I have a new venue for these workshops… Trent Bridge Cricket Ground. It’s a great venue and any cricket fans will of course love it!

So if you want to come along in the late autumn and join a small group of individuals keen to learn how to work more visually, then get in touch and
put your name on the waiting list ready for the date confirmation later in the year.

So grab your diary and put a big red circle around the 14th of March.

On this course I will take you through all the basic skills you need to start working more visually, as well as give you a stretching introduction to drawing live (graphic recording) and creating your own graphic templates (which are fantastic tools for any facilitator). I’ll give you tips and insider knowledge about being a successful graphic facilitator, as well as product information, loads of support and the chance to meet other like minded brilliant people.

This is a small group workshop with only 6 spaces available and it takes place in Nottingham, a UK city with great air, rail and road transport links.

So, get in touch by emailing me (cara@graphicchange.co.uk) if you want to book one of the places or have any questions.

Cara

Not only is it okay, the odd made up word can really help. Trying to take a difficult and wordy concept like the deluge of information and data we live in and the difficulty of consuming and making sense of it all? – try infobesity. For the data nerds out there that’s a compression ratio of 20:1.

Simple wordhacking is adding an ing or an ie to a noun. PowerPoint to PowerPointing, food to foodie.

For those wishing to try more advanced hacks, here’s a little chart. Enjoy!

Gavin McMahon is a New York-based consultant, sketchnoter, and occasional graphic recorder, who tweets @powerfulpoint. You can read his blog at makeapowerfulpoint.com.

In my current maudlin state I remembered a sign that I had seen in Vancouver airport last year. Now, I’m not generally a stupid person, but when I saw this sign my first instinct was confusion. Why does the airport need a meeting place for the broken hearted? Surely there aren’t that many broken hearted people in the airport at any one time that they need their own meeting place? I couldn’t get past it. I mean, that much heartache, just round the corner…it’s a bit of a show stopper.

Such is the power of the sign.

I’m so used to reading things visually that my own brain refused to give up the obvious literal interpretation. I mean if they wanted me to think of defibrillators there are surely plenty of medical signs they could have used. Have you never seen a green cross? or a red cross? Come on people! a doctors bag? No? A doctor? I would have guessed a picture of an actual defibrillator quicker I’m sure, even though I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one apart from on ER…

Anyway. In hindsight the bolt of electricity on top of the heart is of course, a beautiful thing, but, when I was feeling maudlin at returning from a lovely holiday, context (my context) ruled logic. My learning from this is that a) graphics are really powerful for getting complicated messages across in the blink of an eye, so b) make certain you use the right one and c) sometimes I’m a bit stupid.

When I’m training people in how to work more visually I’m often asked about colour. How do I pick what colour to use? and how do I decide when to use it? What’s the secret?

Branding and marketing experts certainly understand the language of colour… as do florists… but does any of it really matter? Well of course there is no ‘right’ answer, or if there is I certainly don’t know it! If I wasn’t so busy watching the excitement of the Olympic games (those distinctive coloured rings) I could talk about the psychology of colour, the studies that show one colour can affect how we feel differently to another. Do you believe that red can help your digestion? Yellow can make you feel creative? Well, whether or not you believe the theories the studies and the profiles, it’s hard to deny the very real and powerful associations of some colours.

Red of course is the colour of passion, and love, and let’s not forget, danger… gold is the colour of riches and halos and winner’s cups… but how far should you take it? Is blue really the colour of communication? Maybe…although if you look at big communications companies blue is being joined by red and even pink. And it will be interesting to see if our colour interpretations shift to keep up with popular marketing culture.

I’ve always believed that the person with the pen holds a lot of power and when I graphic at meetings I can’t deny colour does matter. I am conscious of both the colours that are important to the client, as well as showing the diversity of the society we live in. I use colour to highlight key points and create a visual balance. But should we really take what amounts to ‘colouring in’ quite so seriously? Well I’ll leave that up to you to decide for yourself.

All I know for sure is that colour really does help a graphic to come alive. I use it a lot and I certainly have my habits and my favourites.
For today though, the only colour I’m really interested in is gold!

As you know I spend a lot of my time Graphic Recording. This involves me capturing the key messages at a meeting or event and putting those messages onto a big graphic record. Here is a quick peek at one of my recent jobs.

Most of my work is for corporations who, understandably, like to keep the content of their meetings confidential. Some of my clients though are happy and able to share, and the Education Foundation is one such organisation. The Education Foundation is the UK’s first independent, cross sector, education think tank, and a thoroughly nice bunch.

I was invited along to the Learning Lab in London to ‘record’ a dinner time conversation between the great and good in education from the UK and the US. Over the course of two hours the guests talked and I listened…

…and as I listened I drew onto a giant sheet of paper the key messages and comments made during the conversation. Above you can see the graphic record made that evening.

Our need for a shared language has never been more necessary, more relevant or more useful. At one end of the economic spectrum companies continue to merge, outsource and expand, creating vast global workforces. At the other end the freelance revolution has been built on the back of technology which allows us to work globally, often for the first time. So how do we communicate effectively in our modern world? Visually of course.

I’m lucky in my work. I’ve worked in different countries across Europe at meetings large and small. I’ve trained teams in India via Skype. And I frequently work with large diverse workforces here in the UK. I’m always impressed (and a bit ashamed!) by the linguistic skills of the people I work with. But, equally the people I work with are always impressed with the visual language I bring to the table. (you can read the IoIC’s article here, looking at the benefits of graphic recording in large workforces.)

Pictures allow a common communication to take place within the room which doesn’t rely on the translation of one language to another. Pictures approach everyone equally and the benefits of this are positive in a way that words can’t compete with. (My earlier blog ‘seen to be heard’ looked at some of the reasons behind this.)

We understand and retain information better when it is visual. We connect with messages more easily when they are visual and if you are one of the thousands of people reading the ‘Happiness Advantage’ at the moment you will know that our minds respond to creativity and the happy feelings this brings with…well, more creativity and happy feelings. What’s not to like?

Of course even graphic recorders use text (some much more than others) but the power of the visual trumps all. Despite being the oldest form of recorded communication, working visually is also thoroughly modern, embracing our need and desire to communicate effectively without borders, whether these are geographical, or simply within the diversity of our own workforce.