Exploring a WayFinder Canvas
The WayFinder Platform acts as enabling digital infrastructure for communities and networks of wayfinders, supporting participatory sensemaking and action learning approaches to wicked/complex problems. This post will briefly dive into one of the features - content types - and how they compliment the above processes.
This shared space is based on a dynamic “canvas” interface (image at top), rather than timelines/feeds (vertical lists) that you find on almost all other social, team and community platforms
…with visual icons for quickly identifying and filtering the type of content people are sharing on the canvas - profiles | stories | reflections | questions | ideas | experiments | resources
Here is how you categorise content in StoryKeeper, before publishing to a WayFinder canvas…
The short explanation and demo video below only scratches the surface of this feature and the conceptual underpinnings of the platform and approach…
The distinctive icons and easy filtering enables powerful pattern recognition, such as:
- when there are plenty of great “questions” and “ideas” but a lack of “experiments” - a common problem where people are either unwilling and/or unable to implement and test new ways of doing things in their team/organisation/community.
- when people are sharing lots of “resources” (things to read and watch) but little of their lived experience and practice, ie “stories” - a warning sign that the canvas is too abstract/theoretical and detached from applied practice, or that people don’t feel “safe” enough to share more meaningful and personal content.
This content taxonomy provides a useful framework at the outset of any sensemaking or action learning journey (and can be customised if/when needed as the journey unfolds).
For its value to be fully realised there is a need for one or multiple hosts/facilitators/curators of a canvas, a role I can play or support those already filling those roles in a community or network.
Could this assist you in a complex challenge or opportunity you are currently engaging with?
Get in touch - info[at]wayfinders.network
