The Measure of America / American Human Development Report 2008-2009 continues to inspire dialogue regarding the many social innovation challenges facing the United States.
An article written by Kristen Lewis and Sarah Burd-Sharps, co-directors of the American Human Development Project, appeared this week in the New York Times / Economix.
“In 2008, we constructed a first-ever American Human Development Index to assess the relative well-being of different groups of Americans. Our index is not comparable to the global Human Development Index produced by the U.N. Development Program, a measure that looks at the social and economic development of different countries. The U.N. index, which is rooted in the work of the Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, was, however, the model for our index.”
Read the entire New York Times article here:
Going Back in Time: Progress, or Lack Thereof, Around the Country
Coming Soon!
Stay tuned for Portrait of Louisiana.
SenseMaker Dialogs is a new speaker series focused on the rapidly changing hybrid activity of SenseMaking in the 21st century. Organized by the Humantific team in New York, SenseMaker Dialogs will celebrate and share views into the revolutionary wave in sensemaking that is underway in our increasingly complicated world.
Leading SenseMakers today are already involved in much more than data and information visualization. SenseMakers have become integral to many forms of change making occurring around the world.
The boundaries of what sensemaking is and what sensemakers do is in a state of rapid transformation like never before. SenseMaker Dialogs will explore these multi-dimensional shifts.
Each talk will feature two thought leaders engaged in exploring the boundaries of sensemaking (speaker list TBD). The first SenseMaker Dialogs session is tentatively scheduled for mid-July in New York. These will be bi-monthly mid-week evening sessions from 6:30 – 8:30 pm. Space will be limited.
Online registration will be opening soon. If you would like to get on the early registration list, send an email to programs (at) humantific (dot) com with “SenseMaker Dialogs” as the subject.
Join the group SenseMaker Dialogs on Facebook!
Humantific’s
Visual SenseMaking Workshop wrapped up on Saturday at Pratt Institute in New York. Taught by CoFounder Elizabeth Pastor the workshop focused on Visual SenseMaking in the context of organizations. An enthusiastic group that included numerous graduates of NextD innovation workshops spent the day learning how to create their own visual thinking toolbox, unpack complexity and construct strategic stories.
Some Feedback from Participants:
“A great experience”
“On a scale of one to ten : 10″
“Extremely helpful”
“Helps me understand how to map patterns with diagrams”
“Most meaningful: Triggers diagramming words!”
“Everything was useful”
“Most meaningful: Mapping each other”
“Will help me work with my students to frame thesis problems”
“I begin to see how Humantific visualizes complex concepts”
“How can I get really good at this?”
The next Visual SenseMaking workshop will be in Barcelona later this summer.
If you would like to be notified about our future Visual SenseMaking workshops send an email to: programs (at) humantific (dot) com with workshops as the subject.
What is Visual SenseMaking?
Visual SenseMaking is the activity of making sense of ambiguous complex
situations through visual methods and tools including words, images,
drawings, diagrams, charts, graphs, etc. This involves not only visual thinking,
but creating visual ordering systems.
While the skill of Visual SenseMaking can be broadly applied to many life
situations on planet earth, in Humantific workshops we focus on Visual SenseMaking in the context of organizations, organizational situations, systems, processes,
challenges, opportunities, etc.
Is Humantific Visual SenseMaking different?
Yes! The Visual SenseMaking that we teach is not about drawing conversations.
We overlay an adaptable problem solving logic that makes for a much more
robust toolkit applicable to serious business challenges of all types. This
workshop takes you inside the world of Visual SenseMaking at Humantific.
Previously only offered as part of our extensive Complexity Navigation Program,
this new one-day stand-alone session is geared for business leaders who seek
to get started on the road to becoming a Visual SenseMaker.
Humantific CoFounder, Elizabeth Pastor spent two great days in California recently with a small group of visual thinking leaders creating a common vision and manifesto of what Visual Thinking can help you do differently. It was a pleasure to be there with a great group: Tom Wujek, Nancy Duarte, David Sibbet, Dave Gray, Michelle Mallot, Tom Crawford. Thanks Tom Wujek for bringing us together and to Nancy Duarte for hosting us at Duarte Design.
Stay tuned for our Visual Thinking Manifesto Video!
Ten years ago Humantific CoFounders Elizabeth Pastor and Garry VanPatter founded Scient’s Innovation Acceleration Lab. They designed and built labs in New York and San Francisco, created Scient’s inclusive innovation strategy, designed the learning programs, built a teaching team and trained over 2000 employees, clients and partners in cross-disciplinary innovation skills. Making the most of design thinking it was a ground breaking approach to organizational transformation capability building that has informed much of our work with many other business organizations since those early days. It was a fantastic learning experience that Humantific continue’s to build on with new transformation capabilities and new skill-building workshops.
Humantific recently created this montage of images from that era to celebrate that early work.
Scient / Innovation Acceleration Lab: Ten Years After!
If your organization is grappling with how to get cross-disciplinary teams to work together to solve complex business problems in unique ways, if you seek to get some 21st century design thinking going in your organization, if you seek to build innovation into your everyday business culture you are in the right place.
Many of our clients seek to maximize the brainpower in their organizations, especially now in these challenging economic times. If you are starting an organizational transformation initiative and need some knowledge support, some learning program support, some cocreation support we have a program for you.
To express interest in joining our client focused Humantific Transformation Network write to programs (at) humantific (dot) com
