constructed them told us their intention. We were aligned on many items, but very different on others.

Our next step was to create meaning from all the observations, and capture our key thoughts.

Our thoughts...

You'll see that our thoughts were quite profound for such a quick activity:

• Our beacon (the spoon) is surrounded by barriers.
• The community is outside the wall.
• Shelters from the storm look frighteningly similar to traps.
• Walls had been built through fear, but they are keeping the community from the 'gold'.
  

I don't think I've ever seen an activity bring that much alignment on a complex issue so quickly.

I'll be trying this one with my internal teams in the near future.

I would highly recommend that you attend one of John's workshops and see this methodology for yourself. It's very powerful.