Sketchnote newsletter 

Weeknotes from Monday 11th to Sunday 17th August

Dot and Dash

Dr. Natalie Grinvalds and I had an inspiring conversation about wellbeing, health, and the neurodiversity app. We also delved into the challenges and rewards of being small business owners in the field of work and wellbeing. We could have talked for hours!

I had the pleasure of catching up with Alex Spencer from Kodola Consulting, now running her own company as a lean practitioner. It’s inspiring to see former colleagues navigating new ventures after changes in Higher Education. We shared insights from our journeys—lessons learned, mistakes made, and the growth that comes from both.

This week, I continued work on the training manual, focusing on accessible color contrasts and a user-friendly coding system. I also kicked off a new project through a referral—a maritime-themed presentation and training. Dived into moodboards for layout, imagery, and typography to shape the design for a quick turnaround.

Facilitation and workshops

This week, I wrapped up the second part of our business's strategic planning series, focusing on both next year and our long-term goals. To enhance our use of the Technology of Participation methods, we’ve been running workshops for one another. For my session, I added a creative touch by incorporating visuals from my Bikablo book, using metaphors to enrich the experience and experimenting with tailored designs for the training manual.

Still at the planning and designing stage with the upcoming AI Opportunity workshop currently involves regular check-ins with the lead facilitator and conducting pre-event interviews with participants. These steps help refine the methods and activities to ensure an engaging and tailored experience in line with the outcomes they want to achieve from the day and beyond.

Facilitate Sheffield

Had a brillant turn out at our meet up as Simon Cookson was running a session on pricing which was led to some interesting thoughts and approaches we all had with the value of the work we do as facilitators, this has now morphed into a separate session which a lot of us want to deep dive into this more.

Lovebrain 

This week, I set myself a challenge: memorising words while under complete distraction and stress. I wanted to test how long it would take to retain and recall information amidst overwhelming sensory stimulation—an environment I usually find difficult to work in. Pretty impressed given I was trying to do this as fast as I could.

I had the pleasure of meeting up with Olivia and Anastasia from the course, and it was a beautiful reminder of how much has changed within us and in our lives. I’m deeply grateful for the unique training experience we shared—our small group allowed us to connect on a deeper level and learn about each other through our stories. I’m eagerly looking forward to the screening party and the big reveal of all the incredible work Teddy and his team are putting into editing the documentary.

Speed reading and book summary 

This week, I received a new book from Jacquie Harper, "Executive Presentations: Develop presence to speak with confidence and skill." I met her through the Graphics Made Easy course. With her background in media as a news anchor, she has incredible public speaking and interviewing skills.

I've been revisiting "A Happy Pocket Full of Money" by David Cameron Gikandi, a book recommended by Chris Do and one I often return to.

App development 

User research is underway with participants recruited and ready for interviews. Discussion guides are prepared, and a report framework is set to organise insights. Excited to see how findings align with initial assumptions as we explore further.

Chatbot feature has been built, I just need to do my bit of the design to get this looking less functional and create a simple UI structure with the features identified from the first round of user research.

Updates on my pacts 

PACT 1 (7 days): I will dedicate 15-30 minutes daily for portrait practice using Eva-Lotta Lamm’s Pragmatic Portraits Masterclass. Link to her shop. Tackling this I decided to add another layer - I've now got her Yoga Avatar workbook from her shop so I can start to add bodies to the portraits. Still work in progress but this resource is fantastic!

PACT 2 (3/52) I will mind map a book a week. This dropped of as a result of new work coming in so we will see if I catch up with the bank holiday weekend.

PACT 3 (4/30 days)  I will produce a weekly sketchnote summary. Working on my sketchnote newsletter - worked on some maritime themes and fonts as you can see from my weeknote summary

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