Corporate Work

This was a job I was looking forward to because an energy corporation was making big changes to the way we use the energy grid! They are upbeat folks and wanted me to document a board meeting while they discussed the early stages of a many-part process involving hybridizing regional electricity. I arrived a little early and these fine people were still assembling. Some more amazing people began to filter in the boardroom and things began to focus. I had chosen a sidewall and placed a long mural-sized paper on the wall that was over twenty feet! It was such an honour to graphically record the interesting discussion that followed. Rest assured, some amazing minds are hard at work devising alternatives to delivering power to Ontario to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and still keep homes heated and lights shining when you need them. I was wearing a nice suit and felt incredibly happy. My heart was racing and I almost dropped my markers a few times while I visually paraphrased what was going on. I just knew it had to be eye-pleasing and be up-to-pace with what they were saying, and at moments it was certainly a fairly quickly-paced meeting. Fortunately, discussion paused enough over certain ideas that I was able to jump back and create emphasis around key points. I chose to use a bit of negative space design for the recording and avoided the sweeping colours and ribbons of words that are sometimes used in visual scribing, opting instead for simple colourful clusters of ideas. The resulting work spanned all twenty feet, looked excellent, and the corporation ordered a poster-sized print. This is an option I offer all customers, and so I patched together twenty feet of photos into an attractive print and it was delivered almost overnight! I also offered as a courtesy to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement with them, even though there wasn't anything overly top-secret, and to my surprise, they took me up on it because who knows? NDA's are often a good idea. So I now must be careful not to really say who they were although I don't think they'd mind and careful not to display visual notes from the day without consultation. Fortunately, there really isn't anything of wild interest to competitors in the visual notes, but it is a good practice to sign these. Hopefully, since I became iron-clad with their lawyers, they'll have me back some time for another session. The entire experience was very good for me in terms of developing professional confidence in a highly-demanding situation, and I was thrilled it worked out to everyone's satisfaction. A good day well done!

More Strategy Sessions

Hiring a graphic recorder for a strategy session is not just a good idea, at certain successful organizations, it is a practice. This is the practice of the organization PWA Foundation, a nonprofit foundation that raised over $1.66 million this year through one event for its cause. If you are a nonprofit agency and have a good cause you are strategizing around, and are interested in implementing graphic recording, I am becoming quite seasoned in strategy sessions! I have been scribing well with both facilitators and consultants, and grown strong in these skills by doing strategy sessions with The PWA Foundation. Working with a facilitator is like being a silent partner. I pick up on the direction the facilitator is guiding the discussion in, but also must actively listen to every participant at the meeting. We also have a short preliminary, which is something I like to request, in order for me to get the gist of what needs to be covered. Obviously, a good facilitator does not lead the group but merely puts the agenda before them in a way that makes them find the most important discussion points and turn them into community input. And the PWA organization has some of the best people coordinating events like meetings. As a result, the strategy sessions are always a pleasure, with inspired input from each participant and a sense of hopeful direction for a challenging cause. The number of people potentially served by The PWA Foundation is ever-expanding, not because of HIV, but because the organization itself emphasizes outreach and expanding its services. This is not necessarily an easy task. There are many people who need help in the world, and in the immediate municipality, and the system is not meeting their needs. So the nonprofits must step in and do what they can. There are so many ways to make our society a better place, and helping the poor and advocating for people who have medication needs, along with all the secondary needs explored and discussed at these sessions, is surely one of the most important. It is an honour to work with these activists making society a better place.

A Grand ATM

This was a wonderful honour! Graphic recording for a packed house: the AGM and fundraising pep rally for the PWA Foundation! This year, the organization raised over $1.66 Million dollars, breaking past records, through one funding drive method, a massive bike rally! At the time of this meeting, people already sensed it could be a good year, but no one knew how good! As hundreds of people filled the ballroom space of Toronto's 519 community centre, I couldn't help but feel a little nervous. By the time the meeting started, my heart was pumpin'!! Soon the room was crowded with wonderful people dedicated to supporting people in need through the efforts of a nonprofit organization that often seems to help with services the government should already provide. Good governments can always look to nonprofits to see where provider gaps may be. And the room was alive! There were so many excited people because many of them were preparing to ride to Montreal from Toronto, a 660 km. distance. Fortunately, the organizers felt the great vibes, and the presentation was high-spirited and full of great moments. I decided to create a graphic recording with similar energy because there was no way I was going to be able to write down all the announcements, thank-yous and names that were being spoken. And there were a lot of names. Over 400 riders took part and the rally was a massive success. I tagged along as food crew, serving breakfast and cleaning up after the bikes had rolled down the road. As a note, the event itself was also so full of great moments there are no words for it, so if you are considering signing up for the 2020 ride, you'll be helping a good cause and glad you did!

