Yesterday was Day 1 of  TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012 - see our graphic recording of some amazing featured speakers, below.  ImageThink is busy today  providing our graphic recording and visual notetaking services to Day 2 event speakers – check back here tomorrow to see the results!

At ImageThink, we’re proud entrepreneurs. One of the most rewarding parts of providing graphic facilitation services is meeting the brains behind other companies. We all had to start somewhere, and for many in the technology industry, that company kick-off begins at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012. That’s why ImageThink is so proud to be returning to TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012 May 21-23 to provide our graphic recording and visual notetaking services to event speakers.

TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012 brings together technology start-ups, giving these companies the opportunity to compete for a cash prize. Additionally, many esteemed individuals in the technology industry are in attendance. At this event, ImageThink will be providing graphic recording and visual notetaking for select speakers in order to enrich the experience for attendees, ensuring that the inspiring messages and industry insights will be long remembered.

Last year, ImageThink joined the GE booth to create live visuals for Tech Crunch speakers like Ashton Kutcher, Arianna Huffington, and Tim Armstrong.

We are excited to return this year with Quotidian Ventures to create live graphic recordings of featured speakers. Be sure to find us at their booth just outside the main stage May 21, 22, and 23rd.

TechCrunch New York in 2011 with GE 10

We’re passionate people – and we’re passionately obsessed with what we do.

As a leader in the art of graphic recording and visual note taking, we’re proud “makers,” and we’re happy to be joining the maker movement not only to share our passion, but to help other “makers” share theirs. That’s why we’re incredibly excited that Heather Willems and Lloyd Dangle will represent ImageThink at Maker Faire 2012 in the Bay Area May 18-19.

Maker Faire 2012 is a festival of creativity and innovation. Inventors, artists, creators – young and old – gather together to share their passions & creations. Not surprisingly, the best description of the event comes from the program’s website: “part science fair, part county fair, and part something entirely new!” And we get the pleasure of capturing all this creativity with visual notes and graphic facilitation of select talks at the Center Stage. We are also looking forward to having a chance to check out all the amazing booths and DIY activities throughout the conference.

For more information, please visit the Maker Faire 2012 program’s website.

Michael Jones on Visualization and the Globe

How to ensure that America stay’s innovative into the next century? What is the future of manufacturing in America and what bearing does it have on national security? What are the most disruptive technologies on the market? On Monday the Atlantic and Boeing hosted an Innovation Summit where some of the nations top thinkers attempted to answer these questions.

Atlantic Innovation Summit

As an avid reader of the Atlantic, and a seasoned attendee of innovation conferences around the world, I was very pleased that ImageThink was invited to graphic record  these conversations. Thought leaders and  top thinkers included Jim McNerney , Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, The Boeing Company, Michael Jones, Chief Innovation Advocate for Google,  John Loehr of  Booz & Company, Arun Majumdar, Director, Advanced Research Projects Agency-­Energy, and Nobel Laureate Peter Agre. See the full set of talks on our Flickr stream below.

Jad Abumrad from RadioLab in NYC at the 99% Confernece

As New Yorkers, and graphic recorders who attend hundreds of meetings and conferences a year, we are often asked what are the best conferences. By far, our favorite New York gathering is Behance’s 99% Conference. While we are privileged to attend many technology and innovation summits, like SXSW, TechCrunch, and MLove, that focus on creativity and innovation- the curators of 99% assume that the audience is already full of creative innovators and they focus on how to actually execute on making these ideas happen.

We love this concept so much, that, for the first time we are attending a conference as a participant, just for ourselves. Being  a professional visualizer, Heather couldn’t resist pulling out a sketchbook and making her own sketch notes for yesterday’s agenda. Take a peek!

If  your device isn’t feeling like playing the flash slide show, click HERE for our flickr set.

ImageThink’s own, Heather Willems, was asked to be a contributing artist and illustrated the process of the value exchange that will occure through out the exhibition.

As an urban agricultural design project, Jenna envisions a way to grow food in an anthropogenic landscape for all strata of citizens, but as an art project, she hopes to facilitate conversations about different values: convenience vs creative effort, regenerables vs disposables, neighbors vs strangers.

