Mind-mapping – thINKing Canvas

May 1, 2018May 1, 2018

Seeing IS Believing for Success

During a conference that I attended a few months back, I had the opportunity to heard a speaker present on the topic of failure in business. Granted, there were other presenters who also referenced business and start-up failure, yet this one speaker said something that struck a curiosity.

I had spent a few days listening to various theories and professional point-of-views on the subject of business failure, however, all the data and conversations paled in comparison to one single statement, “The single most important reason that ventures fail is simply because others can’t see your idea.”

Being a Visual Translator and facilitator for businesses, this idea that others must see an idea was a feather in my cap. I have always believed that mapping an idea is the best method of communicating an idea to others and keeping you on track. Hearing that not seeing only reinforced my stance on using the talents of a visual translator or graphic recorder to help solidify a concept.

But that wasn’t the end of the statement. After a few more moments of letting the thought sink in, the speaker add two more points that anchored the whole of the presentation. “If you can’t see the idea, then you and others can not truly believe in that idea. And if you can’t believe in it, your chances of you or others acting on that idea fall dramatically.”

Being from the Midwest, especially from Missouri, we have an old saying about proof and belief, “Show me.” So maybe there is more truth in this idea of seeing is believing than most give credit. So I went digging for more information on the power of seeing an idea to help promote success.

In 2015, TD Bank performed a deep dive study into visuals and business. After interviewing over 1100 people and 500 small businesses, the survey results were amazing. About 67% (335) of the small business responses agree that visually mapping of a business idea helps in the plan development. Unfortunately, only 20% (67) of those business respondents actually used visual mapping or image boards in planning. Interestingly, 76% (51) of those who utilized visuals in planning indicated by response that they were successful in achieving the goals they created in those visuals.

So 76% of visual users actually were successful in achieving their vision. Imagine if 76% of those 500 small businesses were assisted by a visual translator or facilitator. The rate of failure would drop dramatically.

In summary, for your idea or strategy to have the best chance of success you must first make it visible to you and others. Once the idea is visible, then all involved can begin to believe it. If all believe it, then they can act on it to make it a success.

November 22, 2016November 22, 2016

Change Through an Idea Prism

There has been a lot of talk online and at various conferences these past years about change with management and culture. Most of these conversations have been around a single change or a single possible outcome. In my idea of change it is never a single event or single target, because change is more fluid and variable than most target.

Over the years of working with teams on change, be it for teams, management, brands or even physical representation, I have observed when groups focus on one single outcome or definition, they overlook so many more possibilities. The range of ideas become broader than their vision.

To help explain, the graphic below shows the idea of planning change in three key phases.

At the start lies the current state. Unchanging and ever decaying for stagnation is decay. So many people have this idea that if they just do what they have always done that time will resolve any issues. The reality is that they are correct, unfortunately, the solution will probable be something they don’t want. When you do choose your course, one will be chosen for you and that choice is rarely in your favor.

Begin by determining ‘Why’ you need to change. What happens if you don’t change and everything around is? Create a clear explanation why staying the course and letting outside forces dictate your change. My guess is you will soon realize the old adage ‘Change or Die’ begins to ring in your ears.

Okay, you finally have a reason to change. Great! Now move that through a process of creative ideation. Look at various ways of how change can happen and determine what are positive and negative advantages to these changes. If you look at the change delta as a prism, the idea is to disperse all the possible variables to create a range of possibilities. It is these possibilities that can help create the possible change you can accept or are capable of performing.

These variations become the ‘What’ states of change. Like light through a prism, each variation of color does not have a distinct separation from its neighboring colors. There is a blurring between each band. This is true of ideas and change. There is no clear defined path or hard outcome. Change creates variations of complexity and it is your ability and capacity to determine how complex of a change your can create.

So, when you hear someone talk of change management or culture change, find out if they are talking variations or single outcomes or changes. If it is a single possibility then use the prism of ideas process, commonly called ideation, to create multiple options and find which solution works best for you or your business.

Avoid the static and the stagnate states of daily life, always plan by seeing your goals and mapping the journey to them.

June 27, 2016

Business Alignment

No matter if you’re a small business, large corporation or non-profit, there are connections in our purpose, communication and the places we connect in. I have written before on the importance of alignment and I am going to do again, but this time I want to break down the idea into steps.

