Is a picture really worth 1000 words?
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Is a picture really worth 1000 words?
As someone who is passionate about events, I’m always looking for something new, innovative and interesting to bring to life what can often be quite dry topics. Right now everyone has lurched towards social media as the cure-all for audience participation and people to people conversation, i.e. getting the audience to engage with its followers and friends outside the conference. My sense though is that for many people they would still much prefer to listen to the speaker, take notes and engage on a more visual level so that they take away not just the factual information but the emotional ‘sense’ of what was being talked about. I have been interested to see the development of live sketchnoting at conferences. If you’re not familiar with sketchnoting it is a process where the speakers key concepts and ideas are captured using words, images and colours. It is a live process and quite a number of event organisers now provide for the sketchnoter’s sketch to be made available at or soon after the conference. As I see it this cuts through the need for a lot of detailed note taking and perhaps provides the openness so that delegates can pick and choose as to whether they listen to and take notes of the speaker or simply wait on the finished sketchnote.
So far as the firm is concerned, it is still early days but I hope that in the not too distant future we can engage our first professional sketchnoter to record one of our talks or conferences and to share that with our delegates, clients and followers.
Below is a sketchnote by Lynne Cazaly who recently captured Seth Godin‘s talk in Australia to CBA Women in Focus. This appears to capture a few new ideas of Seth (how can I be thirsty?) as well as a repeat of some of the core principles that he has been talking about for the last decade or more. It would be great to get your thoughts on where you see sketchnoting in your events programme or perhaps in the wider business context, i.e. brainstorming and facilitation.
Here is my ‘art’, my gift from@ThisIsSethsBlog at #businesschicks http://t.co/SeA9iNopBk pic.twitter.com/2WdmMhyWua
— Lynne Cazaly (@lynnecazaly) September 11, 2014