091 - Behind the standard template - How to create mind-blowing visual experiences with Shayne Smart

Do you want to get better at creating mind-blowing visual experiences for participants?

If so, you need to think about the story and method behind your canvas and its templates. A template is designed to guide participants through the various experiences of the workshop. You can think of it like a visual guide that provides participants with the instructions they need to follow. However, you can take your templates a step further and use them to create captivating visual experiences for your participants.

Shayne Smart is an architect, designer and highly versatile change consultant with 5000 hours of experience in workshop design, facilitation, and delivery. So, who better to talk to about creating mind-blowing visual experiences than Shayne? I had the pleasure of speaking to him in this episode of workshops work, where he shares some of his best tips and advice to help you create unique templates that use icons and layouts that participants understand from their natural environment.

Shayne also reveals how to create a template that works and how to guide groups through online collaborative experiences!

Find out about:

• What a canvas is and the importance of designing captivating templates
• Why facilitators must learn to lead groups through an equal-voice conversation
• How to use prompts from the real world to design a space that participants can navigate as if it were in a place
• Why a lack of alignment can lead to a workshop failing
• How to know you’ve done well as a facilitator
• How to create a canvas for participants who work in small groups or asynchronously
• Why you shouldn’t reveal the complexity of a problem in one go
• … and so much more!

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Questions and Answers

[01:47] – When did you start calling yourself a facilitator?

[02:15] – What does it mean to you to be a facilitator?

[05:17] – How do you translate the key task of a facilitator into the templates you create?

[07:47] - What do you think most people get wrong when they design templates for workshops?

[15:55] – What is the difference between designing a template where you want a group to go from A to B and designing a landscape where you want a group to go from A to B?

[23:15] – How can you reduce the fear of waking something for the user?

[26:52] – How can you create an environment that triggers curiosity, and the will to interact?

[33:23] – How do you create a new habit of using a journal?

[42:38] – What makes a workshop fail?

[43:02] – What is your favourite exercise?

[47:07] – What is the one thing regarding the design production of the MURAL that you would have liked to know earlier?

[49:17] – How can you design something with the end in mind if you don't know the end?

[51:10] – What is the main takeaway from our conversation?

Connect to Shayne Smart:

• Shayne’s LinkedIn 

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