What I do as a graphic facilitator

So, what do you do?
I've got a strange job. But it's a fantastic job because I get to think and draw for a living. Two of my very favorite things to do.

I'm a graphic facilitator. While a group is having a strategy session, meeting, conference, I map their conversation. I draw a big mural that captures when is being said, showing patterns and connections between ideas.

It helps to focus the group, show them the shape of their work and documents their accomplishments.

What do you mean?
Let's say you're having a two-day retreat and you need to have some messy discussion to get to some strong decisions. There will be points in your agenda where the whole group is conversing. I'd be standing at the front of the room with a big sheet of paper taped to the wall. Roughly, four feet tall and eight feet long. As the group is speaking, I'm drawing a map of the conversation. It is in real-time and in front of them. The group can literally see what they are saying.

Depending on the agenda and the meeting's objectives, I'd be drawing several of these maps a day. Each is one integrated piece, a representation of that part of the meeting showing the individual points/voices/perspectives as part of a whole drawing.

Huh. What does that look like?
Please visit my long, dusty online portfolio. It'll give you a sense of the finished drawings. The portfolio shows the time and scale of each work. If you're thinking of hiring me for your event the items labeled:
and are the best representation of what I do live and large.

As a caveat, I think that 80% of the power of my work is the process, 20% is the product. Meaning, it's being in the room, seeing your conversation become a drawing that really packs the punch. Afterwards, the drawing is an artifact of that moment in time. It's not going to mean a heckuva lot to those who weren't there.

That being said, I like to point folks to two portfolio examples first - The Wizard of Oz, and An Inconvenient Truth - because it's content a lot of people are familiar with, so the drawing may resonate more with you.

Is it mindmapping?
Mindmapping is a specific technique. Like graphic facilitation, it does get one's ideas out of their heads and onto paper with a visual process. Originally developed by Tony Buzan, it has a hub and spoke shape.

Occasionally, my work does take a mindmapping shape; especially in very fast report outs after breakout sessions, where I'm capturing lists connected to a team or a core idea.

Who do you work with?
The variety in my work is one of the best parts of my job! Most of my clients are corporate, though I'll happy work with anyone who'll pay my rate. I've worked for all sorts of industries: biotechnology, consulting, education, finance, food, medical, technology, transportation and utilities...

Sometimes I am hired by facilitators, the traditional, verbal kind. They see how partnering with me will make their client's meeting more powerful and effective. Sometimes I get hired directly by the client.

I'm happy to talk to anyone who thinks they can use my thinking and drawings skills.

Facilitator: So…you say you're a graphic facilitator. Do you… speak?
No, I'm your silent partner. I'll ask a clarifying question if I need to. It's your show. I'm helping you facilitate through my written words and images, not spoken ones.

I love being the visual partner to the facilitator. I'm very happy with my specific role. Meanwhile, I've got over two decades of event experience, so you can bounce ideas off of me.

I can be very independent or a work as your partner. I take my cue from you. We can discuss how to best integrate visual tools into your event.

We don't have a facilitator.
I'm not capable of doing both roles at once. I am dedicated to the visual capture and synthesis.

If you're the project manager, leader, boss, I can work with you. As long as you are managing the event, the time, keeping the conversation on track, I'm good.

I work in industry X, don't you need to know about my industry to be able to draw it?
Great question. In my experience, 90% of meetings are pretty universal strategy, people, resource talk. The business of doing business. Especially the kind of strategic, "fuzzy front end" type of meetings I tend to work. With my experience, I can confidently learn and adapt to the 10% that's specific to your company and objectives.

If you were having a very nuts and bolts tactical meeting, I may not be as valuable. I'd be happy to talk to you about your specific needs.

I like what you do, but I don't know how to use you.
If you haven't been in a meeting that uses a graphic facilitator, it's hard to imagine it. Once you've experienced it, it makes all the sense in the world. Before that, I welcome questions.

Thankfully, with my years of experience, I know when GFing works and when it is less valuable. I'm happy to talk more about your event and your needs to see if I'm a good addition.

