Seeing is believing

I've just been hunting around for some good exampls of using visuals and dialogue as part of change programmes and came across a fascinating website for the Institute of Visual Practitioners, Graphic Recorders and Graphic Facilitators.

As the title suggests, it's a site for and about people who use visual techniques. The Graphic Recorders and Graphic Facilitators are those people who use graphics to facilitate, and show the outputs of, meetings, conferences and World Cafe style dialogue sessions.  The comms people I know who have used these kinds of techniques have raved about the results. So if you're interested, this seems a good place to start exploring.

Here's their explanation of what visual practitioners do and how visual techniques add value.  And here, by way of an example, is a visual explanation, which was used as the basis of a conference session to give people an introductory overview.

Finally, here is a blog from a real life visual practitioner - Avril Orloff from Vancouver. I don't know Avril - I came across the blog when I was snooping around. I found it a really interesting read, and it gives a good illustration of the types of scenarios where you can use these techniques and examples of the outputs.

Fascinating stuff. Anybody used these kind of techniques and care to comment on how you found them?

Sue

Comments

[Indy]

Hi Sue, coming to this a bit late, but I hope you see it.

I've been involved in some work with NHS and other healthcare people that used "World Cafe" style approaches and we had a visual practitioner along and it was pretty useful.

The obvious caveat is that the value (like any recorder/facilitator) is very dependent on the individual involved. Do they pick on the right things to emphasise as key points, etc? Do they have the skill to produce visuals that engage people and do it in an appropriate timeframe?

However, my overview point is that just having a visual practitioner along is pretty much a step up from the quality of recording that many workshops etc. use.

Lots of workshops go on and most of the better methods do involve some recording mechanisms, but I think the biggest learning point is that visual or not, having someone along whose main role is to record and (to some extent) provide realtime feedback is really valuable. Too often even when someone is in place as an observer they have a dual role organising lunch, keeping an eye on the technology and calling taxis for people who need to leave early, etc.

Now, the visual practitioner we had was pretty good at observing the room, listening to conversations and picking out some good points, but where they really scored of course was in the production of visual representations.

I don't need to tell a communications audience why having summaries of key points and illustrations of key issues in a visual form can help the attention and interaction of the participants.

I'd add to that, the value of the visual diagrams/storyboards/etc. continues when you're communicating about the workshop and connected issues after the event. You have some ready made visuals, many of which are worth a thousand words.

So far, so good. I think the only caveat that I would draw out, not from that experience so much as my previous experience as a visual communicator (I used to be a photographer) is that visual metaphors and communication can be very powerful, but also a little reductive. Nothing that an experienced facilitator can't handle, but you have to be aware how the visual filter concentrates the attention of the group in particular directions. There's also a selection issue in that different practitioners tend to have different modes of working and it's useful to work at finding one who fits with your own methods and needs.

[Sue]

Thanks Indy - it's interesting to hear about your experience and good to have some specific tips.