Net-Map Class in Italy: Eat Pasta, draw Spaghetti diagrams…

I believe in having your cake and eating it. If you want to have a seminar and learn something you are really interested in, why not do it in a beautiful place? How about Vicenza, a UNESCO World Heritage site close to Venice, Italy. So you can have your mind blown in the day time [...]

Telling a great story well

I’m always drawn to good, hands-on and approachable visualization as a tool for getting the message across. Today I stumbled over this photo story about a participatory video project in African villages which really inspired me. I love the story but even more concrete and easy to apply in my own work is the idea [...]

If it’s complex, keep it simple

And if you can’t, ask for help. I just talked with Andrea Fuller who runs Mindfarm (who knows Net-Map and the corporate world) about the question: Why would a CEO want to use Net-Map? My own explanation is as complex as the method. I am just too deeply involved. She gave me a great brief [...]

Network till you drop?

Today I talked with one of the participants of my Net-Map masterclass about the first Net-Map she is planning to do. She works for a charitable foundation and is looking at how to best manage and improve her donor relations. While we were talking about how to use Net-Mapping strategically, we soon came to an [...]

My office in the New York Times

I think I told you that I work at one of the greatest, most happening offices you could imagine, we are the people who don’t hate Mondays. Because we all own ourselves. And most of us own our own companies. Here is how it looks and how it fits into the budding entreprenneurial scene of [...]

Moving from frustration to empowerment

Colleagues of mine use Net-Map to interview unemployed men and better understand their (more or less successful) job hunting strategies. They told me about very mixed experiences with the pre-testing: Some interview partners found the interview helpful and said they learned a lot while others found it made them feel even more power-less and desparate [...]

Can I present an experience instead of a power point?

Net-Map is in great parts an experience-based innovation. The easiest way to get someone excited about it, is to do it and let them see for themselves what an eye-opening experience it can be. That is so much stronger than giving a presentation in which you tell them the different steps one-two-three… or even presenting [...]

Can Net-Map help local police curb neighborhood crime?

This is not a project (yet) but something I thought about while walking through my neighborhood (Capitol Hill in Washington DC), which I love-fear in similar parts, because it is beautiful, walkable, friendly and inviting… if only they’d stop shooting out behind our house every half year and breaking into houses, snatching purses from pregnant [...]

Who will help you get to where you want this year?

Welcome in a new year, a whole beautiful new year that you can use to get closer to your dreams. The first week of the year is a great time to sit down and think strategically about how to get where you want to get. And to figure out, where that is in the first [...]

It’s OK to compete! Just let it all out…

There is a common thread that comes up again and again in the last weeks. I talk with people in HIV prevention, infant feeding, nutrition etc. and they tell me about fierce competition between some organizations for having the “one right solution” that solves the problem once and for all. A lot of energy goes [...]