#19 Sketchnoting at Steel City, AI for Non-Techies and Conference Planning

Weeknotes — Monday 24 November – Sunday 30 November 2025

Summary of the Week

A week with a proper mix of visual work, learning, and planning. The sketchnoting workshop at Steel City Stadium is in a new venue.

Dot and Dash

This week was helping out with a workshop for the SY Innovation in Practice with Kristina. We are building something to help attendees reach their goals so they can create their own marketing strategies. Lots of 1:1 planning sessions to help bring to life the day-long workshop. We are trying to squeeze in a lot, as they only have a day to go through a lot of content.

Visual Sketchnoting workshop at Steel City Stadium this week. A brilliant space for a session and a great group, it was good to see some familiar faces. Finding out how they were thinking about using this skill within their work. Had a mix of different professions from education and design. I managed to keep, the looming cold at bay until after the workshop! One downside of being self-employed, sick days = no income if you don't work.

AI Training bootcamp

Attending a boot camp for AI for non-techies this week. I am always curious about how people who are not working in tech engage with AI. This bootcamp was to help the people, who I've come across in the workshops I've held around AI design sprint sessions. I see people across the spectrum of I can't stand AI, don't trust it, never will, concerned it's taking our jobs. Then the people who are dabbling away with making workflows and integrating it into their business. I will devise a workshop for those who are completely new to using AI in the future.

IAF Conference

Pre-volunteer group meet up and a conference planning session. The volunteer programme is shaping up and having that group coming together is encouraging. We are starting to get more specific with the work streams. At the moment we are sorting out the ticketing and our google platform and will be moving from bi-monthly meetings to weekly meetings in Jan as things start to ramp up.

DMC womens meetup

Headed to Barnsley for the DMC women's meet up group this week. Great to be connecting with communities across the region. This month, we created baubbles from the laser printing workshop across the road. A brilliant hackspace, with tons of room and lots of different types of 3d printing. Which leads me to think I need to be creating some very cool marketing materials with what they have there.

Personal Trainer

PT this week. A reminder that the physical stuff matters just as much as everything else. Although it feels like I have been tied to my desk or to a Pinboard for the past few days.

I wonder... what changes when you teach someone visual thinking is a skill they already have, they just haven't let it escape into the work they do yet.

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