Editing The Pen Addict 543/transcript (section)

== Role of Flickr in Sketchnote Development ==


'''Myke Rohde:''' Well, it's interesting. Flickr was a real key tool in, I think, the development and the propagation of sketchnotes in the world for a couple of reasons. Number one is, at the time, that was one of the dominant social media. I mean, Twitter, I think. Came out in 2006, but it was pretty niche at that point, right? It wasn't, didn't have the wide adoption it has now. And Flickr was much more of a sort of, it had some weight to it and people were spending time there and doing stuff. Now, most people were normal.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It was kind of pre-Instagram, pre-Instagram a little bit, maybe too.

'''Myke Rohde:''' Exactly. That's a good way to describe it. You know, it was like, I was sort of using it in an abnormal way, I guess, that they intended, right? Because typically, it was people with photography, beautiful photography that was going up there. Here I am, like, putting up, like, sketchnotes and or samples of logo designs or, you know, like, I really sort of went in a different direction. But I think the reason why Flickr was so important, number one, is that first workshop that I went to in Chicago to test sketchnoting to do my first experiment. My intention was, when I got done, was, well, I should just post this on Flickr and see what kind of reaction. I think you could even sort of, like, at someone. I don't think it was called that. You could note, like, the speakers could be identified, right? Yeah, right. To the images. So, I did that. And what was really interesting was those, the people that attended the conference really enjoyed it because it was a way to capture the day they spent with me in that same room to understand these design concepts. But what really kind of blew me away was there were people that were not at the event. They were, like, in other continents, right? They were saying, these notes are really great. I'm learning something from them. And maybe, you know, if it comes to my area, I might attend it, right? So, it's like, wow, like, this is having a much broader impact than, you know, what we first talked about for me first and then for others. Even though I'd really intended it for myself, there was an application where other people could draw value from it and make use of it and be inspired by it. It's like, wow, this is really cool. I should probably keep experimenting with this. So, that was one of the aspects. The second thing I'll say about Flickr was they were super early into the Creative Commons. If you don't know what Creative Commons is, that's Larry Lessig was this attorney. They had this idea, like, why couldn't we, like, set predetermined usage rights that you could apply to your work so that if somebody wanted to, say, use your image in a blog post or something, they could just follow the pattern that Creative Commons set up for what their usage was, you know, give you credit, and then they would never have to email you or anything. It was all built into the system. So, that was an experiment I did, too. Like, hey, let's try this Creative Commons and make it available. And I think it really helped to get the early sketchnotes, particularly at South by Southwest when I did that, onto people's blogs at the time. And then people started noticing it, right? It made it easy and frictionless to take images you liked and integrate them into your blog posts, which everybody knows, like, blog posts with images are way more, you know, people read them and check them out. So, it was a huge benefit on both sides. So, I think those two things were really critical. Critical thing that Flickr, you know, played a part in it. And it's partly why I'm still there today. I have so much stuff up there. It's just easier to keep it than to get rid of it. It's so, I'm really happy with, you know, what it provides to me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And it's an interesting thought I had while you were talking about, you know, people listening to your conference or watching your videos and sharing their work that the internet really helped, you know, over the last couple of decades to allow us to attend class in our own home, right? Or pick up a conference in our own home or watch a video in our own home or join a meeting with a bunch of other people in our own home. And, therefore, I can sit at my desk, get out my tools, in this case, you know, like a notebook and a pen to sketchnote while I'm doing this. And, hey, I can go show Myke, hey, look at the sketchnotes I created for this. Where in the past, when you were first starting it, you know, in college, you're in class and, you know, you have to physically be there to get that information. You know, the classes aren't necessarily, you know, available online. So, yeah, I think that's a, I don't know, that was just a real interesting side thought I had there that this last 20 years of the internet has really allowed for us analog tool lovers to use our tools in different ways like sketchnoting. Yeah. So, did you realize it was kind of a big thing? Like, was there a turning point when you thought, oh, there's way more people paying attention to this? Was there any one thing? Like, did you get, like you talked about South by Southwest, was it, you know, did they reach out and have you come down and sketchnote, you know, X, Y, and Z conference or, you know, meeting or presentation? Or was there some kind of turning point where you're like, oh, let's do a little bit more with sketchnoting?

