Afscheid Timme

creative company conference 2011

check out the pics on: www.visiblethinking.nl
or on flickr:

Picking up where we I left off

After abandoning this blog at the end of 2009, I have found myself in need of a news bulletin boards for my experimentations in visual thinking. In 2010 JAM has worked hard on some internal organization and business canvassing. After 7 years of talking about it we have created a story that fits our culture and will hopefully inspire others while we are living our vision!
This blog will be resurrected because of the simple sharing reason. At the bottom of each post you can find ways to share it and make this blog grow into the newsfeed of all things experimental done by JAM.

Oh yeah...a journey of a thousand goals starts with a single MAP...Welcome back JAMLABORTORIUM! Let's start Experimenting!

YOU CAN FOLLOW ME HERE

From now on I will blog my news of JAM on this blog:
HELICOPTER VIEW

JAN bij MINDZ

Ga naar de blog:http://www.mindz.com/blog?n=8533&l=52

Camiel Eurlings met een schets!

Even een bericht in het Nederlands:
Op 4 november was JAMop de innovatie estafette van de Club van Maarssen. We waren daar op uitnodiging van TNO en hun initiatieven rondom de creatie van een weg op zonne-energie. Deze dag was een redelijk succes, vooral omdat het verhaal van de zon-e-weg gecombineerd met het idee dat een snelweg ook energie kan opleveren en teruggeven aan z'n gebruikers. Omdat de huidige minister van Verkeer & Waterstaat, Camiel Eurlings, via een omweggetje op de zon-e-weg terecht kwam, heeft TNO de kans 'gecreeerd' om bij hem het zaadje van de zon-e-weg-gedachte te planten. Wat er nu moet gebeuren om deze weg te realiseren is HEEL VEEL PRATEN en HEEEEEL VEEEL SCHETSEN! Het verhaal moet bij de gebruiker gaan leven om het algemeen heersende paradigma, dat een duurzame weg alleen maar geld kost, te veranderen.

Het versnellen van het concept zon-e-weg ligt volgens mij in het feit dat het verhaal van het praatplaatje boven deze blog gaat leven. Veel praten & veel schetsen om samen veel te delen, te verbeteren & veel aanhaken! Deze weg gaat er hoe dan ook komen... de vraag is alleen wanneer en wie neemt de LEAD?... de heer Eurlings? Hij heef in ieder geval al de schets!

JAM SCHOOL is UP!

Op 1 december is het zover… JAM gaat van start met een serie workshops, waarin je leert met behulp van beeld een proces visueel te begeleiden. De uitnodiging voor de eerste workshop vind je hier:

http://jamschool.eventbrite.com/

Hopelijk tot dan!

Met vriendelijke groet,

Wouter Boog

The BRAINSTORM table

A while back I was at an event called MASTERMUNDO initiated by Marcel KampmanAt this event Marcel placed a new product into the world... the BRAINSORM table.

... a stack of 3000 A2 recycled paper on a wooden pallet with the paper glued to each other on one side, creating a big sketchbloc.

If you are interested in a table like this please contact Modo van Gelder and ask for Hans Bootsma!

d.

JAM at DDEA

On the 5th of November the "IO-sketch movement" found its beginning at the Delft Design and Engineering award (www.ddea.nl) which was organized by YES!DELFT and hosted in the new building of the faculty of Architecture in Delft. The goal of the event was to bring science and market together in one shared space, in which they could interact and possibly ignite shared initiatives. For more information check out the Delft Valorisation Centre

JAM was there to help an enthusiastic group of industrial design students to create live sketches of ideas, markets and the opportunities that lie between the scientist and the entrepreneur. The challenge for the students was to get some idea on how to handle the different information streams needed to explain (complex/beta) technological concepts and cross them with the different needs and interests of both users and producer.
During the whole event the IO-students interacted with the visitors, trying to pick up new ideas inspired by the demo's of the award-nominees. What was great to see was that they really saw the sketch process as a design problem... visually tackling the challenge of portraying the story of someone else. Great results which will be posted at a later date by YES!DELFT.

An event like this is good for a lot of things. But in the end it is mainly to share, communicate and network (in my humble oppinion). I met up with Cees de Bont who is the Dean of Industrial Design and it was great to hear the he has the same view on the use of sketches in almost any process. During his speech at the event he even pointed this out and gave extra attention to the sketchers to the right of the stage. In January we will talk some more (so to be continued...)


As an extra treat YES!Delft invited Theo Jansen to share his stories about creating new live forms as a kinetic sculptor.