And I welcome you to sign up for my once-a-month newsletter. There's usually something about GF in there, and it may help spark an opportunity. Plus, it's short, sweet and brightly colored.

I don't have an event, but I need your skills. What do I do?
I'm open to discuss non-event projects. Sometimes it's done virtually. Sometimes clients hire me for a day or two to be onsite and work in real-time with them to visualize their work, draw models, create graphics.

Contact me with your specific needs and we can discuss it.

I've worked with graphic recorders before, how are you different?
Good question. I've got three key differentiators: style, synthesis and professionalism.

Style
I've got a very specific style, set apart from my colleagues. Happily, I've got a epic portfolio page so you can see clearly what my style is.

My background is fine arts (drawing and printmaking) with a brain that thinks in maps and systems. Starting as an artist, I already came into this work with my bold, bright style with strong lines.

Synthesis
My brain is hardwired to synthesize information, making connections, find patterns. If you're looking for 100% capture, without individual points being connected and integrated, I'm not your gal. If you value the synthesis and respond to my style, please contact me.

Click on this image for a PDF that illustrates these differentiators using the Wizard of Oz as content:

Professionalism
With over 20 years as a graphic facilitator, I bring a huge toolbox of experience with me. I am happy to discuss the best use of visual, spatial and kinesthetic tools to meet your objections. I have black belt listening skills and Olympic level adaptability. I keep cool, calm and responsive with changes.

Great! I want to work with you. What's next?
Super. First, drop me an email letting me know your event's dates. We can talk cost and can confirm that my skills will enrich you event and my availability.

If you want to see a super image with all logisitics and contracting in detail, you can click here.

In short -
I write a confirmation of engagement contract for the event. Within that agreement is a 50% deposit, due upon receipt with the contract.

Once I receive your deposit and signed contract; I am committed to your project. I am not booked until that point.

Once the contract is squared away we can talk more about the details of the event. With my level of experience, I'm very adaptable. I like to talk to the facilitator or the person leading the meeting, and run through the agenda. Ideally, this is short (maybe half hour) context setting conversation, covering the meeting objectives.

No need to send me loads of presentations or documents. I don't want or need a lot of detail beforehand. If I know the objectives and the basic agenda, I can adapt on the fly.

I understand that agendas need to adapt too, so we'll usually check in during the event.

At the end of the event, I hand you the original drawings and the digital images.

Afterwards, I'll bill you for the remaining 50% of my time and the expenses. The terms of the second, final invoice are net 30 days.

What sized groups have you worked with?
I've worked one on one, and up to a group of 1000. The main difference is how we set up the room so that the most people can see me drawing as I'm drawing.

Generally, a group up to 80 people can be arranged so that they can see what my drawing as I'm drawing. Up to that size group, I can be very effective.

In larger group, it helps to have a videographer and a screen, or me on a platform. In very large groups (think 100's), people will check out my drawings during breaks and after the event.

If I can hear clearly and am working with a facilitator comfortable with the group size, I am AOK.

We can discuss your specific needs and logistics.

What if I don't want you at the front of the room?
I argue strongly for being in the front of the room. That's because my drawing will be visible and can truly be facilitating the group. They can watch their progress through my work. I don't have to be absolute front and center. Most events involve a projected presentation or video, so I'm set up on the left or right of the screen. For events with a stage flanked by two screen, I am usually set up under one of the screens.

Occasionally, I'll be drawing on a side wall, by request of the facilitator. That's feasible, but it usually cuts me off from more of the room. And I really don't like to be at the back of the room, because the opportunity to facilitate is truly lost.

If you are the facilitator or the speaker and you're worried about me being a distraction, I think you'll find that your group will fall into an ease with both of us working together. My role is very transparent. And because what I'm drawing is in service to the group and your content, it focuses people rather than distracting them. And I promise - no caricatures or cheap visual jokes at your expense.

What if we're showing a presentation?
Now that's where I'm a distraction. I strongly feel that it's not valuable for me to rehash what's being presented on the screen. Powerpoint and Keynote are usually representing data and much more detailed level of information. I'm best leveraged mapping out a debrief or discussion from the presentation, not the presentation itself.

