“How are we meant to engage the team now we’re at home with more distractions and less clarity”
Not a bad question!
It is a valid point and harsh reality for a lot of businesses in the current situation. Making sure your messages, ideas and plans are communicated clearly, and understood when there’s less chance of a quick chat in the office.
Our time in the day feels shorter, we feel busier – there are pros to working from home, but these new ways of working are throwing some curve balls.
Making sure employees
- engage with the information
- recognise the journey you are presenting
- have a unified understanding of the goals
are important, time costly things you need to get right.
So how can this be done simply and effectively during meetings and webinars?
If you are yet to witness the magic of watching an event captured as a drawing, LIVE in front of you, it is a tad special…
It continues to be an exciting skill I share at each event, especially when participants witness Live Scribing for the first time and react as if they have seen magic – I love it.
One of the questions I hear a lot is “We need a way to make this event exciting and inspiring and DIFFERENT, where do we start??” And as I start describing the power of using visuals for the event and the potential to use the piece post event, the reality of engaged teams and effective communication skills grows.
Here are the five topics I normally discuss…
So what is Live Scribing?
Live Scribing (or Graphic Recording) is large-scale real-time drawing, which translates discussions and information into words and pictures. This service captures ideas in a more creative and engaging way for attendees at all kinds of events – physical and digital.
As information is shared and discussions happen, the spoken words are documented as a visual story in real time, which helps engage attendees whilst capturing the day in a more unique way.
I discovered this technique at University when I was illustrating information during seminars, as one-page visuals. Tutors began to share the visual on the intranet for other students to learn from. I realised how effective visual skills are for sharing information, and this led to the start of my business Scribble Inc Ltd. Over thirty customers later that span sectors from Legal, Cyber Security, Local Government to International Marketing, I have seen how powerful visuals are in aiding the communication of complex and technical messages.
The pivot
It might surprise you when I say, during lock down, event business has not been halted for Scribble Inc. Whilst the physical events have been postponed, more have been converted into webinars – which has been great news for Scribing.
Webinar platforms like Microsoft teams, Zoom, Skype all support screen share. This allows me as the scribe to join the event and draw live on my Microsoft Surface Studio, which the participants watch in real time. The premise works the same, with the pivot from paper to digital, whilst retaining the hand drawn element.
Working digitally has been brilliant and will change the possibility of how I can work for the future. The idea of reducing carbon emission with less travel, using less paper and up-skilling digitally are all positives to be taken from the current situation.
Technicalities of how it works
As with a physical event, we would discuss the event outlines and the aims and expectations you have of how Live Scribing can be used most effectively for you. This could be around the information you wish to share before hand, and how the visual can be used post event, to share with attendees and your team.
During the webinar/ meeting/ review, I can share my screen view of the digital canvas. From here the speakers present as they normally would, but now the participants/attendees are able to see what is drawn in real time. As the event comes to a close, the visual can be discussed and points of interest recapped. By listening AND seeing the information, memory retention is increased and more accurately recalled.
Post event the visual can be shared as web content, printed material and framed as a tailored piece of art!
Examples of where and why this has worked
Dry information, working from home, distractions, disengagement, unclear values, missing mission and vision …. I could go on. A visual one pager can encourage a clearer idea and a more exciting way of communicating those duller messages and heavier ideas.
A webinar I recently Scribed with Voodoochilli was communicating tips and tricks for SEO management. Typically this might not be THE most exciting topic (unless you are the brilliant team at Voodoochilli), but if you are learning something new by listening to experts and seeing a drawing happen in front of your eyes, you’re going to be more engaged with the information.
The attendees of the webinar also received the visual post event, which they can now refer back to for tips they may have forgotten!
DPD also use Scribble Inc, but for their CEO Review. This is an incredibly important event each year for the business that helps display the goals achieved by each region. I had the privilege of Scribing Region four’s exceptional review with seven outstanding depots.
The visual is now displayed in the head office and digitised versions were sent to each depot as a reminder of their hard work and achievements, improving morale and team mentality.
Learning more
So now you know a bit more about the value of Live Scribing and using visual communication techniques to improve a wide array of communication areas, I would love to hear about your ideas and any questions you may have around using visuals for your next event!
Find Scribble Inc on twitter, Instagram and Linked In for more information on how to improve communication skills. Check out our website page ‘contact us’ for any questions and how we can help!