'''Myke Rohde:''' Yeah, there definitely was. It was right around 2008, 2009, I would say. So, the first test that I did was early 2007 and I experimented kind of locally with events. I did one for the people over at 37 Signals, did a conference in that. They put it on their blog and that made it really attractive for a new audience, which were mostly developers or designers. And then kept on working it. And then early in 2008, I decided, okay, I didn't need to really test this thing out. I need to go to South by Southwest Interactive, spend a week and like, see, can I survive a week? Like, would my hand or my brain fry out first? And as it turned out, my brain fried out first because it was just so much good information. And so, I did that experimentation and posted it. That was where Flickr really came in handy with, you know, Creative Commons and people being able to put images with their blog posts about their experience. Twitter was starting to come into that. And I think the turning point for me was, number one, next year in 2009, South by Southwest said, hey, we want to hire you to come and do this work at the event. We'll basically pay you in a badge and then you spend a week, you know, like capturing whatever you think is important and we'll help promote it. So, that was huge. But then the other part that I think made me realize like, holy cow, this is way bigger than I thought it was, was when I started seeing people I didn't even know doing sketchnoting and posting it. And there was sort of this, you know, there's this moment where I was like, okay, this is my thing. These people are doing my thing. Like, I was sort of excited and kind of like, wait a minute, they're like taking my thing, right? Like, there's that human thing where you think, oh, man, that's my thing. Someone else has got my thing. I don't know if I like that feeling. And I sort of checked myself and I said, now, wait a minute. You know, I'm a big believer in Seth Godin's Idea Virus, which is a book that came out right around the turn of the 2000s, where he had this contention that if you have a really good idea, there's no way you're going to stop it from proceeding. Like, it's going to find a way to be alive. And if you have a bad idea, it's going to die. And no matter how much money you pour into it, it's just not going to go. Like, people will not adopt it just because you put a lot of money in it. So, I remembered that and I thought, you know what? There's a real opportunity to think about this from a community perspective in that it's actually great that people are doing it and I don't know who they are. That means that it has legs that I couldn't have predicted. And that means that people see value in it without me having to explain it. They are doing it on their own without prodding. Like, and they're excited to share and they're getting positive feedback, which then encourages them to do more of it. I made a decision at that point. It was less about me and more about we, like all of us getting a benefit. Because ultimately, it was a problem that I faced. Like, I was taking notes in a different way where I felt like I had to write everything. It was a burden. I hated taking notes. I didn't look at them. Like, it was all negative stuff. And having discovered sketchnoting was like a huge breakthrough for my understanding and the way that I approached information. So, I thought, if I'm helping other people feel the same way, like that's a huge win. I should totally back them and be behind them. So, from that point on, I've definitely focused on the community. And then anybody who's teaching it, people that write books, like anybody who's in the community that's doing this work, I'm behind them. Because ultimately, there's a ton of people who don't use this concept and have all these visual skills that they're not making use of. And our job is to activate those skills in people who don't use them, right? So, that's a huge, big goal to get behind that, you know, it's easy to support anybody doing work in the space because the ultimate goal is larger than any of us and probably will last longer than our lifetimes, which is kind of a cool thing to be part of.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's really cool to see and to hear about. So, all right, since you talk about teaching a lot, I want you to help our listeners, you know, get into their first sketchnotes if they haven't done all of that. So, we're going to get into that in one second. We're going to first take our first little break today and hear from one of our lovely sponsors and the other Myke on this podcast, who you might hear in these ad breaks throughout this episode, Mr. Myke Hurley.

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