austin comprehensive plan at viz think austin july 2009

City of Austin’s Comprehensive Plan meets VizThink Austin

July 27, 2009 Meeting Reflectionsby Honoria Starbuck Ph.D.

Contents

ChallengeEmergent DesignActionResultsTake Aways

Greg Claxton, Associate Planner for the City of Austin

CHALLENGEThe City of Austin is undertaking a new Comprehensive Plan - a two-year effort to craft an enduring vision for the City that can also serve as the basis for city policies and spending.

One aspect of engagement that people have started telling us we need *now* is a strong brand.

That includes the name of the project, a slogan, and a logo.

We were hoping we could impose upon Austin's visual thinkers by having a VizThink meet-up devoted to brainstorming ideas for the brand, slogan, and logo.

Photo credit: Steve Golab

VizThink Austin’s Answer: YES!

Honoria Starbuck with co-Founder of VizThink Austin, Sunni Brown

Photo credit: Steve Golab

What is emergent design?Give adults a real problem.

Adults will self-organize, communicate efficiently, learn and teach to create solutions in an open environment.

Provide simple and direct tools to capture the process.

Don’t direct.

Within teams, self-appointed designers, writers, artists, and spokespersons will assume new or natural roles as-needed to address the problem.

Give each team time to present their solutions to the whole group.

EMERGENT DESIGN

The plan

Break up into 3 groups at 3 tables. One table for slogan, one for logo and one for title.

Groups spend 15 minutes at each table.

The groups were so generative that we cut the table time down to 10 minutes and ran out of post it notes.

ACTION

A view of the Logo Table when you could still see the surface.

Content flows from the participants onto the table tops.

What a mess! What’s next?

Separate layers so everyone can see all ideas, sketches, and notes.

Logos emerge

Slogans emerge

Titles emerge

RESULTS

Teams collaged together materials relating to emerging themes onto posters.Posters featured one or more Titles, Slogans and Logos.

FutureCreateAction

Growth/Success

PosterTeam 1

4 themes

Thank your lucky stars you live in Austin

PosterTeam 2

Essential Austin

PosterTeam 3

Onward Austin

Pays tribute to Austin culture

Encourages Action

Anything goesOutliers poster

Extra theme emerges

Pathways vs DestinationMaps and mapping

TAKE AWAYSThe City of Austin received 5 poster collages representing themes that emerged in the table work and final presentations.

These posters are very rough but rich in raw material that can be crafted by professional designers into viable designs for consideration by the city officials and the public.

Honoria Starbuck, Ph.D.Honoria holds an interdisciplinary doctoral degree in Communications, Fine Art, and Education from The University of Texas at Austin. Honoria teaches drawing for animation at the Art Institute of Austin and is a co-founder of Bridging Futures, a company that promotes a thriving wisdom society.

honoria.starbuck@gmail.com

Sunni Brown, M.P.A., Sunni is owner of BrightSpot Info Design, a company specializing in visual thinking to support organizational and group success. Sunni was trained in graphic facilitation at The Grove Consultants International, a San Francisco-based company that pioneered the use of visuals in meetings and group processes.

www.sunnibrown.com

VizThink www.vizthink.com Ryan Coleman, Chief Evangelist rcoleman@vizthink.com

References for Emergent Design

Cavallo, D. (2004). Models of growth — towards fundamentalchange in learning environments, BT Technology Journal. Issue Volume 22, Number 4 / October, 2004(Online) http://www.media.mit.edu/publications/bttj/Paper11Pages96-112.pdf

Florida, R. (1995) Toward the Learning Region. Futures. Volume 27, Number 5 (Online) http://creativeclass.com/rfcgdb/articles/1995-Futures-Toward_the_Learning_Region.pdf

Peter Senge, Art Kleiner, Charlotte Roberts, Richard Ross, George Roth and Bryan Smith (1995) The Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations (Online) http://www.open.ou.nl/wim/publicationspdf/Nine%20paradoxes-rev.pdf

A meeting about nothing. Do you need one?Is nothing happening on your project?What’s stopping the creative energy in your organization?Is there a non-productive lull in your team?What is the nothing that’s getting in the way?

Honoria Starbuck Ph.D. will facilitate a generative meeting about your specific nothing.

A meeting about nothing is an active environment in which participants recombine as groups and creatively organize and reorganize goals and processes using visual thinking, play, emergent design and principles of adult learning.

BridgingFutures.comhonoria.starbuck@gmail.com