KnolShare with Dr. Dave

EAFH59: Angela (Yazzie) Marquez, Diné Education and Social Justice

Kayanna:

We all have something to share. KnolShare with Dr. Dave.

Dr. Dave:

So hello and welcome to the Knolshare here with Dr. Dave podcast. This is Dr. Dave Cornelius, your host. We are going to talk about social justice today with Angela Marquez. And so when we talk about social justice, what we're talking about is that everyone deserves equal economic, political, and social rights and opportunities. And the goal is to make sure that we open doors of access and opportunity for everyone. Right? So in short, when we're talking about is social justice means equal rights and equitable opportunities for all. And today we have Angela Marquez, the Outreach Program Manager of the Data Sciences Academy at the University of Arizona. Angela is also a member of the Navajo or Diné Tribe. One of the original people of the United States. So welcome Angela.

Angela Yazzie:

Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

Dr. Dave:

Yeah. So why don't we just kick off by you telling us a little about who you are in your own words and how you would describe yourself as a Navajo or Diné descendant.

Angela Yazzie:

[foreign language 00:01:23] A Angela Marquez, you Shia touchy to Baja that Chanel it. So, hello, I'm Angela Marquez. I just shared with you my clans as a Navajo woman. I have four clans given to me from first, my mother, then my, my dad's mother, then my, my maternal grandfather's mother, and then my paternal grandfather's mother. So traditionally in Navajo culture, your clans come from the women in your family, and that's also links to the importance of the woman in the family structure and in the culture itself. So anyways, I am born for the Táchii’nii Clan, which is if you translated, it means red running into the water, and that is one of the traditional, or I guess, original clans for the Navajo Tribe. And it's really common to hear. So anyway, I grew up on the Navajo Reservation and I often go back and my grandmother on my mother's side lives in Leupp, Arizona, and my other grandma lives Black Mesa.

Angela Yazzie:

So it's a quite a long drive, but it's totally worth it for me to go back a lot. And I just wanted to share also that my grandparents did a lot of the raising of me, as is very common on the Reservation. And they taught me lots of things. They taught me the importance of my education. They taught me importance of my culture, sense of need for social justice, faith, and how to care for my community. So I would not be the same person if I didn't have them to help me along. So I'm just so grateful for their help along with who I am. So anyway, I just love that I am Navajo. I didn't realize growing up that it was such a treasured thing, but now that I'm here in Tucson and I've been here for a while, I realized there's not a lot of Navajos outside of the Reservation. And so I'm just so glad that I'm able to ask my grandparents everything that I need to know. And yeah, I'm really glad to be able to share my experience with you.

Dr. Dave:

You're so fortunate. So let's talk about how do social justice, any type of challenges show up in your experience as a, a Navajo descendant and a woman of color.

Angela Yazzie:

I thought social justice, the idea of social justice is such a funny idea because it's this need to seek out justice only because injustice have been socially acceptable until recently. I just think that that's just such a funny thing, because I just didn't really ever think about social justice with that name, social justice until I went to college. So the Dine people have a oral tradition of passing down knowledge from one generation to the next.

EAFH58: Cherie Silas. Influence without authority: Making 360 impact when you don’t call the shots

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

coach, people, agile, organization, happening, coaching, problem, change, agile coach, resistance, work, solve, compliance, client, agenda, solution, hear, company, stand, fix

 

So good morning, everybody Happy Saturday is the 16th 930 or 940 now, and today we're doing Sheree silence, we have her as our host. And she's going to be talking about influencing without authority, making 360 degree impact when you don't control the shots. Sheree, for those attendees who might not know you, or might not have heard about you what's important for them to know about you before we get started today?

