Crackerjack Visual Thinking

Category: Graphic Facilitation

  • ‘Picture’ your organisational story to engage your people… #visualthinking #engagement #storytelling #e4s

    Telling a clear story can be the key helping your people engage with your organisations vision and purpose.

    Being able to ‘see’ the story as a picture can further enhance their understanding, helping them both see the ‘big picture’ and well as better understand where their role fits into what can sometimes be large and complex organisations.

    Find out more about how visual thinking can support engagement in your organisation by listening to John Ashton from Crackerjack Visual Thinking on Engage for Success Radio:

  • Engage for Success Radio: Crackerjack discusses the links between #visualthinking and employee engagement #e4s #engagement #communication

    Earlier this week I had the pleasure of discussing the links between visual thinking and employee engagement on the Engage for Success Radio Show.

    E4S Radio Show

    As a supporter of the Engage for Success movement, it was great to share thinking on how using visual thinking tools and techniques in an organisation can help people have better conversations and enable an organisation to tell its story (often referred to as its strategic narrative) more effectively.

    Here’s the link to the interview: Engage for Success Radio Show #132

    Hope you find it interesting and please do share your feedback and thoughts!

    Visit www.crackerjackvisualthinking.com to find out more about how visual thinking can enable employee engagement and better conversations within your organisation.

  • Putting the jigsaw pieces in place at Sheffield Hallam University #SHU #graphicrecording #visualthinking

    SHU MK

    I had a great day yesterday creating a live graphic recording to help Sheffield Hallam University’s marketing teams visualise the role they play in delivering their new marketing strategy. The visual used a jigsaw pieces metaphor to show how the teams will work together to achieve this goal. One of the key aims of the visualisation was to highlight the linkages and alignments between the work of the different teams and it was great to see some very clear actionable themes emerging during the day!

  • It’s not just about the picture! #visualthinking #engagement #communication #e4s

    When people commission visual thinking projects (e.g. creating graphic recording, rich pictures, organisational storyboards, animations etc…), it can be very easy for them to focus first on the content, size, shape, style, layout and colours of the visual being produced.

    However, often people forget to really think about how the visual is going to drive meaningful conversations in their organisation. Before taking on a piece of work, we always ask clients how they think the visuals we produce are going to engage people, enable understanding and even drive change in their organisation.

    So, before you commission a piece of visual thinking work, really consider the effect you want the visual to have. This in turn will inform the design of the visual including the type of content, the size, shape, style, layout and colours etc. Remember, a pretty picture is not always the most informative picture!

    Visual thinking it not just about the picture itself, it’s about the effect that is created when people view the image and discuss it with their colleagues. These are the conversations that can drive change in an organisation!

    www.crackerjackvisualthinking.com

  • How pictures can help people engage for success #engageforsuccess #visualthinking #engagement #strategicnarrative

    Helping people throughout an organisation have a shared understanding the organisations story (often referred to as its strategic narrative) is a key part of any engagement strategy. The story can detail the history of the organisation, its current state and its future vision amongst other important information. For maximum impact, the story should detail the ‘what’ (i.e. what happened and when?), the ‘how’ (i.e. how were the things achieved?) and the ‘impact’ (i.e. how did people feel?). This combination of hard facts and emotion can provide a powerful tool in helping people understand the organisation, their feelings towards it, the role they have played and the role they can play in the future.

    Now imagine that rather than just reading the story, people can see it mapped out visually on a large poster.

    Weetabix
    An operational storymap produced by Crackerjack Visual Thinking for Weetabix…

    They can gather around the poster and use it (either ‘freeform’ or as part of a structured meeting or event) to stimulate thinking and discussion and engage with the organisations story on a deeper level. Imagine if this activity was repeated across the whole organisation so that everybody understood its strategic narrative. Powerful eh?

    Visit www.crackerjackvisualthinking.com or contact us to find out more about how our visual thinking work can help you tell your organisations story.

  • Graphic recording at Derby and Notts CIPD Annual Meeting #letsENGAGE @DerbyNottsCIPD @davidtmacleod @macs_JamesT

    Had a interesting couple of hours last night graphic recording Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire’s CIPD annual meeting. Both David MacLeod (Engage for Success) and James Taylor (Macildowie) spoke about the need for engagement in the workplace. David stressed the importance of having a clear strategic narrative in an organisation and I was struck by the role visual thinking (both in terms of graphic recording and graphic facilitation) can play in helping to tell an organisations story.

    Here’s the graphic I produced during the meeting:

    Derby and Notts Annual Meeting 2015

  • A (very!) short animation about the benefits of using a visual thinking approach

    #graphicrecording #graphicfacilitation #visualthinking #communication

  • Latest testimonial for Crackerjack Visual Thinking

    Laura Haviland – HR Director Westmill Foods

    We asked John [of Crackerjack Visual Thinking] to come and support our company conference, both to capture the content and spirit of the day and also to interact with our colleagues and gather their responses and reactions.

    It was wonderful to see the graphic unfold as we followed the journey of the day and as the day came to a close the graphic was looking amazing.

    We will print and frame copies of the final graphic at our sites as a reminder of the key messages and our day together.

    John was a pleasure to work with, flexible about how the graphic recording fitted into our day and has produced a fabulous record of our conference.

    #visualthinking #graphicrecording

  • Have a look at Crackerjack’s testimonials!

    Here’s our latest testimonial:

    Liam Humphreys – Exercise Science Researcher, Sheffield Hallam University

    John attended the launch event of Active Everyday; a physical activity referral programme for people affected by cancer in Sheffield. The project is funded by Macmillan Cancer Support and Sport England.

    The event included a diverse blend of delegates, including clinicians, nurses, researchers, commissioners, and people affected by cancer. The programme included many different speakers all promoting the benefits of physical activity for people with cancer. I asked John to attend the event because I wanted a creative way of providing delegates with an overview of the day.

    The finished piece was extremely well received by the attendees and John was able to explain his artistic vision from what he had heard throughout the event. I now have a great piece of work that I can share with everyone from the event and for events in the future.

    John was very easy to work with and accommodating to my requests. I would certainly use him again for future events and would highly recommend him to others.

    If you would like a more creative and interactive experience for your events or meetings; John is your man.

    Find out what more of our clients think of working with Crackerjack Visual Thinking by clicking here!