This was a great day! Not only because there were a lot of cool new people to meet, but also with respect to the idea of using sketching as an essential design skill. Any engineer should be able to create a simple drawing of what they are working on, simply because people can then react to your ideas. The movement to reinstate the importance of SKETCHING in the engineering process has begun...

Check out the pictures of the day on: DDEA

d.

JAMOTION - meaning of JAM

JAM (1), to press, squeeze tight. 'Jam, to squeeze;'Jammed in between the rocks;

JAM (2), a conserve of fruit boiled with sugar. (Scand.?) In Johnson's Dict. Of uncertain origin, but most likely from Jam (1). it may mean a soft substance, resembling what has been chewed. 'And if we have any stronger meate, it must be chammed afore by the nurse, and so put into the babe's mouthe;

So... something squeezed in between opposing ends...resulting in a soft substance resembling something that has been chewed (CHAMMED>>).

JAM is in motion.
We are starting to feel more comfortable in our mostly emotionally organized naturally formed bee-hive that searches for meaning and ways to express that meaning in smart sketches for others. This last month we have been going through the motions of the WHY and HOW and are just finding out what elements bind us in hart and soul and which ones enable us to do what we do in the playground we call JAM.
The above placed picture is a sketch actually made after my father showed interest in the origin of the word JAM... I guess he (like many others) just wants to know what we mean with the word. His description gave more meaning to the word JAM than originally intended.
When we thought about a name for our company (2004) we came up with a catchy name that did not really mean anything, but which would conger up everyone's own delightful image of strawberry JAM...red, sticky, sweet and jelly-like goodness;like the boys we were!
Now that the story of JAM is developing under our very minds, the actual origin of the word JAM starts to make more sense than its intended trigger-function. "To JAM" means to press, squeeze or push together something to such an extend that a fluid substance is the result. To purposely "JAM" together could mean that everyone who is "JAMMING" is working together to create a momentary fluid substance (some might call this JAZZ, we call it a sketch!) that is the result of pushing your talents together until creation happends.

So... we have moved from marketing-trigger to inspiring-story...
...
...
to be continued

DDEA - trigger sketches

Check out the trigger sketches Jeroen & Joost made for the Delft Design Engineering Award You can also check out the movies which explain the essence of the designs.

is this the inbetween future?

10/GUI from C. Miller on Vimeo.

IMPACT

I have been invited to help The dutch infrastructure planners of RIJKSWATERSTAAT to think about a way to persuade both social and economical perspectives to adapt a durable approach to creating a more profitable people planet in your local area (place)... In short do you care about your space... and do you know you can make money by making it better!?!
You can read more on www.mensensnelweg.ning.com

What I am asking myself is if short sketches will get people to notice what we are working on and get them interested to adapt our findings... The project Atlantis material is so abstract and so concrete at the same time that it is difficult to get people to align and work together towards a common goal (a more 'valuable' road in holland). This meeting sketch is about a way to kick start knowledge-sharing through real life success stories and their management models that back them up.

d.

Augmented City Lab Visuals by Jam

JAM SCHOOL

Like many others JAM is venturing into the workshop arena. After five odd years we have some experience in the field of visual thinking, visual design and graphic facilitation. We are working on a three to six day workshop that can be tweaked to reach different goals 4 different people...
4 instance:

* Daring to pick up a pen or pencil and using it to start solving your problems visually...on the spot!
*Using basic sketching skills to harvest information and find the connections between different element. Finding the things that fit together to make more then just the sum of its parts.
*Getting your visualizations skills to such a level that you can adapt them to almost any challenge...and save the world!

If you have any questions about the JAM school, or want to know if we can adapt our experience to your challenge, please contact wouter {at} visueeldenken {dot} com

We are pigs dealing with comfort...

Dealing with easiness
JAM is feeling the flow that comes with the growing need for visuals. The way we are handling this has to do with the flow the company itself is in. JAM is a group of individuals that react to what is thrown to or at them. Business maybe has become a bit too easy. The wave has become constant... dynamic enough for successful efforts, but a bit tame for stimulated living. We need to draw away our boundaries and move into uncharted uncomfortable new of untouched zones!!!


We are similarly interested in exploring these zones to match our individual needs, but choosing a path or direction that pleases all is maybe not the answer anymore. You might say we are looking for the crest of a very big wave, that allows us to ride it into different directions without loosing eye/hart contact. The "only" thing we have to do is catch that wave and get uncomfortably numb with uncertainty!

Go check out PO!