 

Um, well, I guess just a little bit about who I am. I think many of you, I've met several of you I noticed things and I know some of you have been in class with me. So I mean, I'm a coach, I am a coach, I have been an agile coach. And my big thing is really training and developing other coaches. So bringing professional coaching over into the Agile space so that people well, if they call themselves coaches come in need to understand and apply what actually coaching is beyond just the mentoring, consulting type things. And so helping to bring those two walls together professional coaching and agile coaching to make more impact because I believe that that's what makes sustainable changes when we approach things as a coach. So I'm a mentor to professional coaches. I'm a coaching supervisor, which basically helps coaches to reflect on the work they're doing with their clients and to improve that. And I run and own tandem Coaching Academy where we train analysts and coaches. And guess that's probably about it. However, I am willing to share whatever anybody might have questions about.

 

It's very much a round of applause for Sheree. She's awesome. So why don't we just dive right in? Sheree? If you're ready. Think the rest of us are ready?

 

Sure. All right. So let's talk a little bit I'm not going to put slides up right now I'll just kind of pop them up and pull them down because they kind of get in the way of us looking at each other. So I know that some of you are coaches because I've worked with you. I'd like to maybe if you could hit that chat box and talk a little bit about who you are coaches, Scrum masters managers, dog walkers, what is it that you do? And are you in the Agile space? Senior Scrum Master, agile coach, writer, editor and aspiring teacher, Tony, you're going to have to tell us tell me a little bit about that. Is it in the Agile space for your writing fiction novels? Or what? Seeing your agile coach fall over a parish? Okay, so

 

I have joined agile space before, but I just I like the concept of it. And I just love to learn more.

 

Yeah, awesome. Well, good to have you here. And I hope that some of what we talk about will be good for you today. So some of you who are already in the coaching space, you will, you will already know a lot about coaching and the way to bring coaching into your world and the impact that it can have. And so I'm going to go ahead and pop this on the screen. I, in my journeys as a coach and as someone who developed who develops coaches, one of the biggest questions I get is, how do you deal with resistance and resistance and being able to make an influence where you don't really have control as agile coaches? I don't know how many of you ever go into an organization and they give you the keys to the kingdom and they say everyone reports to you. Everybody has to do what you say. Yeah, not really. They're usually instead saying, you have no control. You have no authority and you better fix my wh...

EAFH57: Mercy George-Igbafe, LEARNTOR Founder, Maximize Black Opportunities

Kayanna:

Let's talk about it. Talk, talk. Let's go deep. We all have something to share. KnolShare with Dr. Dave.

Dr. Dave:

So hello and welcome to the KnolShare with Dr. Dave podcast. This is Dr. Dave Cornelius, your host. We're going to have a conversation about social justice. And when we talk about social justice, we're talking about given opportunities for everyone, both from an economic, political, social rights, and opportunities where we're trying to open the doors of access and opportunity for everyone. When we think about some of the formal definitions, we would think of things that it contains like equal rights, equal opportunity, equal treatment. So when we talk about social justice, it just means that we want to have equal rights and equitable opportunities for all. So today, my conversation is with Mercy George-Igbafe. She is a digital strategist, an Agile and data enthusiast, and she's the founder of Learntor. So Mercy, why don't you give us a elevator pitch about who you are and who is your superhero? You could even tell it from the voice of a superhero. You could take on their voice and persona.

Mercy:

Let me try, but I don't know how to impersonate people, but I'll try. First, until I see equal opportunity for everyone across all spectrum, whether you are Black, Hispanic, your sexual orientation, no matter what it is, especially the third world country, or 'til I see that happen, is the day that I feel as a human being. And that's how I started Learntor.

Mercy:

Learntor is built on the premise of a quote that I love so much. "True greatness is not in being great, but in the ability to make others great." That's what drives me. That's my motivation. Learntor focuses on training Agile digital skills in strong training, data analytics, business analysis. And the goal is because there aren't many opportunities. We have a lot of eye shift employees, rather, a lot of home shift that can actually swing around departments because of the skills that they have. And that's the gap Learntor is trying to bridge and to equally bring out the excellence in a lot of the black people that do not have opportunity to learn some of the skill, or started a bit late, but talking about social justice, it speaks to the core of who I am, not from a victim mentality, but from recognizing the opportunity that I can lean on as a business and maximize to make a difference in the world.