Strategy Sessions Rock with a Graphic Recorder

Strategy sessions are something I take very seriously and every organization needs them! An organization like the PWA Foundation has what seems at first to be a large budget generated by donations, but they also have a vast number of people they are expected to assist. And since they are centrally-located and come into contact with a lot of clients, they require strategy sessions to continually evaluate and redefine their ongoing services. As well, a provincial government that fails to support the most vulnerable has been in power and the clients need the PWA Foundation more than ever. So the PWA has decided to their best to rise to the task. This requires a series of meetings to figure out strategy, starting at the basics and moving towards more complex modes. It was a great honour to be a part of these sessions, which involved members of the community from all walks of life, and all sorts of life stories. The one unifying factor was that everyone in attendance had a good sense of what is needed in a community to help people who might otherwise fall through the cracks. Because the participants are so very needed for their unique and precious input, part of my job was to give that sense of "event" to the meeting, and scribe some of the most compelling key words and points in a way that turned up the energy and hopefully created some brainstorming. All the strategy sessions were led by a facilitator who is a pro, and we had a great synergy as he would get the participants sharing while their ideas were noted and recorded on the wall. He has a way of narrowing people down to a few important ideas and then expanding on what they have been thinking. It was a great honour to work with this facilitator, who encouraged active listening and discussion in groups for the most critical issues. There is excitement throughout the room when a longer-term strategy is beginning to take form. While amazing bike-riding fundraisers sought sponsorship and donations for a 660 km trek, this group was also at work, community members exploring essential goals and strategic approaches. I wanted to make the great energy at this session as visible as possible.

ExArt Therapists have AGM's

Wow! Another AGM! It's something most people don't even think about, but Expressive Art Therapists are highly-trained people, and they have their own organization, OEATA, which holds an AGM each year along with loads of other networking activities to support their important work. As dozens of Expressive Art Therapists took their seats and the president began to lead their meeting, I couldn't help but wonder if they were all going to analyze the art in my graphic recording! That made me laugh! But analyzing art is part of what they are trained to do, along with encouraging clients to heal themselves through art using different types of materials and approaches. Expressive Art Therapy can help people in all sorts of awesome ways and I think they are amazing. As I was recording, I was marveling at how much they have been reaching out, contacting places where people are in states of physical or spiritual healing, and professionally trail-blazing with established standards that uphold their good work. Yes, they also have a business side. And that night there was a lot of business. So, since I think they are superstars, working in some cases with people who need so much healing, I used the theme of bright stars arching above their logo. Bright stars in a dark night. And because they stitch lives back together, I found I was using the lines made of stitches. The rest of the challenge was just about getting all of the pertinent information I could up onto the paper, and making it seem to have flow, with lots of clouds, convection and a feeling of forward momentum. At the same time, I wanted to have important-looking banners for some of their business announcements, and so the final work has announcement combined with swirl. The ExArt therapists didn't tell me if the had psychoanalyzed my graphic recording or not, but they did tell me they were pleased with the dark star effect because they could see stars and bold lines easily from the back of the room. Several of them posed in front of it, the after-meeting photo! They also promised to have me back next year, so stay tuned! ExArt rocks!

Recording for Environmental Activists

I am so impressed with Climate Fast! Climate Fast is an awesome environmental organization I did a meeting recording for just the other day. I am an avid environmentalist, and studied Environmental Studies at Trent University, and so I particularly enjoyed recording their high-energy meeting! Climate Fast is a dedicated collection of environmentally-minded individuals who lobby for change on a local level. With a glance at the massive rallies calling for climate action in Toronto, we know that the citizens of this city are concerned by global warming. However, The City of Toronto has to pass some vital legislation to help ensure Toronto meets its carbon-reduction goals. And it seems there has been been heel-dragging. For this reason and others, including love of their children’s right to a better future, activists at Climate Fast are determined to raise awareness. As well as lobbying, they have taken a fun approach with the promotion of world-class films that explore issues our planet is facing. The turn-out to these events has been amazing! Leonardo Di Caprio was in Toronto for the opening of Beyond The Flood, and would very much approve Climate Fast’s work. Toronto Climate Film Festival films included their own very awesome and accessible screening of Beyond The Flood, and films Beyond Crisis and Sea of Life. Members of the public who attend these films are powerfully moved and become galvanized to petition local politicians and otherwise become more proactive about the future of our planet. At the meeting, the group discussed some of the successes they were having in reaching out to people, and there was so much new news going on I almost recorded off of the paper and across the wall! I would record for Climate Fast anytime, they are dynamic and the challenges of recording (I actually had no preliminary regarding the agenda or duration when I started out) stretched my abilities while the meetings themselves are sincere, lively and from the heart. To see more about Climate Fast’s work, check out their website!