There are colleagues who will draw during presentations, and for presentation-heavy conferences. I prefer and excel at events that are designed for conversation over presentation.

We're having an ideation session. Can you help us with that?
It all depends on the process. If the design of your ideation session is generating lists and selecting from those lists - a diverge and converge model - I'm honestly not very useful. Sure, I've got good penmanship and am fast, but it's not the best use of my skills.

I really love sessions that are based around conversations. Big, messy conversations around complex problems. If your ideation session is built around conversation (vs. list-making), I could be a great addition.

I'm always happy to talk more and let you know if I will or won't be of value in your event.

Do you travel?
Sure thing.

I'm in Chicago.

If I'm traveling, I arrive the night before the event. I tend to get an early start to set up, so red-eye flights the day of are super stressful and are too risky. I also often stay over last night of the event too. As I put in more and more years, I find that flying home after a full day focusing on your event leaves me undone.

I've become a pretty zen business traveler taking planes, trains and taxis. Do note, I am one of those odd city dwellers who does not drive.

Can you work internationally?Yes. Contact me to discuss rates and expenses. Depending on my schedule and the location, I either charge a higher day rate, charge for travel days or expenses for a few nights before the event to get over jetlag.

Sadly, I'm still only fluent in English.

If I had the superpower to understand and write in any language, I would RULE the WORLD!

Do you charge for travel time?
Not for projects in the United States. The fortune of living in a hub city in the middle of the country.

For international travel, I may. Again, contact me and I am happy to discuss it.

We need you TOMORROW!
If your event is last-minute, I may be able to accommodate you. I do charge "rush fees" for projects initiated within 10 days of the event date. Contact me with your event date. I'll send you my rate info and more details if I'm available.

If we are a go, it takes very little time for me to prep a contract and deposit invoice for you. Often clients pay the deposit by credit card through Paypal. Sometimes they overnight a check.

As long as I've got a signed contract and the deposit before your event, we are ready to roll!

How do you charge for your services?
I charge a day rate plus expenses. Generally, I don't charge for travel time. If I'm going to the other side of the world, we may have to negotiate that. You can contact me to discuss your needs and my rates.

What do you charge?
Please contact me.

What are your typical expenses?
Travel, hotel, meals and materials.

Commonly materials run about $40 for a one or two day event for paper and tape.

A variable cost is renting or building a flat wall if there isn't one in the space. Ideally, there's wall space with NO sconces, termostats, wainscotting. It needs to be big enough to tape up a 4 foot x 8 foot piece of paper. I'm short and my reach tops off at 75 inches.

When we work together, I send a specifications document clarifying wall space logistics.

Do you have a non-profit rate?
No. I bring the same skills and experience to every project, so I charge one rate.

Yes, much of my work is with corporate clients. You'll see a wide variety of clients in the logos shared above.

Do you do pro bono work?
Extremely rarely. Folks tend to do pro bono work for a couple reasons: They believe in the cause and/or they are trying to build their business. With the former, I've got a lot of ways I donate my time to things I believe in, outside of my business. With the later, I'm fortunate to be established in my practice. Yes, I'm always marketing, but not by doing my work for free.

My meeting is two hours…
What if it's not a full day event, do you work half days?
No. I work a full day.

In the past, I never did half days outside of downtown Chicago. I learned that shorter meetings usually turned into gruelling nonstop marathons. They were even more exhausting than full days, which usually have ebbs and flows.

Some clients with a half day event will coordinate a second half day event at the same location to better use my services. That's perfectly fine by me, as long as I get at least a lunch break to mentally switch gears.

Oh, we can't do a deposit.

We don't need a contract, do we?

We can't pay in 30 days
I can't work with you.

If you can meet my terms, I'll happily work with you.

We need you to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
Sure thing. I'd be happy to sign one. I'm rarely given them. I assume that all my work is internal, confidential, sensitive content. I don't reproduce or publish event images without the client's permission.