Dr. Dave:

Awesome. That's wonderful. So I wanted to just tap into about your social justice challenges that you may have faced in your community or even in your family.

Mercy:

Okay. First, I will start with family. I've gone through quite a bit of a deal. I say, life has thrown me real bitter lemons, bitter that really spikes in your... When you take it, you scream or your jaw goes clenching, but what I've always done consistently is how I'm going to move on. Is what next? What lesson am I going to learn from the experience? My social injustice task for my family, my father not accepting who I was in terms of, I didn't go seeking mistake. I had a child at 14. Unfortunately, I didn't go looking for it. It was as a result of sexual abuse. My daughter tells me I don't talk about it a lot, but even with that, I ended up in a police station where my dad had to take me with pregnancy and lock me up. But that's a long story, but then I'm going to tell my story.

Mercy:

It will really, it will make a lot of people weep, because all my life experiences is what drives, who I am today. So my social injustice starts from my family, especially my dad. My mom died very young. Unfortunately, when the stupid thing,

EAFH56: Colleen Kirtland, Courage to Travel Outside of My Comfort Zone

Kayanna Singing:

Let's talk about it. Talk, talk, talk. Let's go deep. We all have something to share. KnolShare with Dr. Dave.

Dr. Dave Cornelius:

Hello and welcome to the KnolShare with Dr. Dave podcast. This is Dr. Dave Cornelius, your host. Let's talk about social justice definition. So we say social justice is the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political, social rights, and opportunities. The aim is to open doors of access and opportunity for everyone, particularly to those in greatest needs. So when we think of social justice, it contains all of the following, equal rights, equal opportunity, equal treatment. Our conversation today is with Colleen Kirtland, someone that I hold a great deal of respect and admiration for because of the good work she's doing with helping underestimated kids increase the skills, their skills in education. I've served with Colleen in the 5 Saturdays STEAM program. We say STEAM because A is for agile, and I say welcome, Colleen. So why don't you take about a minute or more and do an elevator pitch about Colleen and your superhero persona?

Colleen Kirtland:

Oh, my goodness. That's going to involve some creativity on a Friday here. Well, my name is Colleen Kirtland, and it's a great pleasure to be here today with you, Dr. Dave. If I were to describe myself and we all have superpowers, I think the ones that I would choose that would stand out might be akin to almost like a super power butterfly. And what I mean by that, so the butterfly metaphor comes up in a lot of different cultural mythologies and other things, but I think the metamorphosis aspect is really important because we're always changing, right? We may be the very same being from the caterpillar all the way to the butterfly, however, we're changing and we're going through this evolution, and it's biological, it takes time. And it's a cycle, it's a cycle of life. It's a natural cycle. So I think that would be it. I don't know if there's a butterfly superhero, like wonder butterfly or something, but I'm going to go ahead and go with butterfly.

Dr. Dave Cornelius:

Oh, I love the metaphor. I love it. And so it's an original and we're going to keep it and we're claiming that, right?

Colleen Kirtland:

Okay. Yeah. We'll figure out some name of like Super Monarch or something. I don't know.

Dr. Dave Cornelius:

What a wonderful name, Super Monarch. There you go. So let's talk about social justice challenges, and how has that shown up in your work, community, and family?

Colleen Kirtland:

Okay. So this question, I'm very glad you sent me questions in advance. I actually thought I'd take a different spin on this. So you say, "How is it showing up in my work and community and family?" And what's really interesting, and what made me actually think about a missing component of social justice, is that if I take the typical circle I walk in, it is not showing up. And I think this is a really salient point about having the courage to travel outside of our comfort zone to find places where there is a need for social justice. So, ironically, I was talking to my husband, I'd say two nights ago, and I don't mean this to be of any disrespect to any of your listeners or anybody who subscribes to this podcast.

But I was saying I sometimes feel I'm equally as privileged as a white male. And I take this seriously and I have nothing against white males, I'm married to a wonderful white male. And I think it goes beyond just the color of your skin and your gender. It goes into the aspects of where we have access and we have opportunity in our lives. And I was very lucky.

