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Wall
Copying
What if the WorkWall can't be photographed sufficiently to be legible
in the journal? Maybe the participant's handwriting is illegible,
the participant wrote so small it would take twenty close up photos
of one panel to capture it all, or maybe the participants did his
entire TAP with a green Expo marker and the picture will be fuzzy
no matter what? The strides in Digital Photography have made knowledge
workers lives easier but easier doesn't mean cutting corners.
Wall copying is more time consuming but still a fine way to capture
a TAP or breakout team's WorkWall to make certain that all documentation
is legible.
Remember
how that Wall Copy goes?
All capital letters as neatly as possible.
Match the participants choice of colors as closely as possible
Redraw the participants artwork as close to the original as possible.
Leave at least a half inch margin around the edges of the paper
to allow for scanning and cleaning.
Label the page/s of Wall Copy carefully by Module Number, Module
Name, Participant Name/Team Name and Number of Pages.
Photographing
walls, hypertiles
and people
The digital Mavica is a great tool for real time production and
graphics. The Mavica stores images on a floppy disc which you can
then transfer to your computer's disc drive and print them out in
a flash. Check out how the Mavica makes a knowledge worker's life
a bit easier, along with a few tips on how to use the Mavica to
its best potential.
How
the Mavica Works:
Here's a quick list of the Mavica's components. A more detailed
description can be found on the mostly green one-sheet posted on
the side of the a/v equipment rack.
1.Focus
2.Display Screen
3.Trigger
-when taking a still picture, push down halfway on the trigger and
watch for the flashing green light in the display window. When the
picture is in focus the green light will stop flashing. Push the
trigger down the rest of the way to take the photo.
4.Zoom in/out
5.Power On/Off
6.Navigation Pad:
-Use the pad to navigate around the display screen
-Pressing down in the middle of the pad enter your selection
7.Floppy disc eject switch
8.Flash On/Off
Photographing
Walls
To flash or not to flash? Photographing Work Walls saves all kinds
of time that we used to spend doing wall copy.
A small
drawback to photographing walls is that when using the flash the
surface of the walls gives back a bright flare that may obscure
some of the work that you are trying to capture. There are a couple
of ways to avoid this problem.
One
option is to turn the flash off. This may work fine so long as there
is sufficient light in that area of the environment to allow you
to capture the wall legibly. A second choice would be to try standing
at an angle to the wall you are photographing which will bounce
the flare away from you instead of right back into the lens of the
Mavica.
Whichever
method you choose should depend on what lies in store for the images
you are capturing. Are the pictures going into a paper or web document?
Will they require cleaning for a product or are they only to be
archived for documentation?
Discuss
these options with the graphics lead or webmaster who will eventually
be responsible for producing a document with these images. Together
you can make the best decision for the image capture.
Bottom
line, no matter where the photos will end up they must be legible
for documentation purposes. MAKE CERTAIN that the electronic images
are well photographed before the walls are erased and the information
lost.
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Photographing
Hypertiles
Welcome to the 'Beach.' Long, long ago, in the era of early digital
cameras (about a year ago), many lights were required to properly
capture the hypertile image. This was an extremely warm place for
a knowledge worker to hang out. Thus, 'The Beach.'
To
set up the Beach:
Place the Mavica camera on a tripod and set it up in front of a
WorkWall-just a couple of feet away. Preferably the WorkWall should
be in production or out of the way of the participants in the space.
Template
a space on the wall in front of the camera that will allow each
hypertile photographed to be placed in the exact same position.
This will eliminate the need to readjust the Mavica once the first
hypertile is set up. Take a few test shots making certain that the
Mavica is capturing the entire hypertile with as little wasted space
around the edges as possible. Also test to be sure that the hypertiles
are legible. Use the flash on the Mavica if necessary.
Keep
a stack of discs handy for the hypertiles. Download the hypertile
images from the discs ASAP and be certain that all hypertiles were
captured satisfactorily before stripping the hypertiles or sending
them back out into the space. Also, be absolutely sure to save
the hypertile images in the correct files and with the correct
naming convention.
Shooting
hypertiles with the Mavica is a handy way to make these pieces of
paper electronic so that they may become part of a journal or work
product. For now, scanning is the only other alternative to making
the hypertiles electronic. Scanning is a great way to capture hypertiles
so long as there aren't many to scan. At this writing, the available
scanner does not include a document feeder, so scanning hypertiles
will require constant supervision by a knowledge worker.
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Photographing
People
The Mavica is very sensitive to movement. In this respect it is
more like a film camera than a digital camcorder. Blurry photos
are common when not using a flash, so holding the camera steady
is important.
I bring
this up in the section on photographing people for a few reasons.
First, participants LOVE photos of themselves. Great photos are
the biggest draw to the knowledge wall. Secondly, there's no way
to ask the participants to sit still, so thirdly it's up to the
photographer to decide whether or not to use a flash when photographing
participants.
The
great part about the flash is that the camera will adjust the speed
of the photo to compensate for the flash and you're more likely
to get a crisp photo minus any blur. The downside is that knowledge
work is about facilitating our little hearts out without being noticed
by the participants. The flash of a camera will draw attention.
Please consider carefully before using the flash to capture photos
during an event. Distracting a participant during a breakout session
or synthesis conversation could have disastrous results. We don't
want to pull their attention out of the event in any way.
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SCANNING:
1-place image to be scanned face down on the scanner
2-open Adobe Photoshop
3-click on <file>, <import>, <TWAIN 32>.
This will open the scanner in Photoshop
4-click the white <OVERVIEW> button to see
a preview of your image
5-select the desired area to be scanned with selection rectangle
6-Click the green <SCAN> button to activate
the scanner
7- Once scanning is complete, place your next image on the
scanner or if you are finished then close the Scan Wizard
8-the scanned image will appear in Photoshop after you close
the scan wizard
CLEANING:
Scans and photographs will need 'cleaning up' to be ready for the
Journal. This cleaning is done in Adobe Photoshop. Cleaning includes
making sure that the hypertiles and photographs are legible and
contrasting enough for printing or publishing to the web. Photographs
may require retouching to any glare caused by the flash from the
Mavica reflecting on the WorkWalls. Hypertiles can have their edges
cleaned up and possibly be cropped if the participants didn't use
the entire hypertile. More cleaning of the hypertiles (dust, stray
pen marks) is at the discretion of the Production Team. THERE IS
MORE THAN ONE RIGHT WAY!!
PREPARING:
Whether the electronic documents will be published to a paper document
or the web will determine the file types required. If the Journal
will be a PageMaker Document the graphics files may be TIFs, BMPs,
GIFs, and probably some others. If the Journal will be a website
the graphics files may be GIFs or JPEGs. Files size and image resolution
are also issues to consider for the paper document and especially
for the web. The production team should set these standards first
thing to save time during the post event shuffle.
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