Take Your To Do List from Overwhelm to On Point

If you love the feeling of crossing things off your to do list, I’m right there with you. And if sometimes you look at that list and put it right back down, walking as fast as you can in the opposite direction, once again, I’m with you. 

Which is why I want to share two easy strategies for making to do lists a little more manageable that came to me within days of each other: 

1.     Make it a Get To Do list*. One little word to help remind us all how lucky we are to be alive, doing work that makes the world better. 

2.     Make an Already Done List. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, take a minute or two to write down things you HAVE accomplished. Getting out of bed and brushing your teeth can 100% be on that puppy, and so can closing the biggest deal you’ve ever made with a dream client. You do you and celebrate those wins! This one is from @Lizandmollie, give them a follow!

*I can’t remember where I saw this one, so if you’ve seen this and have a source, I’d love to give them credit!

Once again, thank you from my heart and soul for your support, great senses of humor, brilliant minds, collaboration and what you're each doing to make the world a better place.

Cheers, 

Where in the Virtual World is ConverSketch?

ShapingEDU’s Pente Pitch Challenge! The first of it’s kind, it’s Day 2 of the Pente Pitch Challenge where 5 teams of higher education dreamers, doers, and drivers from around the world are competing for funding toward their impact projects. From post-pandemic era best practices to immersive experiences to humanizing learning, today we find out who will win the big bucks!

All Parks Zero Landfill Initiative: Last week I had the enormous pleasure of working IN PERSON with NPS, the National Park Conservation Association, the National Park Foundation, and Subaru to bring the first Zero Landfill Initiative pilot project to a close. The three pilot parks shared best practices and reflected on how to carry this work forward. 

Adobe Creative Campus Collaborations: Another fabulous convening focused on Digital Literacy across the globe with Adobe! The highlight was definitely the Graduate Thought Leader Panel who knocked everyone’s socks off with their poise, eloquence, and big ideas!

How to Co-Create a High Engagement Virtual Event: Best Practices from the ShapingEDU Community

Every time I get to work with the ShapingEDU community, I’m blown away by the creativity and passion of the team at ASU to positively “shape the future of learning in the digital age” as they say. 

Even in a world of remote meetings, ShapingEDU walks the talk to convene for meaningful work driven by the community, which means it’s then carried on afterward? 

So, what best practices can be transferred to YOUR organization? 

For highly engaged virtual or in-person events, let participants guide content. This was done through crowd-sourcing then voting on nine wicked problems facing education in the weeks leading up to the Unconference. 

Minimize talking at, maximize talking with. Most of the three days was spent in working groups focused on the content participants upvoted. There was a framing plenary panel, then off folks went to share their insights and cross-pollinate ideas. 

Provide some structure. These hours-long working groups were guided by community members who volunteered to facilitate them ahead of time, who had knowledge, expertise, and the ability to step back to let the group do the work when it made sense. Each had their own zoom meeting, and participants were encouraged to work together across Slack.

Infuse creativity and play. The opening reception was a ridiculously well-curated Wicked Mystery Party where participants discovered there were self-guided and team-oriented mysteries to solve by talking with characters in different breakouts, exploring clues in different settings online, and working together. Not to mention a graphic recording “ghost” who floated around to capture snippets of the process and offer sometimes helpful hints. 

The base map for the Wicked Mystery Party opening reception. Participants could click on yellow buttons to explore different rooms, looking for clues!

Finally, each day was facilitated with reconvening the groups to share ideas and look for connections, patterns, and insights together. These report outs were graphically recorded in real-time and reflected back to the participants visually and verbally for comprehension, memory boosting, and looking for new ideas together. 

Cheers ShapingEDU – you all are truly remarkable and I’m proud to be part of the community!

Once again, thank you from my heart and soul for your support, great senses of humor, brilliant minds, collaboration and what you're each doing to make the world a better place.

Cheers, 

Where in the Virtual World is ConverSketch?

ASU ShapingEDU Unconference: As you may have read above, the Unconference is a lively event. This year, we created quite a few materials ahead of time, including this explainer video on what Black Swan Events are and why we should care!

Communication and Symbioses Workshop: I’m in the midst of graphic facilitating a two-day workshop for a team of researchers exploring connections between microbial symbioses and signaling and communication.