EAFH55: Nicole Spence-Goon, Finding Reflective Mentorship and Sponsorship

Dr. Dave:

Say hello and welcome to the KnolShare with Dr. Dave podcast. This is Dr. Dave Cornelius, your host. We want to talk about the social justice definition and social justice is the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights and opportunities. We want to think that we're opening doors of access and opportunity to everyone, particularly those in greatest needs. So when we think of some of the formal definition, we're talking what equal rights, equal opportunities and equal treatments. So in short, social justice means equal rights and equitable opportunities for all.

Today, our conversation is with Nicole Spence-Goon. And I hope I didn't screw that up too badly, but did I do say that right?

Nicole:

Perfect. Perfect.

Dr. Dave:

All right. So let's just kick off. We always like to kick off with an elevator pitch about Nicole and your superhero persona.

Nicole:

All right. So about Nicole. I can put it in categories of work, family, play, and work super here and there a little bit. I'm currently an Agile coach at Excella and within Excella, I am part of their IDEA team. That's their version of DI. They just rearrange the letter so we could have IDEA, but same thing. And I've been working in software development for over 20 years in a lot of different roles.

I started as a developer, did the tester role, did BA role. I managed to find my way into the Agile space about 10 years ago. I just gravitated towards it because at the time when I was in my career, I was looking for something more, but I didn't know what more was. The project that I happened to be on at the time started talking about Agile and I'm like, okay. We're going to do this Agile thing. I'm like, okay. I'm game. But I don't know what it is. I found that as we were meddling our way through, there was something really different here that focused on something more than just the work. That's what intrigued me in getting in the Agile space. I've been gung-ho ever since. Always trying to learn more in the Agile space, as well as being active in community.

As for family, I was born in Jamaica and I was raised partly in Canada. So I'm a Jam-Can person. So, I went back and forth a lot, but that doesn't mean I like cold. I did not like winter. I still don't like winter. No. Winter is never going to be for me. But, as far as a superhero persona, I think what I gravitate to is transforming, networking into community building. I never really liked the whole term or activity of networking, but I felt like it was better to start with what we have in common and then build relationships as opposed to like making it transactional. What can you do for me? And I can do for you, but really connecting people.

Dr. Dave:

That's beautiful. So from Jamaica. That means you are a Yardie.

Nicole:

Yes. But I'm from country, since I'm not from Kingston.

Dr. Dave:

Yardie. 20 years ago, I don't know, maybe you started when your, what 15.

Nicole:

Yeah. We'll go with that. Lets go with that number.

Dr. Dave:

Yeah. OK. There you go. So, let's talk about how does social justice, social justice challenges show up for you in your experience as an Agile coach and also as a woman of color?

Nicole:

Yeah. I'm reflecting on my experiences. I feel like I could come from it in terms of, from one aspect of treatment, right. Not equal treatment. This is something from the woman perspective of not being heard. Where I've been in situations, making contributions, and sharing ideas, and then somebody else shares the same idea. I just said that. What is happening here? Do you not see me here?

EAFH54: Salah Elleithy – Listening to Acknowledge Different Voices

Dr. Dave:

Hello and welcome to the KnolShare with Dr. Dave Podcast. This is Dr. Dave Cornelius, your host. And today I am having the wonderful opportunity of having a conversation with Salah. And then I am going to tell you that, just give you a definition of social justice, right? The way we define it, or the way we've captured it is social justice is the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights and opportunities that social work-, social workers aim to open the doors of access, opportunity for everyone, particularly those in the greatest needs. So when we think about all of the different ways that we want to think about social justice, we could think of it in terms of equal rights, equal opportunity and equal treatment. So in short, social justice being equal rights and equitable opportunities for all. So, hey, Salah, what's going on? Why don't you take a minute and provide like a quick elevator pitch about who you are and I always like to talk about people's superhero persona, right? Yeah.

