USI - Knowledge Communication USI - Università della Svizzera italiana USI - Knowledge Communication University of St. Gallen

Courses & events

Seminars and Workshops

  • Call for papers

    The call for papers for the 9th International Symposium on Knowledge Visualization and Visual Thinking has now been released. You can find further information here.

  • The Business Knowledge Visualization Seminar

    Our next open enrollment Knowledge Visualization Seminar has not been scheduled yet. The seminar typically focuses on the use of visualization for strategy and innovation. You may also be interested in our Sketching at Work seminar series. Contact sebastian.kernbach@unisg.ch for more information on either of these two seminars.


    Following are some voices from the previous Business Knowledge Visualization Seminars:

    „The seminar was very instructive. I have experienced that emphasizing key messages is a key success factor in communication and visualization. We have applied this principle for the benefit of all participants in the seminar. The seminar made it possible to transfer the learned insights into everyday practices."

    Daniel Freuler, Engineer, Roche / F.Hoffmann-La Roche AG

    "The Business Knowledge Visualization Seminar of the USI was a great mix
    between theoretical insights, such as visual perception principles, and
    practical applications, such as interactive visualization in projects.
    The Seminar offered a great spectrum of visualization methods from
    machine-like diagrams to very creative visual metaphors. I found the Synergy
    Map very useful and I now use it to detect goal discrepancies and potential
    synergies within project-teams".

    Roberto Vitalini, Conceptualist, Wheii.com

    “Communications strategies must evolve as changes in socio-demographics, technology and research impact the business environment. The business examples and the associated dialogue at the business knowledge visualization seminar led me to renew my efforts in rethinking and elaborating the communication strategies in the projects we are currently managing.”

    Richard James, Management Consultant, Zurich

    "The Business Knowledge Visualization of the USI and the HSG has shown in an impressive way how modern visualization tools and methods can optimize knowledge transfer.”

    Sandra Zesiger, Swiss Department of Defense and Sports (VBS), Army General Planning Staff /Planungstab der Armee, Knowledge Management

  • Knowledge Communication Workshops
    _ 1st edition: Rigor vs. Relevance in Scientific Knowledge Communication, October 14h 2004
    See the result of the discussion

    _ 2nd edition: Literature Reviews as Effective Forms of Scientific Knowledge Communication, March 2nd 2005
    See the result of the discussion

    _ 3rd edition: Knowledge Distinctions: Differences that Make a Difference in Managing Knowledge, April 14th 2005
    See the result of the discussion

    _ 4th edition: Integrating Knowledge on Recruiting Practices, March 3rd 2005
    See the result of the discussion

    _ 5th edition: Qualitative Research Methods, October 24th 2005
    See the results of the discussion (overview of qualitative research methods, goodness criteria profiles for qualitative and quantitative research, key differences and common points between qualitative and quantitative research)

    _ 6th edition: Knowledge Design Factors, Beijing, January 31st, 2007
    Company representatives and researchers from the schools of communication and business of CUFE Beijing gave feedback to Martin Eppler’s view on key success factors of visualization. The following annotated visualization resulted.

    _ 7th edition: Interactive Knowledge Communication in University Teaching, Lugano, March 12th, 2008.
    Several professors of the communciation faculty of the Università della Svizzera italiana have compiled their methods of conveying knowledge interactively in a faculty workshop. The following methods were
    gathered, described and clustered (includes links and comments).

    _ 8th edition: Effective Knowledge Communication in Research-based Teaching, Lugano, November 27th, 2009. Several course instructors and PhD students of the communication and economics faculties of the Università della Svizzera italiana have participated at a workshop facilitated by Martin Eppler on how to make research-based teaching effective. You can find the lets-focus templates that were used here.

    _ 9th edition: Divergent Strategy Method Workshop, St. Gallen, February 14th, 2011. Several academics and practitioners have participated to a worskhop facilitated by Martin Eppler and Ken Platts of Cambridge University (Head of the Centre for Strategy & Performance) on creative visual collaborative strategizing tools.

    _10th Edition: Collaborative Creativity Methods - Enabling Divergent Knowledge Communication, Cambridge (UK), July 3rd 2012.
    This anniversary edition of the knowledge communication workshop was again facilitated with the help of the lets-focus software and brought together 16 experts on creativity methods. We focused on the question of how to enable teams in their idea generation with the help of structured methods. To do so, the participants used the Paths to Success (P2S) method developed in our research team.

    Whereas the fourth and sixth editions of the workshop were designed for professional audiences, the other editions were dedicated to the communication of scientific knowledge. The participants worked with software-supported knowledge visualization and communication tools (the www.lets-focus.com suite). Our tools helped to better manage the discussion, and - at the same time - visualize and document knowledge-intensive, complex issues.

    Faculty:
    Prof. Lorenzo Cantoni, USI
    Prof. Bertil Cottier, USI
    Prof. Martin Eppler, USI
    Prof. Michael Gibbert, Bocconi University
    Prof. Giri Kumar Tayi, University of Albany Business School
    Silvia Invrea, Stage & Placement, USI
    Dr. Wendelin Küpers, FU Hagen
    Prof. Giuseppe Richeri, USI
    Prof. Peter Schulz, USI
    Prof. Jianxin Ge, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing
    Dr. Ken Platts, Cambridge University
    Dr. James Moultrie, Cambridge University
    Prof. Neil Maiden, City University London

    Participants at these events:
    Approx. 20 professional human resource managers and recruiting specialists
    Doctoral students of the USI
    Knowledge management students of USI
    Chinese and European managers
    USI Professors