The bulk of my online portfolio is public programs, personal "visual book reports," etc. Not client work - unless given explicit permission to share.

What do we get? What are the deliverables?
When you hire me you get:

1. My real-time graphic facilitation skills support your work
2. 20+ years of experience
3. All of the original drawings
4. Digital images of the drawings.

At the end of the event, I'll hand you the original drawings, labeled and ready to go.

I also give you digital images of the drawings. During the event, I take digital pictures of the charts. I clean those up, balancing the color. They end up looking a lot like the images in my portfolio, with a white background. For each drawing, I give you large jpeg file (good for print) and a smaller gif (ready to be emailed or posted to a webpage).

You are receiving digital photos whose quality is contingent on the onsite lighting. It's a good idea to keep the originals if you're looking to recreate the them in print at a large scale.

Normally, I snap the pictures and clean the images during my downtime in an event. My turnaround time is usually less that 48 hours.

I strongly recommend getting my digital images to every participant as soon as possible. Most folks leave an event rarin' to get going on the work they started. Often, they lose their momentum after the event, because the aren't in contact with their co-participants and may be waiting weeks, months for the document of the event. If there is one.

The gifs I give you can instantly be posted to an intranet, emailed to people as a thank you. These images are packed with meaning and memory. Give them to the participants so they can take those next steps.

What do people do with the big drawings?
Good question. I don't know. Most of the time, I'm bid a fond farwell before the event organizers collapse with relief, and that's the last I hear.

I suspect that a good chunk of them while away in the corners of offices or get (hopefully) recycled. I think the digital images have a better life cycle within a group.

I'm not at all precious about the drawings. They are an artifact of that meeting, a moment in time, a representation of a process. Not a masterpiece, set in stone for eternity.

Some clients (especially smaller groups) hang the original charts in their work areas so they can continue to work from them. Do whatever you need to do with them to get more good work done. Hang them, mark them up.

I have heard of a few clients hanging them up in common areas behind plexiglass. If it's useful, great. I do know the waterbased, non-toxic inks I use fade over time. So, I suppose when one of these drawings fade too much it's time for another meeting!

Oh, great, I'll send these images out to the whole company to explain what we did at our meeting!
Wait!

The charts are great working documents for the people who participated in the event. Many participants use the images to explain what they accomplished to others in the company. Using the images as a map to guide others through the process is great. Many naturally use the images this way and act as good stewards of the event, the process, the images.

I don't think the images work as a standalone document. A big part of the image is the experience of being there, watching it being built while being part of the conversation. These images are very experiential, and don't have the same meaning as those who weren't in the room.

If you are going to post the images to a larger audience, please introduce them with context setting text.

I can discuss creating summary and communication images as a post-event project, if you need something that communicates to a larger audience.

We need a report made after the event. Can you do that?
I have the skills, but I don't love doing it. My passion is the energy, intensity and productivity of event work. And I'm relatively expensive.

Please, be my guest, and hand off my digital images to someone more willing, in-house, outsourced and/or cheaper!

If you do need my help, let me know.

I'm not fond of defining myself as what I'm not, but these are questions I'm often asked —

Do you do those awesome whiteboard videos?
You're probably talking about the RSA Animate videos by Andrew Park.

We started out together many, many moons ago and he completely rocks those videos. He populates those videos with tons of great characters and his style works so well in that nonstop, linear narrative. He's brilliant. I hope he's making a mint and loves making the videos.

My style isn't well suited for videos. My strength is synthesis over linear narrative, so I jump around in a drawing a lot. My style is diagrammatic. I don't rock the caricatures.

Most importantly, my passion is working live events. Working solo in a studio producing videos saps my vim and vigor.

If you adore my specific style and want to win me over with tons of money, go for it. I'm still very likely not your gal.

A general heads up about whiteboard videos - Andrew's stellar work has spawned a ton opportunities and imitators. Just remember two things:
1. Every person has their own style and way of working.
2. The end products look so sexy and effortless. Watching someone draw something out of thin air is magical. In truth, these videos take massive amounts of the client creating content, collaboration on the design, and production time. Expect the rates to reflect that.

