The United States Federal Government is without a doubt the most powerful organization on the planet. Between the Department of Defense, the Social Security Administration, the Medicare System, and the other myriad departments that comprise the U.S. Government, US taxpayers spent 3.630 trillion (That’s $3,630,000,000,000,000) for fiscal year 2011 to provide a myriad of services.The reach of the Federal Government is deep and wide, stretching from your mailbox to beyond the Solar System.

Back on earth, over 55 million people received social security payments in 2009. The rivers we get our drinking water is clean thanks to the Clean Air Act of 1972, and our interstates are paved thanks to our Federal Government.

But the government faces a big challenge in the 21st century. How can such a massive organization communicate effectively with each of us citizens, given our ever rising expectations and budget belt tightening?

I was fascinated and honored to help visualize the future of Federal Government communications at the “Digital Government: The Transformative Power of Communications” event in Washington DC on October 16, sponsored by GovDelivery.com, a company devoted to helping Government take advantage of emerging technologies to improve communications.

One of the big ideas at the conference came from Peter Sims. He advocates a “Little Bets” approach to get big improvements, inspired by such disparate players as standup comics, Beethoven, and technology startup founders.

The approach involves taking small risks, learning from them, and then when a successful approach coalesces, going big with that validated idea.

He used Steve Jobs’ experience at Pixar as one of his examples. Jobs kept green lighting ultra low budget animated short movies to sell Pixar hardware, until he realized that animated movies had better market potential than the hardware sales business Pixar originally tried to develop. Sims emphasized that the same “Little Bets” approach worked for government communications efforts as well.

GovDelivery CEO Scott Burns talked about the availability of new tools government can use to leverage big data to create customized, personalized, communication with citizens.

It is a challenge to get across everything we covered at this event, so check out the full set of visuals here, and over at GovDelivery.com in this blog post by Mike Bernard.

If you are in any of the photos and would like your name captioned, send me an email jonny(at)envizualize.com, or comment below and I will write a caption for you.

Helping plan and run an International Forum of Visual Practitioners (IFVP) conference is a powerful learning experience, once that I am still processing a month after the 2012 event. It was great to go through all the photos in the conference photo group to find these. The thing that made me happiest of all, was seeing the number of people who showed interest in helping produce the 2013 conference! It was a privilege and an honor being part of IFVP 2012. I was very excited to see a number of people show interest in producing IFVP 2013 in NYC. That kind of passion and ownership from the community bodes well for the IFVP and for visual practice.

At MAYA Design. One thing we did differently this year: we held a few sessions offsite at MAYA and at the Toonseum.

Roberta Faulhaber, at the offsite mini-workshop at MAYA Design, visually exploring how to communicate the business value of one of her services.

Mike Roy led the mini workshop on developing a visual statement that communicates the value of our services.

Where one of the early planning sessions for the conference took place, Leah Silverman’s chalkboard equipped closet . That’s Leah Silverman, Emily Marko, and myself from left to right.

A video I produced to promote the conference which they showed in Hawaii. Most people don’t know much about Pittsburgh, so we thought it would be useful to make a little informational video.

Pittsburgh City Council Representative Bill Peduto sponsored a proclamation that July 24-27, 2012 be “International Forum of Visual Practitioners Week” In Pittsburgh.

Visual practitioners from around the world flocked to Pittsburgh.

Mike Rohde talked about his Sketchnoting journey.

Yes, there are a lot of bridges in Pittsburgh.

Zane Groshell, Prezi Evangelist, who dove into the conference headfirst.

A happy person!

Marshmallow towers

We had an absurd amounts of swag to give away. It was grueling for my co-emcee, Heather Willems of ImageThink (right) and myself.

Getting groovy at the Warhol Museum party.

Pictures do not lie.

Getting thoughtful at the Business Panel.

Leenie Fabri, who will be one of the co-chairs of the 2013 conference in New York City.

Board from Jim Nuttle’s cartooning mini-workshop

Michell Boos-Stone displays her mastery. It’s a masterclass just being in the same room with her.

More goodies…this is getting out of control.

Lynn Kearny, getting digitally graphic.

Practicing sketchnotes.

Dean Meyers

Never. Ever. Mix. Stripes. And. Dots.

The right shoes are critical. Mine above.

A moment of joy.

Local artist Terrell makes his move.

Lloyd Dangle’s iPad notes from the design thinking panel.

Still in art school, diving into visual practice.

I just like this.

In the zone.

Lynn Carruthers, who produced the 2011 Conference in Hawaii, came to the City of Bridges to connect.

Community workshop panarama.

This is real. I swear.

Photo from the author event, where visual practitioners shared the ideas from books they authored.

From the general meeting where attendees worked on the IFVP’s organizational strategy. Rachel Smith of the grove on left.

Pre-conference Graphic Recording 101 Workshop with Lisa Arora and Rachel Smith instructing.

Lloyd Dangle cartooning workshop.