The great Taiwanese perspective
JAM has a graduate student who is almost ready with his internal analysis of what HE thinks visual thinking and graphic facilitation is to him and to JAM. We are all very anxious to read and view his gatherings of the visual trends that exist in our marketplace and are evenly more anticipating his groundbreaking Taiwanese opinion about the unique black box that is the JAM model...
you can read his progress on : http://www.viz-up-the-world.blogspot.com

BIGGER really is BETTER!!!

Bigger is really better!
From the beginning of this year we have stumble upon a basic rule for impact which has nothing to do with simplicity. BIGGER IS BETTER!!! We have been working experimenting at different events and found that making really large visuals catches the attention of the participants and gets them talking about the content of an event (even from a great distance!). It is as clear and logical as crystal, but stepping out of your comfortzone to draw BIG was a step that w ehad not yet made. At a meeting organized at "de Baak" we encountered a piece of serendipity that lead to the natural creation of really BIG VISUALS! Realizing that the impact value grew exponentially we started to wonder if this way of BIG DRAWING might also help in looking for the bigger picture behind the realizations we make when we put 500 people together that talk about any future we all want to run towards...
One thing is clear... BIG gets your attention... if the image is then also simple and happends to be spot on... you have a killer way to get people into a mindset or get them out of it...). We are in the middle of the experience... our 2010 Product line will reveal the ripeness of this realization...

FIVE YEARS of JAMMING

Five years

After five years JAM has an eclictical open source office in the Bijlmer...
After five years JAM has more people walking in and out then just its partners...
After five years JAM has managed to start the week together...
After five years JAM has 1 daddy D and more coming!
After five years JAM has a feeling for a market, but no vision or direction

Five years of JAMMING...on OUR terms!

WWW.TUDELFT.NL/DDEA

Well... this is going to be a very challenging platform to help out! Communicating complex technological designs with simple sketches. If you can not explain it in two minutes, the concept is not ready yet...

will keep you posted!

Business model knowledge fair 09

FUTURE WORKSPACES

Novay organized a workshop day in the beautiful surroundings of the De Baak Horst . This is where we started our first workshop with the CINTIQ21 about 3 years ago. The future workspaces theme was enhanced with some working prototypes, some talkers and some JAM-SKETCH-ENHANCEMENTS...(very low-tech in comparison with the technology possibilities which were discussed during the day). Check out the flickr page of novay for our visual results and click on novay above to go to their report of the day.

It was a sunny day...

Business Model Knowledge Fair '09

An evaluation will come shortly... for now here is the link to the set on flickr:

BUSINESS MODELS GENERATION

Po Chih's 10 minutes

check out VizCom on the 15th of May at the TU Delft!

check out the pics on : FLICKR
And on PO's Blog

introducing: PO!

JAM is very happy to welcome PO CHIH TSAI from Taiwan! He shall be working closely with JAM, trying to decipher the MAGIC behind the use of visuals in Problem solving...wiith a particular focus on the global trend of visualization for shared understanding. You can check out PO's progress on : Viz up the World!

Goog luck PO! ...Po-tje?

Homing in on target

Mike is working a lot with prints nowadays. Prints as background to a meeting or session in which several parties make a visual inventory of the problem.
more on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kl/3530692898/

DRAWING PLUS!

Great work by MIKE! Taking the drawing skill to the animated level...explaining ideas to get people to invest. Check it out

VIZTHINK III rocked!

Just a quick list of links:

YouTube - GreGG from GriDD channel

Flickr - GreGG from GriDD Vizthink set

Prezi - Openings pitch and Results of session 1

We are working on the results as I blog... results of the prezi presentations are cool!
Thanks 2 TXCHANGE we have enjoyed a great place 2 experiment!

Dennis

VIZTHINK on the 7th of May

Check out www.vizthink.nl

Drawing "PLUS"

After a good stew-session, we finally put some names to the directions we are moving into. One of those directions has been named Drawing PLUS... and is best ilustrated by the following scenarios:

http://dtv.daxis.nl/movies/2009-04-april/090401_totaal_2030.wmv
http://dtv.daxis.nl/movies/2009-03-maart/090325_deventer2030.wmv
http://dtv.daxis.nl/movies/2009-03-maart/090318_2030_afl8.wmv

enjoy!

D.

My LIFE was Hacked...

