Transforming Ideas to Images to Insight

Do you need to bring people from varied parts of your organization together to learn, or develop a new vision?  Will you be holding a conference or meeting that  may cost thousands of dollars to organize?  Would you like the participants in your meeting to be more creative, engaged and connected to the presentations and activities?

We know that often using the same meeting techniques only inspires the same old thinking, or worse, lots of blackberry usage, text messaging and grocery lists rather than real creative engagement? Using Strategic Illustration, you can engage the creative thinking potential of your group to make the most of the one-time investment of time and money for your event.

See How Graphic Facilitation Works In this Video

What is Graphic Facilitation?

A cutting-edge technique that uses large, wall size (at least 4 feet by 6 feet or longer ) murals that are created on-site during a presentation or meeting.  Murals can be created in advance to prepare for the introduction of new ideas or concepts.

A mural completed for The Foundation Consortium, in preparation for a meeting of local government officials. This piece formed the basis for a training on inclusive governance in a statewide early childhood development program. To see more results of this work, view our gallery.

Graphic Facilitation:

• Synthesizes ideas, processes and key themes so that participants can be more effective in engaging in discussions
• Engages the attention of  “visual learners” (approximately 65% of people)
• Distills the essence of the group’s thinking,  and helps new ideas emerge
• Organizes complex information into meaningful and memorable images.
• Captures a group memory, resulting in a single, comprehensive public record of the discussions and visions of the event
• Encourages collaboration of varied stakeholders and commitment to action.

Why is this important for your events or meetings?

Any significant change in an organization requires the commitment and buy-in of all levels of staff. Real-time graphic facilitation includes and engages all participants at a meeting. After years of experience, we have observed that often staff with different levels of education, or decision-making power are not vocal in meetings. These participants often find their voice when the visual element of the wall mural is added. Many times they approach the illustrator during breaks, lunch hours or after the meeting to add their ideas to the unfolding record.

How does it work?

Unfolding Solutions staff will discuss with you whether it would be valuable to incorporate Graphic Facilitation into their services. The visual images are created on-site during the meetings in an unobtrusive manner. After the meeting the charts are photographed digitally and consolidated into a report to preserve the energy, momentum and vision of the original event. Participants can reflect back on their commitment to the goals set at the meeting, and continue to deepen understanding by focusing on the big picture.

This pioneering technique can also be provided as a separate, stand-alone service to energize your conferences and meetings. Custom interactive graphic templates that capture the outcome or future vision of your organization can be designed in the studio.