As my business is growing I’m implementing systems, structures and processes to support me and my clients. That’s a very unsexy sentence but hang in here for a minute. It’s all about showing my clients the love which is very sexy.
Click the image to view an enlarged version.

Creative people need structure to contain our ideas and energy.

If you’re a creative person you run your life and business with a certain amount of freedom. Some of the ways this looks like in my business:

I can’t stand to do the same thing day after day. A 9-5 office job is my idea of hell. My days have to be structured a little different from one to the next or I get bored and unmotivated quickly, so my days fall roughly into these categories:

• On site working with my clients.
• At home working remotely with my clients.
• Traveling for work.
• Recovering from traveling for work.
• Working on my business and all its color-coded parts.

Along with the freedom of ever-changing days I need some structure otherwise I’d have no focus. The goal of the systems is to liberate more time in my schedule to create. Because having creative time is the essential ingredient to making the stuff that makes the money.

Big radiant orange love.

Where I’m focusing with my systems is how welll I am taking care of my clients as they travel through my business. Are they feeling loved and supported by Making Ideas Visible? Are they getting the white limo treatment?

So I (surprise, surprise) visually mapped the route(s) my clients take through my business, looking at all the touchpoints they encounter, seeing if there are any gaps where they might fall through the cracks. And making sure they feel the love. The big radiant orange love of Making Ideas Visible.

One size doesn’t fit all.

I essentially have three kinds of clients:

• The people within businesses and organizations who hire me and the facilitators I team with.
• The individuals who come to me for coaching/visioning/mapping.
• A looser group of people I’m networking with who are potential collaborators.

My friend, the brilliant Cairene, advised me to map out the system for one of these groups. Once that system was clear I could adapt and tweak it for the two other kinds of clients.

I started with my individual clients. On a giant piece of paper I mapped out what the relationship looked like now:

Where they are connecting with me. Where I reach out to them. And places where I could potentially connect.

Then I put myself in the shoes (or mouse) of a new client and listed the sequence of how they travel through my business starting with the Home page which currently has no way of welcoming them whatsoever.

I found places where I could add in support with follow-up communication. Show some love by sending a card to them in the mail after our session. And ways to stay in touch and even do some additional selling.

Once I identified the things that were missing or could be improved I came up with an action list. Several of the changes were easy to make. Others are bigger chunks that will take a little doing like creating a special hidden page and a beautiful card to be mailed.

Next I’ll plug my other two kinds of clients into this system and adjust it for them.

You can DIY.

I want you to see this so you could try it for your own clients. Do your own mindmap. It doesn’t have to be slick or beautiful to be effective. You’ll notice that I’ve got a bunch of arrows going all over the place because I kept thinking of things later and adding them in. It still works fine.

You can also do this by writing your steps on sticky notes which can be rearranged.

Oh and just a heads up, in mid-December I’m going to lead a teleclass that will use a mind mapping process to put closure on the year. A way of celebrating the successes and putting closure on the ideas and possibilities that didn’t happen so we’ll be ready to move forward into the new year. I’ll have the details up soon.

This week Mayor Kasim Reed is rolling out his initiative to create a more sustainable Atlanta. He wants to be in the top 10 cities by 2012. Currently Atlanta is #19. So clearly there is a lot of work to do.

The wisdom is in the room.

Part of the work started two weeks ago when the organization Sustainable Atlanta brought together 150 of the city’s brightest leaders to envision what sustainability looks like for Atlanta.

We had a World Cafe style meeting, which I love. Small tables covered with white butcher paper consume the room and people sit in groups of four or five and have deep, engaging conversations. Then they switch tables and cross-pollinate their ideas.

This kind of meeting creates an atmosphere for deep conversations. There’s always tons of energy and creativity in the room. Ideas and concepts get drawn on the table cloths. New alliances are forged. It almost always produces a great result because one of the premises of the World Cafe is that the wisdom is in the room you just need to tap into it.

I captured all this in two large murals which are on display at city hall this week. Part two of the conversation is supposed to take place in a month or so.

An example of using visual maps in a report.

And if you’re a policy wonk type, you can read the report on Atlanta’s sustainability initiative here. My murals are in there as well.