Today was a rainy day with a mental silver lining! I had the pleasure of sitting in at the "palace of Wisdom" and joining some of the workshops of the Lifehacking academy. I had the privaledge of (re-)meeting a lot of in-tune people, who gave me a lot of great compliments, a book and several tips for even more books, a twitter account and my own realization that a small thing like a metal clip can be seen as a "low-tech" hack (and the start of my story...)

check out flickr for some other visuals!
And check out the lifehacking website and go join on the 26th of may!!!

BIGGER is BETTER!!! Thank god!

After stumbling upon a bigger CANVAS by accident, I started to see (and feel) that there is some truth to the fact that the bigger you make something, the more people tend to notice things. Because we usually work on A3 marker paper, our output is limited in its presentation value. We tend to solve this by taking pictures and projecting the results at presentations... but what if you just made everything really really big!?! This is a question which will keep JAM busy for a long time to come...especial;ly since we just hired a large plotter!

Keep checking flickr for our exploded visions!
(thanks Floris for the pictures!)

Dare2Draw at Delft University of Technology

On the 26th of febuary JAM has been invited back to school to come and share some of the tricks of the trade. Because this was the fourth time we have done the Dare2Draw workshop at the Faculty of Industrial Design, it was time to step it up a notch and take it to a new and improved level. Jan and Mike have been working together with Patrick van der Pijl of Business models and have distilled some valuable lessons to be learned, which we now tried out on unsuspecting students for the first time. What was good about the workshop was that it combined previous lessons learned about how to work with students with a vision of how to approach visually charting someones problem. The last being a summery of what we have experienced ourselfs over the last couple of years. This might very well be the beginning of visual theory.... JAM-STYLE! Right now Dare2Draw is a single day workshop for business or design oriented people, but in future this could grow out into a complete set of carefully crafted tools which can be taught and used on a much broader scale.
Check out some of the results of the day by clicking on this sentence!

JAM on the WACOM site

JAM is featured on the WACOM site with an editorial... click here to check it out! Great oppertunity and funny perspective on our story. THANKS WACOM!

VIZTHINK holland - Good Vibrations!!!

Amsterdam 20th of November was the scene of the 2nd VIZTHINK holland session.
the results will be given back to the community as soon as we have converted them to a suitable format for everyone to view. The pictures of the day can be viewed on flickr at this link--> visual linking!

INFORMATION DESIGN

"In your quest for the right words thou shallt find like minded knights..."

Ok... the word combo which opened up a whole new world of visual thinkers and do-ers are INFORMATION DESIGN and what we do (as JAM) just became a little clearer by seeing what this "industry" has been doing for many years. After a very inspiring talk at an Industrial Design Alumni meeting, I even received a clue about a person who is regarded as the signmaking king. The name is GERD ARNTS and you can find some of his work on http://www.gerdarntz.org/home

VIZTHINK Holland blog online

In an effort to start up communication with other visual thinkers JAM and GriDD have joined forces to create a platform for the online exploration of visual thinking and doing. Complimented with a monthly gathering of the minds we hope to contribute to the greater visual community organized on vizthink.com. Check it out here!

The International Forum of Visual Practitioners

How do you miss this...? Visual Practicioners...Visual Do-ers...peteto...petato

I LOVE SKETCH!!!

ILoveSketch from Seok-Hyung Bae on Vimeo.

Program 25th of September

wat is innovatie - take 1

What is VIZTHINK HOLLAND doing on the 25th of september?

If you are interested in exploring the range of your visual thinking and its effects in business and personal development, please let us know by the 13th of september. You can contact us by clicking on to our site (on the right) and dropping us a line via the contact page.
Hope to see you there!
(Het evenement is overigens gewoon in het nederlands...)

Chrome by Scott McCloud

Check this very inspiring work by Scott McCloud about their new browser window.
Click here

VISUAL THINKING COMMUNITY UNITE! 25th of SEPTEMBER at the JAM offices!

Good chances happen fast! JAM has joint forces with Vistago and GRIDD to organize the first visual thinking event of the dutch chapter of VIZTHINK . The goal of the event will be to do some inventory about the dutch visal thinking community and what they are all up to and consequently start up the discussion about how to define visual thinking as a growing supporting force in developement, innovation, marketing, & strategy. As a community we can share our experiences to help visual thinking grow into its rightful place!

invitations will follow, but if you read this and are interested to join the event, just mail me on dennis [at] visueeldenken [com].

PORTAL dutch VIZTHINK...on wiki

In the effort to create a global visual thinking network JAM has joint forces with GRIDD and VISTAGO to create the Dutch chapter of VIZTHINK. The wiki can be checked out here.

