Creativity Moves Nashville (and Alphachimp!)

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Perrin Ireland graphically records Creativity Moves Nashville; Credit: Matthew Freise, NossiAlphachimps love the lure of the open road- we’ll willingly pack our markers and paper, load up the old roller luggage, and travel around the world to graphically capture an event.

But the events we attend at home, here in Nashville, are a sweet relief. What could be better than going to an action-packed event full of inspiring speakers who all live within a stones throw of us, and then getting home in time for dinner?

Needless to say we were thrilled to be invited to scribe a recent local event, Creativity Moves Nashville. Organized by Jacob Weiss, this half-day conference, held on May 24th, was devoted to connecting artists with causes and entrepreneurs.

Weiss exemplifies a compelling method for artists to lead creative lives full of meaning and success. The solution is simple: make your art relevant, and purposeful, by connecting with a nonprofit or an entrepreneur with a cause, and create impact in your community.

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Think Events with Google: The future of life online

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ThinkTech with Google

Smartphones, tablets, and TVs — oh my! It seems every day a new device hits the market, providing consumers with even more options to stay connected. As a result, consumers are increasingly sophisticated in the ways in which they engage with media. Advances in technology have uncovered new ways to communicate, inform, and transact — how can marketers maintain a strong consumer connection as consumption habits and purchase decisions shift amidst an ever-changing marketplace? Are you sending the right signals to reach your customers?

Over the last several weeks, the Alphachimp Team has had the pleasure of supporting these gathering of media partners and major marketers at Google New York office.

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Online Meeting Tools That Facilitate Collaboration

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 A Sliver of the On-line Collaboration Ecosystem

With travel budgets slashed, fuel prices on the rise again, airport horror stories, summer storms,... who wants to travel for a meeting?

Along with Joe Sterling, we at Alphachimp have been developing Remote Graphic Capture to enable graphic recording via on-line collaborative tools. This article compares 17 best-in-class tools for virtual meetings.

Online conferencing tools are used for many reasons – sales presentations, webinars and training, to name a few. Plus, if you work from home, like many freelancers and small business owners do, you face the unique challenge of needing live meeting time with clients who may be located around the world.

There are many online meeting tools out there that offer a variety of features at varying costs. Here are a few tools you may want to consider, some of their notable features and the cost for using them.

Let us know what you have found useful in dodging the airport blues while experiencing quality collaboration with peers. Or (shameless plug) schedule a demo of RGC today!

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peterdurand

Peter Durand is an artist, educator & visual facilitator based in Houston, Texas.

He is the founder of Alphachimp LLC, a visual facilitation company that helps clients understand and communicate complex systems visually. He is a leader in graphic facilitation and a professor at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.

Fast Company: 10 Rules of Effective Brainstorming

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Somehow they didn't get the memo: In order to do brainstorming right, you need to make ideas visual!
10 Rules of Effective Brainstorming

Still, this slideshow by Fast Company itemizes (and validates) the creative elements needed for innovation sessions. 

[A facilitator] is the traffic cop of the session, and should be an outsider. An insider brings baggage that can inhibit the free flow of ideas. HR consulting organizations are one possible resource; if you are working with a design firm like IDEO or Continuum, they may be able to help.

If bringing in an outsider is difficult for some reason, the second best option is to bring in someone from a different group inside the company. Facilitators need to be skilled at group dynamics, able to read when the team is flagging or when it is hitting on all cylinders.

They have to be patient, yet willing to exercise discipline if one person can't stop talking or is becoming aggressive. It is more a matter of personality than formal training, but it can't hurt to bring in people to watch a well-run brainstorming session to see how it works.
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,

peterdurand

Peter Durand is an artist, educator & visual facilitator based in Houston, Texas.

He is the founder of Alphachimp LLC, a visual facilitation company that helps clients understand and communicate complex systems visually. He is a leader in graphic facilitation and a professor at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.