If you are in NYC tonight, swing by the opening  Exhibition at Mixed Greens Gallery, NYC, located at 531 WEST 26TH STREET, FIRST FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10001

Here is a little more information on the exhibition itself:

This participatory exhibition, which will include a series of “microfarms” and a “farmstand”, will explore, through interactions with gallery visitors, the value placed on food and society.

Jenna started experimenting with apartment-sized farming by converting her bookshelf into a mini greenhouse. To suggest a feeling of domesticity, household objects will be modified to house the microfarms. For example: a suitcase, a chair, a kitchen cabinet, a desk, etc. will be adapted with a planter and lights.

A small “farmstand” will serve as a space for the harvest and sale of the microgreens. The gallery visitors will determine the monetary value of the exchange, based on a set of choices that will support local, urban agriculture non-profits, like Added Value and Bed Stuy Campaign Against Hunger. They may then choose to take the greens or donate them to someone in need.

These transactions will be recorded in the form of a “receipt”- a print signed by both the consumer and artist. The consumer will receive the receipt and a duplicate will be hung in the gallery to record the collective value of the exchanges over the course of the exhibition.

Chester Santos and Heather Gallagher

After two years of working and sponsoring the MLove Confestival in Germany, we were happy to be a part of the first ever US MLove Festival in Monterey, California.

The MLOVE ConFestival has been named a “TED for Mobile” and a meetup of the “IT avant-garde.”

Like the previous festivals in Germany, ImageThink created real-time visualizations of the speakers, adding another creative element to this unique conference.

This sessions speakers included Memory Champion, Chester Santo’s, Burning Man organizer, Heather Gallagher. Salim Ismail, founder of the Singularity University and

many thought leaders in advertising and mobile technology. View our graphic recordings of all speakers below, or directly on flickr

Doodling for Dollars: Firms Try to Get Gadget-Obsessed Workers to Look Up—and Sketch Ideas

Several weeks ago we spoke with Rachel Silverman at the Wall Street Journal about how companies are encouraging employees to put down their smart phones and start drawing out their inspiration. We were please to see that they not only mentioned the benefits of graphic facilitation and how doodling increases memory retention, but they also included an ImageThink Tips-n-Tricks Illustration providing simple ways to incorporate visual learning into your company meetings.

“It’s natural to start drawing stuff. You just grab a marker and you start drawing,” says Audra Kalfass, a Citrix software-development engineer. She says she is a “horrible” artist. Nevertheless, “it doesn’t take much artistic ability to communicate visually. You don’t have to be amazing artists… It’s mostly boxes and lines and stuff like that to get your point across.”

We are pleased to see that our friend Sunni Brown and many of our clients (Facebook, Microsoft Corp.,  Time Warner Inc.) spoke about their experience with Graphic Facilitaion.

Jeffrey Murray, principal test manager for the Microsoft Corp. MSFT +1.11% unit, says his team often starts with whiteboard sketches and cartoonlike storyboards when considering new product features.

Sketches help “get everyone on the same page and can convey the emotion and experience of the user,” he says. Eventually, the images are transferred to PowerPoint decks, he says. Inevitably, developers sketch and scribble over the deck’s whiteboard projections.

For the full article click HERE.

This week we will be rocking the markers in Monterey, CA, where ImageThink is a proud partner for MLOVE ConFestival USA 2012. This will be our third year graphic recording for brilliant thought leaders and innovators that gather for MLOVE.  Over the course of 2 days and 3 nights, discussions will revolve around the powerful and inspiring potential of Mobile as a catalyst for change and opportunity.

We were excited to learn that WIRED magazine voted MLOVE the best conference for Mobile. WIRED describes the conference as such: “In a 19th-century castle, entrepreneurs mix with architects, scientists, musicians and industry executives in a highly interactive format.”

The visual summaries that we create will be posted shortly after the festivities wrap up but incase you JUST CAN’T WAIT, here is a link to images from last years graphic recording in Germany.