Our wrapup speaker, Nahum Gershon, Principal scientist at the MITRE Corporation, being engaged by a conference participant. MITRE Corporation is one of the major R&D players in the country. From Wikipedia:

It manages Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) supporting the Department of Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts on behalf of the Federal Judiciary.

Farewell from Pittsburgh! See you in NYC!

Great turnout at Show-n-Tell #3 at CatpultPGH in Garfield/Friendhip. About 25 people got out of the heat and into some sweet AC to learn, connect, and share.

Bill Peduto (above) discussed population growth and loss in various parts of Pittsburgh over the last 10 years. Peduto discussed three powerful items that could contribute to a more vibrant Pittsburgh: Repurposing unused train tracks for public transportation, enhancing Pittsburgh’s urban forest to mitigate the need for a new sewage drainage mega-tunnel, and encouraging the growth of an industry that designs and builds affordable, modular, green housing units.

Action photo of Jonny Goldstein talking about the International Forum of Visual Practioners Conference which will take place in Pittsburgh July 24-27 in Downtown Pittsburgh.

(Click for larger image)
I created this “envizualization” (or large scale visual notes) at Show-n-Tell 3 at CatpultPGH. Speakers included Pittsburgh City Council Representative Bill Peduto, CMU Design Professor Kristin Hughes, Artist Laurie Trok, Interaction Designer Elliott Williams, and Visual Storyteller and event producer, Jonny Goldstein.

Shown-n-Tell happens every first Friday of each month at CatpultPGH (except August when we take a break).

See you in September!

RSVP here.

Who:

Bill Peduto, Pittsburgh District 8 Councilman will talk about whatever is on his mind and field your questions.

Kit Mueller is one of the powerhouses behind Pittsburgh’s wildly successful Startup Weekend. Get ready for some epic Show-n-Tell from Kit!

Kristin Hughes, CMU Design Professor, will discuss the community garden/art park she is catalyzing in the Friendship neighborhood.

Laurie Trok, CatapultPGH’s own resident collage artist and jewelry designer will talk about her work.

Jonny Goldstein will emcee and will envizualize each Show-n-Tell speaker with large scale visual notes.

How it works: Each Show-n-Teller gets 12 minutes to show and talk about whatever they want. You get to ask questions.

Optional: Afterwards, interested folks will can continue the conversation at happy hour a few blocks down Penn Avenue at Verde.

Even more optional: Starting at 6PM the Unblurred art walk will get going on Penn avenue, so you should be plenty warmed up by then if you want to check out the vibrant scene on Penn Avenue.

When: Friday, 4-5PM, July 6.

Where: CatapultPGH, 5139 Penn Ave 15224

View Larger Map

RSVP here.

These are the visual notes I created during the Power of 32 Steering Committee Leadership Meeting that took place 6-22-2011.

View gallery of the visual notes here.

***Note: This is a snapshot of the conversation at this point in the Power of 32 process–not a definitive to do list.***

The Power of 32 is an unprecedented regional initiative to think and act in the interest of the 32 county region which comprises of parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and Maryland. It contains urban areas such as Pittsburgh, Wheeling and Youngstown, as well as many small towns and rural areas. The 3 year effort has catalyzed over 150 community conversations in all 32 counties and over 15,000 sticky notes of ideas.

Community input created coalesced into 6 categories: economy, education, environment, people/community, governing, transportation and infrastructure.

It is clear that it is in the interest of this governmentally balkanized region to think of itself as a region. This is especially important because the none areas of the 4 states in the region are at the political center of their own states. There is strength in numbers, and it makes sense for the region to flex its regional muscles and tap into it’s enormous brainpower across jurisdictional boundaries of states, counties, and municipalities.

The findings of the project will be rolled out in force with a live special on WQED on November 3, 2011.

Ultimately, the Power of 32 is a citizen initiative, and needs citizen involvement to keep moving forward. To learn more and get involved, Visit the Power of 32 website here.

As a recent transplant to the region, this was an incredible meeting to be part of. I came out of it for even more appreciation for the region and its people than I had coming into the meeting.

Visual Notes by Jonny Goldstein, envizualize.com.

This is a sped up video of me creating large scale visual notes of a keynote at a recent conference. The speaker, Chris Lehmann talked about “School 2.0,” which, it turns out, draws heavily on what education pioneers have preached for over 100 years: let the students do things that matter. The event was the Maryland Society for Educational Technology 2011 conference. Chris Lehmann is a remarkable principal who guides a remarkable school in Philadelphia. Thanks to the Maryland Society for Educational Technology for asking me to be part of this event. To hear the full length audio with my visual notes, click here.

(Length 3:39)
This version is a sped up version of me doing large scale notes of Chris Lehmann’s “School 2.0″ keynote at the 2011 Marylyand Society for Educational Technology Conference.

Download Link.


(Length 26:45) Part 1 of Chris Lehmann’s MSET 2011 Keynote “School 2.0″ accompanied by Jonny Goldstein’s visual notes.
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(Length 27:33) Part 2 of Chris Lehmann’s MSET 2011 Keynote “School 2.0″ ccompanied by Jonny Goldstein’s visual notes.

Download Link.