I believe that the three key principles in all businesses are these; Culture, Brand and Place. The principles are not free-standing as some would treat them. No, all three of these are linked in an interlocking pattern. Adjust one and it affects the other two.

Take culture for the first example. What you and those around you believe about the same goal or outcome is your purpose and drives your brand message and the promise your communicate to others.

Your promise to others needs a place that reflects this promise and helps facilitate your interactions with others. Your brand frames what your place should be no matter if it is physical or digital. The real message here is that both your physical and digital places should reflect your brand and not merely be a trendy place or a copy of someone else’s place.

As I stated at the beginning of this post, all three are connected and each reacts and influences the others. The place where you interact must also support the belief and intention of your culture. It must stimulate those who enter to your belief and help become the stage of your people to communicate your message.

It is very important to always remember that these three principles apply to business, play and home. What you believe is reflected in how you speak and what you speak about. Your place becomes a manifestation of those ideas. It is very important to always remember, that all three principles either nourish the whole or jeopardize the possibility of growth and success.

February 3, 2016February 11, 2016

Pigtails and Rabbit Ears

No, this is not a story of a little girl and her pet rabbit.

In fact, this is about how employees and customers react to a company’s environment.

Allow me to explain.

During a past ideation session with a client group, I was graphically co-facilitating on a large white board some of their responses about their customers in their centers. During part of the team activities I over heard one of them say, “We hear such great things about our staff and the environment from our customers.” In response, I added some exclamation marks above the heads of the customers I had drawn interacting with the staff to emphasis the positive response. During one of the breaks, a few of the participants had gathered in front of the visual recording and were making humorous comments about the pigtails and rabbit ears I had put on people.

“Pigtails and rabbit ears?” I asked. They pointed out that the exclamation marks I had drawn over the heads and how it had made them look like they had pigtails and rabbit ears. Sure enough to my amusement I had. Unknowingly to me when, In order to add relevance to the comment, I had made some of the people cute girls with pigtails and others, people with rabbit ears.

After that, when that group discussed the experience being staged for employees or customers they would challenge the rest of the group by asking if it would give the employees and customers pigtails and rabbit ears. To my surprise, a humorous visual edit quickly became shorthand for measuring a positive experience.

Since then, I ask myself during client ideations about headquarters or customer spaces if they are actually creating enough of a positive experience within their environments that the reactions from those engaging in the experiences would generate pigtails and rabbit ears on drawn people? One of our goals for our clients is to help develop experiences that would exceed expectations and create positive memories, experiences that employees and customers would share with others.

I challenge you take a look at your employee and customer environments and interactions. Are they dynamic enough to put pigtails and rabbit ears on your people? If not, how could you change the environment and the interaction to do so? Maybe we can help?

Until next time, keep thINKing in Ink and stay ahead of the problem.

KMD

September 15, 2015September 15, 2015

The Edge of Change

The world we live in is a funny place. Conversations, styles and even perceived needs are cyclical. What is old is new and new, well, that’s so this morning. Every thing changes. Everything. Those things, people, businesses that don’t, well, that’s so in the past. Change is the only constant they say and I find it to be true. Change up, change back, change around, change out, change into, etc… We have so many perceptions of change that the adaptations seem endless.

Change comes in various sizes and increments. Some changes are dramatic while others are subtle. No matter what, change happens to us all each day. The real goal is to try to guide change as best we can, because change never happens as we expect. It always has hidden surprises or consequences.

But what is change? When does something or someone change? I guess that answer lies in the eye of the observer. Only those closely watching can see the change happening, but for most, we see the event after the change. But what if you could plan change in some fashion. This I have asked for some time and here is what I have created.

Based on the idea that yesterday and today are unchangeable, if you avoid any theoretical ideas of time travel, that only leaves the future for change. And, if change only happens in the future, than you can guide the outcome given you can determine all the factors affected by change. And so, here is my model for change.

This is my Delta model for change. Even if you stand at the very edge, change will occur. Time always moves forward and you must move with it. But you can decide how you want the change to happen and what you want the change to create once you understand why you want or need the change to happen.

As the model indicates, change should be an improvement and performed of a duration of time through some given process. Also, you must determine any and all pitfalls and obstacles that may hinder you crossing the gap of change.