Salah:

Yes. Yeah, no, I appreciate it and, and thanks for inviting me. And I like this idea of superhero persona. I would say my superhero persona is mostly, is a super curious and courageous kid who gets to ask why over and over and get to, and then get to ask it again. And my kids reminds me of that constantly especially when, and when it's not why, it's why not. But jokes aside, I am a certified coach, collective coach, and also I'm an ICF professional certified coach. And my focus has been on Agile coaching for the last 10 years or so. And I like to facilitate teams and individuals and help leaders and teams become better one day at a time. I also like to help individuals balance, individuals, teams and leaders, balance clarity with action. And my mission is really to spark courageous curiosity with play and hopefully sprinkle a little sense of humor on that as well. But that's in a nutshell.

Dr. Dave:

So let me ask you this, right. How does social justice challenges show up in your experience as an Agile coach?

Salah:

Yeah, for me, the social justice shows up in different ways. I'll focus maybe on a couple and see where that takes us. But the main one that I see often is acknowledgement. How do we acknowledge, does the company or the team or the group acknowledge the different voices and invite the different perspectives at the table and welcome dissent and have different views of things or are the voices being ignored? These voices are being ignored and the dominant voices or the dominant voice continues to be the dominant? I believe that leadership has a big role in this, encouraging and inviting different voices to the table and sometimes, as coaches, coaching, even though we know that it's not about telling people what to do, but it's about showing or holding a mirror for what's going on in the group.

So that's where, as a coach and as a leader, I try to invite the voices and allow for equal opportunities and different perspectives in the group. So, that's one. The other one is listening. So listening to what's going on, how things are being discussed. I usually say, or I learned, in my journey that if you want to gauge a culture of a company or a group, just attend their meeting and see how they interact with each other. And listening goes hand in hand with the expression. It's one thing to encourage expression and to encourage this openness in culture, but it's another thing to pay attention and listen to what's really going on. And not just to what's being said but what's, what remains to be unsaid.

So it takes,

Dr. Dave:

So hello and welcome to the KnolShare with Dr. Dave Podcast. This is Dr. Dave Cornelius, your host. I wanted to give you a definition of social justice. Social justice is the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights and opportunities.

Social workers or leaders, aim to open doors of access and opportunity for everyone, particularly those in greatest need. Formal definitions may vary, but all contain equal rights, equal opportunity and equal treatment. In short, social justice means equal rights and equitable opportunities for all.

The conversation today is with Cherie Silas, one of my great champions. Cherie is an ICF Master Certified Coach, an EMCC Master Coach and coaching supervisor who trains and mentors individuals to become professional and Agile coaches. I could just tell you, I've spent seven months once or twice a week with Cherie learning how to be a professional coach.

How about telling us some stuff? We'll just do an elevator pitch Cherie about you, but also about your superhero persona.

Cherie Silas:

I don't know how much of a superhero I am, but I am as you said, a Master Certified Coach. To the best of my knowledge, I'm the only MCC who's like a hardcore Agile coach. I know I'm the only certified leader coach, who is an MCC.

But I think the big things are just that it's my mission and my purpose. And so years ago, I settled on what I wanted to be in the world was someone who would leave everyone I encountered better than I found them with each encounter.

If they encountered me, they should be better off, not worse off. I guess a little more about me is I live in a biracial family. I have for over 30 years. I have five adult children. I have eight grandchildren and of course child-in-laws and they have various racial profiles, predominantly Black and White, but there are others in there. I'm a lifetime learner.

I was a pastor for 20 years, just resigned recently this year. I really just want to live in a world where people are treated like people. Earlier this year, I realized that people who look like me in the world would not believe that racism and racial injustice was still a thing. I didn't even believe it for a long time. What I knew was that until they heard it from someone who looked like them, they wouldn't believe.

And so I decided in the beginning of this year that I would become one White voice and hopefully, to connect with White ears everywhere so that they can hear and realize truth.

Dr. Dave:

That's beautiful. As a White woman, share your experiences living in a BIPOC family.

Cherie Silas:

It's been an interesting couple of few decades. I grew up in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, which is very well known for its non-tolerance of anyone not White. In the world where I grew up, if you were not White, you were considered sub-human.

There wasn't like a big, "Everyone's sub-human, but us." But it was well understood the way people were treated and the way that people were talked about. And so when I selected my spouse, when I was 20, I was ostracized from my family. Except for my mom and my two sisters, they've hung in there.

In no uncertain terms, I was told, "You made a choice. You're going to live with the consequences." That was okay with me because I didn't understand all of this thinking around people's skin, making them less than or more than. I didn't get it.

So I didn't want to be a part of that world and I was okay with just walking away. But we lived in St. Bernard Parish when I first got married, which is interesting. Where I lived in that parish, Black people were only allowed to live in three different areas.

There were three...

Tim Abbott Shares the need for Social Justice and Empathy in Human Systems

Dr. Dave:

Hello, and welcome to the KnolShare with Doctor Dave Podcast. This is Doctor Dave Cornelius, your host. Give me an elevator pitch, one minute or so about what makes Tim, Tim?

Tim Abbott:

Well, what makes me, me is that I've been working in the Agile space for quite a long time. I'm just passionate about helping teams and helping organizations. I started off as a software engineer developer, and then I moved up pretty quickly because one of the things that was naturally innate in me was the ability to connect with people and the people side of the business. While technically, I was very strong, it was one of the things that stood out, so I immediately started working with teams and leading teams. I would say probably the thing that makes me, me and the thing I'm most passionate about is helping people connect to reach a common goal. That's basically my background and what I've been doing for the past, I guess now it's been almost 25 years.

Dr. Dave:

That's wonderful. Let's talk about social justice. One of the definition that look at for social justice is about fair and compassionate distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. We're talking about equal rights and equitable opportunities for all. How does social justice show up for you where you live in your country? Matter of fact, where do you live?

Tim Abbott:

Well, I mean, I'm from the States. Well, I don't know if that's obvious, but I'm from the States. My father was in the oil business initially. I was raised between Texas and Oklahoma. I don't really say I'm from somewhere, because I was living in West Texas, and Houston, and lived between Oklahoma City and Tulsa. That's where I grew up. And then, I became a software engineer, I went to college, I became a software engineer. And in college, it's funny you mentioned social justice, because in college, that was really, I was deeply involved in a lot of social justice and just, where I'm living now, I live in Saudi Arabia now, I've been here for 14 years, it's funny you ask, because one of the things that brought to Saudi was, I just got tired of ... I was pitching a startup that I was running when I finally left the States, and I never could break that glass ceiling, or get the opportunity when we were generating quite a bit of revenue. But funding, I was in Atlanta at the time, and funding, at that time, for people that look like me because I didn't match a particular pattern, was difficult to come by.

Tim Abbott:

So, I just said, "Forget it," and ended up with a project that I thought I was going to be on for a year in Saudi Arabia, and then, just many different opportunities started opening up for me while I was here, as I was running the company here. We expanded and expanded, and then, finally, we ended up selling that company in 2015. The company expanded quite a bit and we sold it here locally to some investors in 2015.

Tim Abbott:

But how it shows up to me is just the opportunities. People want a chance, right? People want a real chance to be able to prove that they can perform, and for me, that's all that I ask for, that people are given a chance. That's why the majority of my work is about helping people become the best that they can be, and giving them chances to show who they are and what they can do. That's how it shows up for me.

Dr. Dave:

That's wonderful. So, in terms of some of your own personal social justice experiences, what were they that challenged you to want you to bring about change?

Tim Abbott:

I grew up in, I wouldn't say privilege, but my parents did fairly well and I ended up going to an HBCU for undergradu...

Growing your leadership agility with Positive Intelligence with Ann-Marie Kong

 If you could be happier and increase your performance exponentially with 15 minutes of daily practice, would you do it? 

You live in a rapidly changing, volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous and interconnected world. To meet the adaptive challenges you face today, you need to evolve in your ways of thinking and being. You are having to evolve at a rate that matches or exceeds the rate of escalating complexity in the world. You need to develop your consciousness, character and compassion. 

Leadership agility is your ability to take wise and effective action amid complex, rapidly changing conditions. Positive Intelligence is a pathway to developing your leadership agility. 

Positive Intelligence enables you to recover faster to shift from your inner critics/saboteurs to your Sage by developing your mental fitness muscles. Mental fitness is your capacity for handling life's great challenges with a positive mindset rather than getting stressed and upset. 

Ann-Marie Kong is a Transformation Leadership & Co-Active Agile Coach, creative catalyst, avid learner, community grower, and a generous, joyful, playful and grateful soul. She is on a journey of living her life’s purpose, shifting from a life of success to a life of significance where success is aligned with significance, and making a meaningful difference in the world by sharing enduring love. 

Connect with her via https://www.linkedin.com/in/ann-marie-kong or https://transformingleaders.ca/book-ann-marie 

Join me in welcoming Ann-Marie Kong to share on growing your leadership agility with Positive Intelligence. 

Ashanti Gardner, BIPOC Graphic Recorder Shares Social Justice Experiences

Dr. Dave:

Hello, and welcome to the KnolShare with Dr. Dave podcasts. This is Dr. Dave Cornelius, your host. The conversation today is with Ashanti Gardner, a graphic facilitator and recorder, and a co-collaborator in the Agile for Humanity, meetup and conference. So. Hey. Welcome, Ashanti.

Ashanti:

Thank you.

Dr. Dave:

So, we met at the future of work event in 2020, and we had all the stuff going on, kind of hard to keep track of. And I learned about your capability as a graphic recorder. Tell me more about Ashanti. Let me know about you.

Ashanti:

Yeah. So I'm originally from the Midwest and I've always had a passion for painting and drawing. It's always been in me. And yeah, I'm just someone who is very curious. I like to come into spaces with the beginner's mindset. I love learning new things and I love experimenting. And that's something I enjoy even more when I do it with other people. So, the whole idea of co-creation collaboration is very near and dear to me. And, for me, this is a journey right now that I'm going on trying to get more into the social innovation impact and change space, because I really, at this moment in time, I really want to help people, be an advocate for people. So, for me, this is truly a shift, and I just feel like it's the right time. It's just always been in me, but I probably haven't been brave enough to step out. And the timing is right, so it's time for me to step out and do the work I was meant to do.

Dr. Dave:

That is so great to hear. So, I just want to let you know, you're like the first BIPOC graphic recorder that I've met, but I've worked in the Agile community. So, tell me more about that journey into the space.

Ashanti:

Yeah. So, there are a few of us out here. But yeah, my journey into graphic recording really started when I was trying to figure out how to take better notes, just for my own self. And I was just struggling. Every time I was writing something down, I would go back to it, and I wasn't quite sure what I meant to write. I' didn't understand the connection between some of what I wrote, and I would have things in different places. And I started searching on YouTube for a solution, because that's where you go, to YouTube for everything. So, I was like, "Somebody has to have another way of taking notes." And that's when I came across visual note taking and I fell in love with it immediately. And I just thought, "This makes sense. It's genius." and it really helped me out a lot.

Ashanti:

And I started reflecting back on a time when I actually saw a graphic recorder at a conference, and I've always been curious about it, but again, didn't really ask anybody about it, search for it but I remembered it. And then I just started talking to people and asking people in my network. And eventually, that led me to other people who were doing graphic recording. It led me to Nova Scribes, which is a huge community in the DC area. And now it's gone really global because of the pandemic. It's Really opened up space for more people. But it's a credible community and very welcoming. And yeah, I started there and I've met Lisa Nelson, who is a black woman, who has a business in Maryland called See In Colors.

Ashanti:

And when I saw her on the panel, then I was like, "Wow, I'm not the only one." And it slowly, over time, I went to the international forum of visual practitioners conference. And then I saw more people who looked like me. Not many of us, but I see the potential for that to grow. And I feel like graphic recording, even graphic facilitation is becoming even more popular. It's been around for decades,