LINK 2 the JAM ACADEMY

The JAM Academy is an initiative of JAM Visual Thinking. It was created to bridge the gap between talented visualizers and experienced visual thinkers.

In a one day crash course we teach 5-10 visualizers how to use their drawing skills to solve business problems. The visualizers perform a real life business cases together with the client, guided by experienced visual thinkers. During the day they work towards the optimal goal: To help the client make significant steps in their project. The resulting visuals give the client new insights, an overview of their problem and the means to communicate this effectively.

Take a look at the Academies for an impression of these events.

the 10 and a 1/2 commandments of visual thinking

Dan Roam has made an addendum to his great book "on the back of the napkin"!



Check it out on this link!
http://www.changethis.com/44.03.TenCommandments
Tanx Martien and Armand!

JAM INTERVISON - 4th of July, 2008

On Friday the 4th of July JAM organized an intervision day for some of the freelance artists who work for us on a regular basis . Every visual thinker who attended has sufficient visualization skills, which they developed in different ways coming from different backgrounds.

Morning: warming up
To get the day started we began with a simple sketch-warming-up. By letting the group speed-draw several 2D or 3D objects with a 10 second time limit and the group shouting out drawing subjects. After this quick session we followed up with a session centered around metaphors. While the number of sketches on the wall grew we could start to discuss the apparent differences and overlap in visual results… We explored the choices made and discussing the way to tackle certain abstract subjects like trust or unraveling.




Afternoon: Dutch Society
After lunch we split up into groups to visually tackle our shared visions on the subject: ‘What is society?’. The 4 groups, consisting of 2 to 4 people showed some interesting differences in their visual strategies, or how they used their visual skills to define their visions and translate those visions to presentable posters.

The first group (4 persons) used their sketching skills as a brainstorm-tool. By associating on each other’s visuals, they enriched them in order to get grip on the subject. This ‘brain-drawing’ was helpful for investigating opinions, but a shared visual translation of the subject wasn’t achieved. This was seen in their presentation: 3 different posters with a shared theme of playing cards, visualizing a social dilemma.

The second group (2 persons) made a visual which came into existence by doodling of the 2 members of the group, sometimes even in 1 drawing. This made the image grow organically… its was enriched by mutual associations and questioning. The final drawing was highly detailed and somewhat unclear, but fun to watch and supporting the story told.

The third group (3 persons) came up with a lot of ideas and directions, but because the ideas were discussed instead of visualized, it was hard to get to a shared focus. The presentation depended on the visual note-taking of the discussion and was therefore very fragmented. Nonetheless the different views were powerful, simple, illustrated and clear.

The last group (3 persons) used metaphors as a tool to search for a common point of view on the subject. Knowledge was used to ask the right questions. At first the members were drawing individually, while discussing. All the visuals made were spread out on the floor. Their design-proces was literally at their feet, making it possible to refer to it or be inspired by early ideas. At a certain moment it was fascinating to see that a group could be totally focused on 1 member, when he was able to speak and draw at the same time, where the doodles supported his talking.

By observing the groups there was an important lesson learned:
“A discussion without visualisation leads to straying, but supporting a discussion with visuals gives a natural focus.”


Remarks and questions
For JAM this was the first time we organized this workshop. We weren’t sure how to shape the day but we knew it was a good idea start sharing visions. One thing that was important was that there would be enough time for discussion and exchanging visions.

Some things which were said in the final discussion:

Asking the group about their personal experiences in this workshop the overall answer was that everyone got a feeling of solidarity. Most of the visualizers who were there are used to working alone. The value of this day was to come together to get to know more about how colleagues work and how they stay motivated to draw. This day was a good way to let yourself be inspired and actively share your personal point of view.

The attendees felt like visual pioneers and ambassadors who are at the start of the main development of a visual language. They want to create and try out new techniques and promote their value to the masses.

Challenging questions let to an interesting set of discussions.
What is it that makes a visual understandable?
Is the use of clichés a problem?
Should a visualizer be innovative all the time?
Is a visualizer allowed to repeat his/herself, which could lead to the problem of ‘image-inflation’, or should he/she always challenge his/herself.
Does a visualizer have a set of pictures in his head, a visual database, or is it all about a way of thinking? In what way is he/she a visual gateway or does the personal view have an influence on what’s been drawn? Or does a visualizer have so much experience that his/ her vision is just as important?


It was an enjoyable day and everyone went home with new insights. Enough reasons to organize another drawing day in the near future….

DAVE's W H I R L

DAVE's W H I R L

Check out Dave's Breakdown of visual language!