So the steps:

Why is there a need for change? “Why”
How will this change occur? “How”
Who can help you achieve this change? “Who”
What improvement will change create? “What”
How long will the change take? “When”
And where do you want to be when the change is complete? “Where”

Map the change before you act. Take you intangible idea and make it a tangible plan.

September 8, 2015

SPARK Your Imagination

There’s a growing trend in America. A trend where the world of art and artists are collaborating with businesses and business leaders to generate a richer offering as well as a new perspective on creating healthier and stronger businesses. There is no better avenue for this thinking in St. Louis than the SPARK Conference hosted by COCAbiz at COCA.

I was honored to be able to perform the graphic recording of the event, for Sharon Price John’s morning presentation and for the evening’s Keynote address by John Maeda. Below is the large-scale graphic recording of the full day event of SPARK at COCA.

Please check out the wonderful services and programming that COCAbiz has to offer by contacting Steve Knight at COCAbiz. Just follow the link and get creative with business solutions.

June 4, 2015

Making Intangible Ideas Tangible

There is an epidemic facing our business world. The symptoms may go undetected and has spread like wildfire in a drought. This type of epidemic can be so destructive that it actually destroys businesses from at the very core and no one sees it coming, especially when its company-wide.

This condition spreads through daily activities, mutual conversation and even electronically communications undetected. There is no way to spot once its too late to protect yourself or others.

No, I am not talking about a air-borne disease or some contagious virus. No, I’m talking about the loss of information and key ideas created and then lost forever. I am talking about the inability of groups to capture and share ideas and goals effectively. There is a method of inoculation and eventual cure to this epidemic…

Graphic recording.

Okay, so it sounds like a commercial right. True, but in reality, it is a statement of support. When an organization creates ideas from interaction of co-workers, capturing these ideas so that they are documented as well as shared aids in the propagation of these ideas. One of the most powerful tools is graphic recording, capturing ideas in both written and graphical documentation so that the information can be reflected upon and shared.

Different descriptions and scale of graphic recording

Graphic recording does not always have to be done larger than life on huge sheets of paper on the walls, no, you can scale down to sketchbooks or even small notebooks. Whatever the size you choose to use, make sure you share. When you share ideas captured, you inoculate against the epidemic of forgetfulness, the killer of great ideas.

So to all those who meet, share, present, communicate, doodle on napkins, capture these ideas and document them to share. You never know who may see them and build on the idea to make them real.

Always remember, make intangible ideas tangible so others may SEE!

July 15, 2014July 15, 2014

Midwest Businesses and GraphicRecording

In the past few months I have seen a dramatic rise in the request in information for graphic recording and visual translations. Is it because of some super clever marketing campaign or some incredibly smart social media gorilla stunt that has gone viral? Not really. The increase appears to be sourced through the an increase in activities of both sketchnoters and graphic recorders pushing their work into main stream culture through social media channels and gaining local and national press.

Take a look at this news piece on CBS News about Sunni Brown and the business of doodling or this article in a local Business Journal which introduces the idea of graphic recording as a tool to improve daily work and general thinking. (Yes, it’s about me and graphic recording. A selfish plug, but then again, you’re already here.)

Yes, graphic recording is on the rise. Be it personal sketchnotes posted on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, or more graphic recorders sharing on LinkedIn and Twitter, the business world is taking notice and responding accordingly by Following, Liking, Pinning and Adding to professional networks. Graphic recording is becoming a business acceptable practice.

Even for myself, my various applications have become a point of conversation with prospects and clients within the financial community, healthcare and business consultants. Corporate strategic planning sessions are incorporating more visual recorders to meetings to add greater value and deeper retention of plans, conversations and general gatherings.

Why?

I can’t answer for the general population, but from my personal experience and conversations with those inquiring what it is that I do, a realization of the power of graphic recordings and conversation maps is becoming clearer. And with this clarity comes greater curiosity. Businesses are looking for stronger advantages in the market place and graphic recorders are helping them to see opportunities that once were unseen and intangible. They are beginning to see!

So, if you’re a business, organization or a start-up, connect with a graphic recorder and get your ideas, plans and thoughts drawn out and seen so you can move forward with a clear plan and a map to your future.