Click on the image to view an enlarged version.

Click on the image to view an enlarged version.

Thank you so much for publishing an article about the field of graphic facilitation and for including my name in the first graph. It’s a good thing my SEO rocks because you didn’t mention the name of my business, Making Ideas Visible, or supply a link. But hey, that’s okay.

Seriously though, thanks. I come from a family of MBA’s (none of who have been in HBR) so this is a bragging right within my family that I’ll be able to milk for some time.

Here’s what you got right.

Yes, graphic facilitation is a great tool/process for engagement. It never fails to wow the participants because it’s powerful to see someone capture your ideas as they are occurring in real time. To feel like you’ve been heard.

The point you made about capturing the content so it can be used later is right on. Visual maps live on long after the meeting, guiding and directing the course of action, and can be shared with people who weren’t there which is incredibly useful.

Here’s what you got wrong.

I sent you to Prof. Martin Eppler because you wanted to quantify something that by its nature is a hard to quantify. (I have a lot more to say about this in a future post.) And he’s apparently doing research around retention and right-brained thinking.

But saying that expensive (and hard to learn) software programs that let people do their own drawing may be more effective? Wow, that’s a stretch.

I know from being a figure drawing teacher that giving people a tool and expecting them to take to it like a duck on water just doesn’t happen without a lot hand holding, instruction and cheerleading. There are huge emotional and psychological barriers in the way of adults doing art. I see this all the time.

I do agree that having people create their own pictures is powerful stuff. Read on for more on that point.

What we do in the room with these murals humanizes people’s experience of information. There is something so reassurring about seeing complexity depicted in simple, colorful shapes. To see words hand-written. It’s like poetry in action. In this world of technology, that’s deeply comforting and sustaining.

Call me a graphic facilitator not an artist.

I take issue with being called an artist in this context. And for calling my work, and that of my colleagues, “pricy artist’s handiwork.” Ouch!

When we talked I didn’t refer to myself as an artist. I get that this can be confusing because in my field of visual practioners, we have a variety of terms we call ourselves: graphic recorder, graphic facilitator, visual facilitator, visual mapper. We generally don’t call ourselves “artist.”

What makes it even more confusing is that some of us are hybrids. Some facilitators work graphically. A few, like me, are graphic facilitators who facilitate which means that we design the meeting, create the processes for the group and shepherd the meeting.

I apologize for the confusion this creates.

I don’t think of myself as an artist when I do graphic facilitation work. Yes, there are drawings that depict recognizable icons but art is about a tenth of what’s involved with this work. And plenty of people do this without art training.

When I graphically facilitate, I’m listening as a journalist would for the key themes and highlights in the story, organizing the information spatially, instinctually finding the structure, giving visual emphasis and hierarchy to the story as it emerges on the paper. And also paying attention to where the group needs to go next.

Like the cave drawings.

Yes, I do work with the artist materials of paper and markers, which aren’t far removed from the pigments used on cave walls in the earliest versions of my field’s depictions.

And like those cave painters who recorded the pertinent information for their tribe’s survival–where the hunts were good, the kinds of animals that were found, key details about the weather–me and my fellow graphic facilitators help our clients see the crucial elements of their terrain: the challenges, opportunities, strengths and weaknesses so they can plot their course ahead.

We are strategists. Truth-tellers. Visionaries. Interpreters. Mappers. And information organizers for our tribe.

Art—a definition.

So back to the term artist….and yes, it doesn’t help my case that my client at Accenture referred to my visual maps as artwork. I have an MFA (Masters in Fine Art) so I feel qualified to define what is and isn’t art, at least for myself.

Art—what we tend to think of as fine art—has original content. Creating visual maps from content that emerges from a group’s collective process and not from me, doesn’t qualify as art, in the original sense.

And I really cringe at the phrase “pricey artist’s handiwork” as if we’re selling our wares on Etsy along with potholders and hand puppets. (No offense to Etsy which I love.) I felt when talking to the writer that he had a bias against the fees we charge. It would appear he does.

My job won’t be outsourced.

I have no problem charging what I do because I offer a unique service that is highly valued by my clients. My expertise is grounded in all my previous work and life experience along with an advanced degree.