Are you stenographer?
No, it's my job to capture the main points and the broad themes and synthesizing them. On some events, my clients hire stenographers to capture that level of detail in words, if that's what's needed.

On many events, I am the primary person documenting. I feel my work does capture a good amount of detail, and excels at relating points to each other, by finding patterns. If you know you need a very detailed amount of capture, I do suggest adding a stenographer or transcriptionist to your event.

Are you like those people who draw in courtrooms?
Nope. I'm reflecting the ideas that that are in the room, not the specific faces.

Do you do caricatures?
Heck no. There are people who are brilliant at it. I'm not. And have no fear - I don't sneak cartoons of participants into my drawings.

Do you do product concept illustrations?
No, there's people much, much more skilled in that than I am. But if you are strategizing about a service or a less tangible product, I can be very helpful.

Do you draw storyboards?
I have a few times, but they aren't my forte. Again, I defer to the experts.

What's your background? How did you get involved in this work?
I've been drawing since I was 2. Nearly nonstop. I went to Grinnell College and have a BA in Studio Art. I focused in printmaking (etching).

Many of my colleagues come from organizational development, consulting, education, training. I'm an oddball artist who's brain is hardwired for synthesis and pattern recognition.

I was truly fortunate to fall into a great opportunity straight out of college. From 1996 to 1999, I contracted with Ernst and Young (now Cap Gemini) working in their ASE (Accelerated Solutions Environment) spaces. They run change manangement workshops for their clients. That's where I learned that graphic facilitation was a job, that I was really good at it, and got my chops.

I've never been good at accounting, but I'd say since 1996, I've done several hundred events, helping thousands of people bring clarity and understanding to their work through my mapping.

How do you get your work?
This site, referrals, networking. My site has served me very well. Also, I love doing this work, and love to talk about it. Since this work is still very new to people, a lot of my marketing is education. I'm very comfortable describing what I do, why I do it and where it works best. Please contact me if you have questions or/and opportunities.

I want to do what you do. Where can I get training? Do you teach this or give training sessions?
Very good questions. This field is growing like gangbusters. I think there's a ton of opportunity as our cultures get more and more visual and the problems we tackle in our events get more and more complex. Here are some resources I can proudly recommend:

The Graphic Facilitator's Guide
In 2012, I saw the need for better resources for graphic recorders and graphic facilitators. To meet the need, I wrote The Graphic Facilitator's Guide: How to use your listening, thinking and drawing skills to make meaning. It defines the roles and responsibilities in our work through a set of guiding principles. I am very heartened to see it referred to as the bible of our field time and again..

The Lab
Later that year, I launched The Lab, my 3-day immersive workshop on visual thinking through the practice of graphic facilitation. It attracts people who are new to GF, those who feels like they are in a rut and want to boost their skills, and people from outside roles who seek me to learn synthesis and visual thinking skills. I work hard to create a safe yet challenging environment to push yourself and experiment, with an emergent agenda, direct feedback and in-depth discussion.

Drawn Together Through Visual Practice
Mid-2016, alongside co-editors Kelvy Bird, Sam Bradd and Jennifer Shepherd, we launched an anthology call Drawn Together Through Visual Practice. If you want a wider view of our field, this is a great resource. My part in it began when Sam and I shared an AirBnB in Berlin for EuViz in 2014, staying up late bragging on colleague we wished would publish. Twenty-seven contributors share their experience and ideas on conflict mediation, teaching visual thinking in the college classroom, synthesis through dance and movement, cultural relevance and respect when using visuals, and many, many more topics.

The Idea Shapers
Late 2016, I launched my second book, The Idea Shapers: The power of putting your ideas into your own hands. At the risk of sounding grandiose, this book is my magnum opus. In its 400+ pages with over 600 images, I break down the complexity of visual thinking into 24 discrete, concrete and accessible Idea Shapers. Each one is a single visual thinking concept. Learning the building blocks lets you assemble them into more complex, more sophisticated visual thinking.

While this book isn't specifically focused on graphic facilitation, it is a great sibling to the GFG.