Reasons To Hire A Graphic Recorder

If you’ve been involved in organizations for any amount of time, you know that meetings and commitments are key to a successful team. Learning studies show that 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and that visuals are processed a thousand times faster in the brain than text. Yet unnecessary meetings are costing businesses many billions a year. Have meetings that matter! Bring the fun factor back and send their productivity through the roof! Why choose a live recorder over a Powerpoint presentation or a slide show? Interest: Meeting participation becomes active while the sense of ‘being a part” of a creative event is a teambuilding tool that not only far outperforms any static slideshow, but effectively locks critical concepts into the minds of the meeting participants for future recall. Engagement: Organizations that integrate a live visual recorder are using a tool that connects all participants to an event in one of the most powerful ways possible. Without a recorder visually paraphrasing key ideas, even the best note-takers in a room will most likely shelve their text-based notes and consult them only briefly, struggling with personal distractions throughout the process of taking them down. A visual recorder is a keen listener who has studied the agenda in advance so that the resulting work allows everyone in attendance to not only focus but to later reference the content in a visually appealing manner, while amping up a positive sense of having participated as they remember the way it unfolded in their own thoughts. Inspiration: Groups that work with visual recorders typically have more relaxed, stream-of-consciousness inspirations, coming up with solutions in a fresh way and with a fresh “outlook” on challenges! Still hesitant? Don’t be! Contact me today and we will have a meeting that will set your mind at ease about the indispensable nature of my work.

Honoured to Record for Shalom Group

This was a memorable recording and I just had to write a blog about it. The Shalom Mountain Retreat and Study Center is a beautiful place in the Catskill Mountains and was established in 1976 as a home of Shalom Process. Shalom Process is based around a “hope structure” for passionate and compassionate living. The centre is run by staff, volunteers, and a network of retreat leaders. One of these groups is the Gender Outlaws Shalom Group run by process leader LJ Wooden ! These are retreats for gender outlaws who “break the culturally defined lines of gender.” The retreats are designed to offer self-exploration and healing to people who feel alienated along gender lines. Together after a recent retreat, LJ and two other member wanted to see some of their thoughts and ideas up in visual form, using graphic recording. The way they described their goals and progress with their work made me envisioned a river with shorelines and bridges. Their ideas rolled along very quickly but were very visually evocative. It was an honour to record for them and the final piece was loaded with colour and flow, just like their inspiring ideas.

Using Graphic Recording in ESL

Recently I was volunteering as an ESL teacher! It’s something I like to do on the side that makes me feel great. My students are brilliant and they learn incredibly quickly. I always get a kick out of how fast they learn. So, we were hanging out one day, and I decided to introduce Graphic Recording as a technique in language learning. As I taught, I drew this big chart explaining the ideas for the lesson. Maybe it seems just like regular teaching, but the idea was to make a chart explaining the lesson using Graphic Recording techniques. Only I was Graphically Recording myself as I went along. So the chart worked fine, and they were better able to grasp the concepts. I felt glad to have a visual reminder of the lesson planning that could remain after the day was done. We referred to it after that and made others. So I took a snapshot so that people could see Graphic Recording in an ESL context. Worked great!

Global Warming Reversal

Okay, I did it again! I sketchnoted a Ted talk, this time by Seth Itzkan on Global Warming, quite similar to the film I was excited about! I was so interested by it, my pen flowed freely and I created some nice line work I am proud of. I used a finer pen tip than usual, and it looks great!. Seth Itzkan describes cows as allies in halting Global Warming. He says a radical change in herding practices can save the planet from desertification. The talk describes grasslands as the largest terrestrial ecosystem on the planet. My fave line is: “overgrazing is a human invention.” So I listened carefully and I made this sketchnote to ensure that the story remained committed to my memory. It was also fun drawing cows. I hope that Seth Itzkan gets as wide an audience as possible. He is part of the change Gandhi told us to be.

Climate Change Notes

Climate Change is real and I like to learn everything I can about it and devote myself to making the change. I know we can get through this as a planet but we all have to work together. I recently watched the film “The Soil Solution to Climate Change” by Jill Cloutier and Jill Hirashima, and it was very helpful. I learned these fascinating things about the power of soil and grazing in agriculture to recapture carbon and put it back in the ground. The solution to global warming and climate change is truly right under our feet! I liked the Ted talk so much that I made it into this recording. I tried to include all the most important details. There is a lot to know, but not a lot to do! Just free the grazing animals and let them fix the problem. Okay, it’s not quite that simple, but it is certainly one of the more important Ted Talks out there! I hope you enjoy my artwork in response to their research! Climate change can be tackled if we all work together.