There is no one else on the planet with my particular combination of skills: public policy background + non-profit management + journalism + conceptual art + stock trading + politics + teaching + facilitation. I know I’m not in danger of having my job outsourced to India as we enter what Daniel Pink calls the conceptual age because my work of structuring the complexity is needed now more than ever.

When I first came across the field of graphic facilitation, it was thru a visual map I found online. The caption said:

They will be teaching this in business school five years from now.

So Harvard, heads up.

Whoever has the best picture wins.

Indeed, I’m counting on that happening because my hope for the field, and many of my colleagues including Dan Roam share this, is that we aren’t seen as “the artist,” the person in the room owning the creative process for the group.

It is my hope that we will be the enablers of everyone else’s creativity. That we will teach people to make their own pictures so that we aren’t seen as “the artist” but the person able to bring the artistry out of the people we work with who are hungry to express themselves creatively.

I believe there is artistry in everyone. As Ellen Dissanayake writes in Homo Aestheticus, this used to be an accepted fact. Our culture has taken the ownership of creativity out of the hands of many and put it into the hands of a few. I would like to return it to the many.

Because as Dan explains, whoever has the best picture wins. They get the funding, they grab the power. Reagonomics was born on the back of a napkin. Did you know that? We all need to be able to compete.

What are the qualities of your ideal work?

The confetti that’s inside these eggs represents the qualities of my ideal clients and work situations. It’s about a certain kind of connection, energy, flow, stimulation (intellectually, emotionally & financially) and good partnering.

It has to do with the energy in the room when people are growing and changing. Holding that space for magical things to happen. Sharing and confronting ideas. Dreaming and scheming.

I’ve been getting clear about my ideal work (and in some cases landing jobs that confirm it for me) so I know that having an intention, and being specific about it, works.

My superpower

My superpower is being able to see where you are and where you want to go in TECHNICOLOR. Helping you formulate the steps needed to get there and being able to plot the progression in a simple, do-able way. That’s what I do and love to do.

I’m essentially setting up the strategic and energetic framework for my client’s journey. Giving them the map. And showing them the treasure at the destination in all its fabulous lushness.

I don’t sell myself as an artist, illustrator or graphic designer because the art is only one small piece of what I do. It helps to illuminate the insights and the strategy. But it’s not the thing.

The thing is the clarity. The energy. The strategy. The vision. The steps.

A practice of saying “no”

In the process of getting clear about the qualities I want in my work—the things that bring me joy—I’m also getting clear about the qualities I don’t want. And I’ve learned the practice of saying “no” so that I stay open to all the things I do want. Because they are out there and making their way toward me.

A friend recently gave me some ideas for directions my business could go. In responding to him, it helped me further clarify my sweetspot. Here are the suggestions he made and my responses:

~ Could you offer a program/process that uses visual mapping for slideshows?
No, not interested–though I did help illustrate a PowerPoint for a good friend who’s a partner at Accenture, but that was a very special case as I was using it to land work with them, which I have.

~ Visual mapping for conveying info on your client’s website?
No, doesn’t interest me. If someone wants to get clear about their thing and doesn’t know what it looks like then I’m interested in helping them tap into their essence and figure out how to express it but if they already have their info I don’t want to illustrate it. (At some point, this could be something I could contract out and just project manage.) And I should say I have done some work like this but it’s not my sweetspot.

~ Visual mapping for your client’s strategic planning sessions?
Yes, I do this and it’s a significant part of my business, and a juicy part. I enjoy doing this work more than conferences. I love being part of the team that designs the meeting, essentially setting the container for juicy stuff to happen that the meeting. Creating and conducting a meeting that rocks.

~ Using your services for your client’s new ebook?
Gah, No. Seriously no.

I’ll be adding to this list so that I stay very clear about my mission as more Eggs of Possibility show up at my door.

Hear me talk about my sweetspot and superpower

I’m doing an interview on Monday, May 17th at 10:25 EST with the fabulous David Cohen of Equation Arts, LLC, a branding expert and fellow artist. He recently mentioned me in the same sentence as Gary Vee the “wine guy” who is now the official wine guy for Virgin Airlines, so of course I’m a huge fan of David’s. *grin*

We’ll be talking about branding or my definition of it: finding your sweetspot and conveying it through how you talk about yourself and how you walk your talk. Join us for a fabulous half hour of branding banter.

Do you know where it is?

I’m pretty sure I’ve found mine. It has to do with my right people: clients and partners. A situation where I get to use my superpower which is helping individuals, businesses and organizations see where they want to go in all its juicy Technicolor as well as the simple steps needed to get there. And my passion about positive change processes.

A few examples of my Sweetspot (which may give you some ideas about how we can work together)

I love strategic visioning and planning. Yes, I’m a freak of nature. I take comfort in knowing I’m not alone in this.

I was part of a facilitation team that guided 60 brilliant stake holders from the American Geophysical Union (AGU), an organization of earth and space scientists (did I mention they were brilliant?), through a three day strategic planning retreat.

We used Future Search methodology which works beautifully with large-scale visualization. We filled an enormous room with group timelines, a mindmap, common ground wall and also my murals (see the Portfolio page), creating a huge amount of tangible evidence of the brilliant brainwork that took place. Sweetspot.

One of my passions: sustainability

Because of my background in environmental politics and policy (hello, strategic thinking side of my brain), I love working with companies and organizations that are focused on sustainability, like InterfaceFLOR, a carpet floor tile manufacturing company that is almost 100% sustainable.

I worked with the Canadian sales division to help visualize a new story about their direction following the loss of their manufacturing division. They have a new story to tell and it’s a good one. Sweetspot.

Another passion: storytelling

I spent a day at a storytelling workshop with the beloved Southern author and naturalist Janisse Ray and Vermonter Steve Glazer from Poetics of Place, where they taught riverkeepers about how protect and preserve special places thru stories. Sweetspot.

I also visually mapped a talk that Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food—a movement dedicated to the pleasure of good, healthy, local food—when he talked to a room full of scientists and policy makers at the CDC. Sweetspot.

Plus they love me at the CDC. My murals are everywhere. Extra sweetspot.

Where I really use my superpower

I’ve recently done some business visioning and mapping for creative entrepreneurs where I help them see where they want to go with their business and we plot the immediate next steps for them to take to make exciting things happen.

Like Cranky Fibro Girl (see the Portfolio page under Personal Mapping), who I guided toward a bunch of potential products she could create to help people who are living with chronic pain. Sweetspot. Here’s what she had to say:

Julie helped me see that, even though I am sick, I still matter. And I still contribute. Because when she was done, all that was in my mind turned out to be very good. And WAY way cooler than I thought. And valuable.

I visioned and mapped for my new friends at Harvest, an Atlanta-based eco-community, farm, Montessori school and urban trail system. Sweetspot.

A roadmap for your business or your life

Back in January I taught a teleclass with my brilliant friend and systems coach, Cairene at ThirdHandWorks, on visioning and mindmapping for your business and your life.

I talked about the iconography and visual imagery that animates your business—both internally and externally. Hint: there’s a reason why I use the word “world” in my tagline and I draw globes for my own business plan maps– I want to work all over the world.

I led a meditation that helped people tap into their vision and visual landscape of their business. Then showed them how to put all these pieces together in a beautiful visual map so they could clearly see where to go and be able to take those steps forward. The a-ha’s and breakthroughs happened all over the place. Totally a sweetspot.

The class is still available if you are interested.

A few more recent sweetspots

I provided my visual mapping magic at conference with Accenture’s International Energy and Utilities team where Colin Powell gave the keynote. Visually mapping his talk: sweetspot!

I attended the IAF conference (a bunch of facilitators—hello, my people!) in Chicago and participated in a workshop with the fabulous Meg Wheatley. And got to hang out with a handful of my fellow visual facilitators. Sweetspot.

I’m focusing this year on adding to my visual mapping other facilitation skills, like meeting design, so I can offer my clients and fellow facilitators a suite of expertise. And so that more of what I’m great at—my ability to hold the container for transformative experiences—can be put in service of my clients.

What’s your sweetspot?

I had the distinct pleasure of visually mapping a presentation that Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food, gave to an audience at the CDC the other week on food policy. This was the third such talk in a series that began with Alice Waters then Michael Pollan and now Carlo Petrini. I’ve had the honor of being part of all three.

I always feel appreciated at the CDC. They love my work and have hired me several times. My original murals are hanging throughout their buildings. They’ve been reproduced into posters and reports. The first mural I did for them, from the Alice Waters talk, spread like wildfire via email. Because of all that I feel right at home when I work there.

It’s fascinating to watch and be a part of the organization’s exploration of fresh ideas around food policy and health with some of the organic food movement’s brightest thinkers and stars.

The battle of the 21st century

Carlo’s talk emphasized the pleasure of food—no surprise coming from an Italian, eh? He talked a lot about growing native foods, spending time with family cooking, eating leftovers—half of the food produced worldwide is wasted. Essentially savoring the unique pleasures that food can provide.

He also talked about how important food policy is in a world where half the population suffers from famine and malnutrition while the other half grapples with obesity. And our industrial agriculture system has degraded the environment and reduced the fertility of the soil at the same time it has introduced new deadly diseases.
Click the image to enlarge

Some of his key points:

• Cheap food is not cheap. The societal cost shows up in health care expenditures to treat diseases that are a result of bad food—diabetis, heart disease. Chronic disease is not sustainable.
• Food needs to be more seasonal and local. Big cities need to have farms close by or within.
• We need to be co-producers of food, not just consumers. That eating is first a supportive act, we are voting with our fork.
• The sacredness of food. Every culture has revered a certain kind of crop. Think about how important corn is to the Native Americans and their rituals.
• We need respect for humble people and indigenous cultures. There is a lot of knowledge there that can be combined with science to create change.

Taking it directly to the scientists

Talking specifically to the scientists and policy-makers in the audience, he said:

• You are the small scale farmer of policy. The CDC can bring their best science to document the data of food/health costs.
• Agricultural policy is health policy. The upcoming renewal of the Farm Bill is an opportunity to view the country’s food policy through a health lens.
• The Farm Bill needs to support smaller producers so they are on a level playing field.

The quote I loved the most: What nourishes the spirit makes it happy.

Here’s an article from someone who attended Carlo’s talk the day before the CDC talk when he spoke at the Georgia Organics conference—more good friends of mine.

There’s a recipe in there for collard greens, which Carlo got to enjoy while he was here in Georgia and which he loved. All hail the mighty collard!!

(I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they’ll invite me to Terra Madre, the big conference in Italy every other year, where all the lovers of Slow Food gather to exchange ideas and share their knowledge of food culture. Keep a good thought for me, will ya? I’ll hand deliver a few more collards to Carlo. )

At the strategic meetings and conferences I participate in, I’m asked all the time, “How did you get into this?” Meaning how did I become the visual communicator, the information synthesizer, the strategic thinker, the person in the room with the big paper and pens?

Typically, the initial reaction when people see me doing graphic facilitation for the first time is that they are blown away by how useful and powerful it is, not to mention fun and interesting, because it allows people to see what they are saying in real time and make clear decisions.

The second reaction is curiosity about how I found my way into this field they’ve never heard of before. Because really, how would someone find out about doing this?

All the stories I have heard from my colleagues about how they have gotten into this field involve chance and perfectly aligned circumstances. Mine is no different.

Here’s my story.

The short version is: my path began as a kernel of an idea in the Teton Mountains and took me to a beach on the northern California coast for a workshop on how to do this. There I found a sand dollar that became my touchstone, my mandala, for that weekend in which I opened myself up to trying something new and found a whole new life for myself doing work I absolutely love.

The final task of that weekend workshop was to create a room for yourself to explore what we had learned. Here’s my image. Note the mandala rug.

The longer version of the story appears here at the International Forum of Visual Practioners (IFVP) website where I am the featured member this month. This is the site of the professional society for people who do what I do. And we’re all pretty cool, fun folks.

In the interview you’ll find out about my favorite gig so far (hint: there were whales involved), why I feel like I’ve got job security (hint: what I do can’t be outsourced) and which side of the chalk vs. no chalk issue I’m on.

Hop on over and check it out!