VizThink08 - Evening 1 - My search for the VisualThinking eLearning connection

A few weeks ago my colleague Tony Karrer questioned the idea behind the VizThink Conference. There was a lot of buzz around his post and so Tom Crawford the CEO, hooked up Tony with Dave Gray of XPlane for a webinar to try and figure it out. I listened to the recording and it didn't sound to me like Tony was convinced.



So here I am in rainy San Francisco looking for that elusive connection between eLearning and the visual thinking community. My flight was delayed, but I arrived just in time for the doors to open on the expo floor for the opening reception. I must say, I was very impressed with the entire setup. It was strange walking around an expo and feeling like I don't know anybody. I did my usual first night scan and cruise. Don't engage...much. Just check it all out and soak in the vibe. Here's a quick update of my scan and cruise:


I talked with Harlan Hugh of theBrain.com and that is VERY cool. I downloaded the Personal Brain demo and but have not tried it out yet. I'll review that later.


I chatted with Christine Martell as well of VisualsSpeak. We've been blogging at each other since Tony's blog post brought us together as commenters. Its always great to finally meet virtual colleagues/friends face-to-face.


I also met Neil Cohn from Tuft's University. He's a big visual language, and comics guy.

I did see a couple other cool things but I'm out of blogging time this morning. I'll get back to those booths later today and try to keep blogging. So now that my scan and cruise is complete I've got some serious talking I need to do. This stuff is very cool and most of all I want to talk with other attendees and find out what the heck they do, or want to do, with visual thinking. Then maybe we can better understand a framework for visual learning.