As you might have noted, we like people that use visual tools to communicate a complex message. The story of stuff project is great example of this. Below you can see their latest film: The Story of Cap & Trade

“If we (the visual community) are what the world has been waiting for,
what might be our unique contribution?”

COP15 is happening the next 10 days
– sealing a deal to prevent global warming beyond 2 degrees

As many may know the next 10 days the world leaders will be finalizing an agreement which is to replace the Kyoto protocol and move the world closer to dealing constructively with some of the growing challenges we are facing in terms of the present and future climate changes.

We are now a group of 5 visual thinkers and practitioners who over the next 12 days will be present at the climate negotiations in Copenhagen (www.cop15.com). We have been invited to join WWF international in their work in getting a fair deal.

In this effort we want to involve as many visual thinkers and practitioners from around the world as possible.

Christoph Niemann that makes illustrations, visualizations and thoughtful comments for The New York Times has been out collecting odd shaped leaves. Weather it’s drawing with coffee on napkins or making icons with Lego Niemann is king!

The New York Times

What does women’s fashion, politics and bird flu have in common? Not necessarily anything. But the biggest stories in our life is now available in visual language. Fast Company expands our idea of mindmapping in their new book The Visual Miscallanium. And it’s awsome!

Here is the third set of slides coming from the global network of visual practitioners.
These are made by:
* Julian Burton, UK
* Nancy Marguliese, US

Early this morning we were for the WWF meeting. And almost missed having a visual for the press release where WWF comments on the climate talks. Read the press release here and see it on www.panda.org:

Climate talks: Saying all the wrong things but chance remains to do the right things

“Barcelona, Spain – An ambitious climate treaty can still be achieved in Copenhagen despite most policy makers’ focus on what they cannot achieve….”

Update
Last Thursday 4pm we finally got lucky. We have been invited to join WWF international in their work in relation to the ongoing negotiations leading up to COP15 in Copenhagen December 8th to 18th.

Read this post – and get back to us – if you in some way would be able to be involved the coming 4 days:

COP 15 is going to substitute the Kyoto protocol which expires in 2012. The Barcelona Climate Talks are is final “working conference”.

We are on the team of “WWF observers” as “visualisers” basically running around the conference center in Barcelona. We have been here since Friday supporting WWF in their preparation for the 5 days (mon-fri). We participate in WWF morning and evening meetings where 50+ WWF’ers discuss how to influence the negotiations. We will each day walk around in this huge space and visualize the process of the negotiations, facilitate dialogues on the floor…etc. We are supporting WWF putting together powerful visuals which can explain what the talks are about (see from their view)– so that “even your grandmother will get it”. We are meeting and talking with many of the players here, spreading the word about how visual facilitation, graphic recording and other visual support can inspire the negotiations. We are having conversations with the organizers of COP15 of Copenhagen about how we of how we may involve a larger crew in Copenhagen.

Since August Loa Baastrup has been doing an internship at Bigger Picture. Loa is a student at CBS and you can follow her Blog (The blog is in Danish).

Abdul Dube, a South African Kaospilot with a love for visual language has also joined Bigger Picture as an intern. You can follow Abdul on his Blog. The blog is in English).

Loa and Abdul will finalise their internship in December. Loa’s focus is ”Visual Langauge for Sustainability Dialogues” and Abduls’ is ”The Bigger Picture of the Visual Thinking and Practice Field”.

We are compiling a list of contributors to the Barcelona Talks. When you have sent your first illustration, please make a comment to this post stating:

Name:
Title:
Company:
Country/City:
Email:
Website: