Evaluation 2013 Conference Week: Chris Lysy on Cartooning the Conference

Hello, I’m Chris Lysy, I am an analyst at Westat, a blog developer (evalcentral.com), a published NDE author, and a tweeter (@clysy).  Of course, most people know me here as the cartoon guy (freshspectrum.com).

Lessons Learned: If you draw enough cartoons, sooner or later people are going to call you the cartoon guy.  This label will overtake any other label.  So you might as well just go with it.  So, like last year, I’m cartooning the conference (http://freshspectrum.com/eval13/).

CartoonGuy

Hot Tip: Every great presentation has an essence, a few points that hold all the stories and slides together.  Listen for those points and save them in your head.  Everything else is just the context designed to deliver those points. I cartoon sessions by listening for the essence.  Then I try to take that essence and morph it into a series of cartoons.  Sometimes I’m even successful.  Like this morning when I got a “LOL” from Michael Quinn Patton.

And here is the bonus.  I take away so much more from the sessions I cartoon than I ever do from sessions where I only listen.

 Accountability

Cool Trick: Want to trick a cartoonist into drawing you a free cartoon?  Go comment on his blog about some experience you had at the conference.  It’s almost like magic, all of a sudden he is providing you with something awesome and all you did was comment. 

Correlation

Hot Tip: I get more from this conference walking around the halls chatting with colleagues than I ever do in sessions.  So if you see me, say hello.  I’d love to hear about your experience here.

I’ll be at the Westat Booth in the morning Friday from 8 – 9:30. I’ll also be presenting on blogging with some awesome people Saturday morning from 9:50 – 10:35. Who knows, you may even inspire a cartoon.

Gargani

Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org . aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

1 thought on “Evaluation 2013 Conference Week: Chris Lysy on Cartooning the Conference”

  1. Hi Susan,
    Good to connect with you again. Regarding related posts #4: “Perfect Gifts ” that come around and around again… Maybe there is another carton in the following story about good deeds being returned based on relationships developed at AEA conferences.

    I had an extra copy of Eva the Evaluator that I gave to Chris Lysy at Eval12; which he then had autographed by the author at a breakout session. Chris then provided the cartoons for a presentation I did for an Introduction to Health in All Policies for the Minnesota Public Health Association’s Annual Meeting. In return, I made a donation for his replacement IPad which was used to create the Causation and Correlation cartoon, based on my comment on his blog, which you used in today’s AEA365.

    Sorry I couldn’t attend eval13, but it’s a perfect day for making handmade birchbark candles for presents.

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