Do you have a one-pager on that? Of course I do
It’s a question I often get asked when it comes to my Think Clearly Bootcamp / World Tour. Truthfully I haven’t really had a good one-page document about it. Because until I began teaching the class I didn’t really know what it was. I was just trying to sell it, and did so, somewhat successfully. However, now that I have taught the class to over 100 people on three different continents, I begin to see the contours of it.
In essence
In essence, it’s my popular Think Clearly newsletter, currently read by roughly 10.000 people, translated into a seven hour workshop with 5–30 participants. For readers of the newsletter this has often been enough to signup for the class and convince friends to join.
What’s the topic?
If The core topic is “how to think clearly?” In a highly connected and often distracting world, how do we as creatives and creators, business-people and leaders, stay focused on what really matters most?
My approach (in both my newsletters, my own life and in this class) is a mixture of five elements:
- Visual thinking (using simple charts, graphs and diagrams to represent ideas with paper and pen)
- Productivity (making systems for analysis, prioritization and ongoing focus)
- Creativity (generating new ideas and improving ideas of others)
- Self-reflection (using journaling as a method to optimize learning and insight into one self)
- Agile collaboration (using fundamentally iterative ways to try, observe and continually improve ourselves, our work and our teams)
For me, the topics bleed into each other and there is no clear distinction between these five elements as the day goes on. Some parts lean more heavily into some than others.
How do you teach?
The class is super low-tech. I use ~12 flip charts that I roll up and throw in my bag. No slides. No projector. All participants do drawing and writing exercises with Sharpies and thick paper stock, and in their own notebooks. Throughout the day I introduce new ideas and concepts briefly. Then I ask everyone to do an individual exercise to practice. After that participants discuss the results with their table groups and lastly we bring it all together and extract shared learnings. This way we are truly learning together, rather than just listening to me talk.
Who is it for?
The class has drawn a pretty wide spectrum of people because the topic is broadly applicable. However, different people get slightly different take-aways.
The largest group of participants (probably about 40%) are people who work with software, it and agile development. Agile coaches, developers, systems engineers, quality analysts, scrum masters, product owners etc. They all seem to value the deeply agile nature of the class, as it articulates more broadly what they love in their work. They also appreciate how the class helps them communicate visually in ways that appeal the people outside of their technical domain.
Other people who have been drawn to the class include people who work in communications, leaders and managers, visual facilitators and various forms of teachers.
What everyone seems to value is that it feels fun and exciting, it gives simple practical methods for journaling and drawing ideas, and it also goes deep into the personal insights and clarity.
When, where, how much?
The class travels around the world, wherever the demand is big enough. So far Australia, Brazil, UK, Switzerland and of course in NYC where I live.
The suggested price is $500 per participant and typically with a minimum of 10 paying participants. However, price and minimum participants are adjusted to local markets as needed, roughly based on the Big Mac index.
The course is no longer offered as an open enrollment course, however, it is still available as an internal class for one company or team.
Want to learn more?
- Learn more about Think Clearly by looking at some of the past newsletters.
- Start learning some basic visual thinking and reflection techniques in my free online video class (takes about an hour in total, incl. the exercises)
- Try reflection with the Clarity Cards.
- Learn more about why and how I got to do this wonderful work in my personal annual reports.
- Read much more about the class, the World Tour as a project and journey in itself, all right here on Medium.com
Lastly, just reach out to me if you have any questions. I’m easy to reach via Twitter or on WhatsApp or iMessage +1.347.987.5098
