Hello Richard, and everyone else
I had written:
> > Your comments about the use of graphics and drawing skills sparked a
> > series of notions that I would like to relate...
And on Wed, Richard Holloway responded-replying to LO16735 said:
> Hi, Mike--
> your post raised a question in my mind--which is, how much similarity do
> you find between what your talking about and the process that's called
> mind-mapping (a topic running through this list back in Apr 96--Buzan
> mind-mapping software). I've hunted down the URL for a GIF of a mind-map
> (it's 26k, so takes a little while to download
> <http://www.gold.net:80/users/dx61/mapa.htm>
>
> It will help me understand a little better, perhaps, if you can
> differentiate for me, as I seem to have the "mind-mapping" process as my
> primary mental model for what you are describing.
Mind mapping is a method of supporting your own (or a groups) thought
process, as they wade through new ideas, clarify what they know or think
or when they are trying to imagineer some new thing. It depends a lot on
free association, so you capture ideas and information as it comes up
rather than trying to do it in some sort of ordered fashion, and the use
of pictures as well as words is encouraged.
I used a form of this more or less intuitively in college, and almost got
tossed out for my dis-respectful doodling in the classroom. No one had
heard of mind mapping then, but I was doing some sort of non-linear visual
information processing and connection of ideas that was critical to my
learning style.
Where mind mapping is something that would be used by a facilitator to get
the nebulous and disconnected creativity out of a person or group, what I
do has a harder focus, usually on specific stories, system, ideas or
situations that exist in a factory, or between organizations, with the
intention of sparking dialogue or inspiring creative problem solving to
the problems being faced by that group at that time. It's not the real
time group process you are familiar with, but it's definatly about getting
people together on their "stuff".
The drawings can be classified as:
- The Concept of Operation Cartoons , which if you recall idea of the
3-schema architecture promoted by computing architecture types in the
early 1990's, you would recognize my cartoon as a rough conceptual
depiction of the system or business proccess.
- The System Diagram, similar to the sort that Peter Senge and company
promote, that show the wheels within wheels that interact or inter -
relate, but populated with people and things-again, to make it more real
in their minds.
- The Process Picture, kind of like a flow chart brought to life-usually
with some visual humor tossed in to make it interesting and fun.
- The editorial comment. Usually a cartoon that depicts the nagging
problem, the invisible furniture or the prevailing mentel models held by
the organization. In these pictures, I'm very careful to pick on
problems rather than people, and In the Boeing company, most of these
toons are available from my website for individuals to download and
re-use in their material. They get a lot of wear and tear.
The difference between what I draw and what ever depictions you've seen
previously (conceptual data model, process models, flow charts or some
text based description) is that the cartoon depiction puts the person
looking at the drawing "IN" the drawing-so to speak. They are sort of a
"right brain" thing and tend to help people see themselves as a
participant rather than just abstractly (or using the typical "left brain"
oriented mental processes).
I also infest the picture with a lot of metaphor or analogy which tends
not to be very satisfying to the facts and data oriented folks-as it
doesn't nail down the "how much, when, how fast, etc. information they
want to see. Rather it allows people from different disciplines to talk
about the subject in a neutral set of terms, and helps them to look at
their world in a totally different way-sparking a lot of creative
thinking. I can't tell you how many cartoons I've drawn about the yellow
brick road in oz, or how much concrete design work that has come out of
these pictures. There is something about fantasy art (dragons, wizards,
mushrooms, castles in the clouds) that evokes a lot of creativity and
concrete design work. (weird but effective).
My cartoons can work in a real time facilitated session when the concrete
decisions begin to be made and the actual form and shape is getting
hammered out. It's very important for designers to see what they are
saying, and If they all see something different but use the same words,
you have no way to discover it unless you get rid of the words. Changing
it's form into pictures, and using toonish (emotional highly animated
people) to show the system allows designers to see their new idea in a
conceptual form-but also with as much reality as possible in that toonish
people reflect real emotions and struggles of real life.
Otherwise, my toons get handed out (blown up wall size) amongst the
different groups (users, them who pays for it, management and anyone else
with an interest) with the notion that these groups will talk about what
they see, discover and record their own issues, questions and solutions
that they will feed back to the designers or incorporate into their piece
of the design-where they have influence.
Sort of remote control facilitation. They still do their work long after
I'm gone.
Does that help at all?
I have some examples of some editorial kind of art contained in a white
paper that was just published (got the hard copy in the mail this morning
Located at URL: http://grieg.bentson.aa.net/aqp/draft.html
There is a "mass confusion" picture (the power of collaboration) depicted
fairly accurately the "open space" kind of work done at the Seattle AQP
fall conference.
I'm still trying to figure out for my own self what this work is and how
it works. Being a cartoonist in an engineering environment is kind of
weird but it's been some of the most satisfying work I've ever
done-because the toons are about a whole lot more than entertainment. We
use them to build real stuff, so I'm excited about it.
later...
Michael Erickson
michael.n.erickson@boeing.com
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-"we toons may act rediculous, but we're not stupid!"-
------------------------------------Roger Rabbit------
--"Michael N. Erickson" <sysengr@bcstec.ca.boeing.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>