This document discusses how illustrations and comics can be used to effectively communicate information and stories within organizations. It provides examples of the author's work using illustrations for internal change programs and event visuals. The author explains things they have learned, such as how a narrative infographic can be quicker to create than a video, and how drawing can help explain abstract or boring concepts. They advocate using illustrations to break information into small, linear chunks and tell stories to promote new beliefs. The document concludes with proposing workshops to use comic strips to map problems or collect stories within an organization.
17. “If you give people facts without a story,
they will explain it within their existing
belief system.
The best way to promote a new or different
belief is not with facts, but with a story”.
- Dave gray
Bear in mind:
18. Want to Engage people?
First address their frustration
Stuff I’ve learnt:
39. TASK: comic strip about
a problem
1st Panel: I / we want. . .
( THE GOAL )
2nd panel: BUT . . .
( The obstacle )
3rd panel: So. . .
(How things suck because we can’t reach our goal)
41. How comics/comics workshops
could help your organisation?
“culture mapping” exercise ?
(good when dealing with the negative, unspoken rules!)
Solving problems?
Getting everyone on the same page before a big project/initiative?
As a way to collect and share stories of people or teams who are already doing things
the new way
Customer journey mapping
what else …?BENEFITS :
- deal with negativity
- shareable content
- have fun
THE QUESTION: Would it make sense to work in other contexts???
ORGANISATIONS ARE FASCINATING
I’ve always been interested in organisations and how humans behave.
Background in social collaboration consultancy: (how many of you use a collaboration tool?)
My background is in digital campaigning where these are key themes
I was given two days to develop digital website and content for the campaign.Key tool: Wacom tablet.
Stand alone visuals, The media could pick up bits they liked.
This was drawn on iPad 2. I now use a crappy Windows tablet and a Samsung tablet.
The problem: no story to follow, reveals too much at the same time.This was produced after the event. They could have turned it into something easier to follow.
The idea is to reveal things bit by bit:VERTICAL worksPPT works
construct a fictional story that acts as “narrative glue” for facts.
Why I did it: the goal was to get to talk to service designers. I had no professional connections to the field.Approach: visualise a professional pain point (clients don’t know what Service design is), also acknowledge frustrations. (Frustrations are great, great content for comics). Like a good service designers I went to observe service designsers in their own habitat… In company context: showing frustrations and problems in this way are less threatening than if it was in written format or in video
DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF STORYTELLING
DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF STORYTELLING
DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF STORYTELLING
Clients aren’t necessarily aware of this when they commission me but I think they are subconsciously aware of it…Hand drawn illustrations also make things more human
Industries vary from tech to insurance to government departments: including Fnnish PM’s office
Case medical cartoons..
In organisational context can defuse the negativity a bit.
Clients aren’t necessarily aware of this when they commission me but I think they are subconsciously aware of it…Hand drawn illustrations also make things more human
“appropriate level of fidelity”
What you think you communicate with slick photos: professionalism, success etc.
What you accidentally communicate: YOU HAVE NO SAY AND YOU SWITCH OFF things have been decided and this consultation etc is a tick box exercise
The more expensive looking the visuals the more likely people will think things have been decided and they won’t have to engage with anything
With drawings it’s easy to exaggerate
Dilbert is interesting because the artist is actually not an artist but a business person/engineer who uses his insights of the corporate world: mediocre engineer, mediocre business man and a mediocre cartoonist: but interesting is the VENN diagram of skills and knowledge that overlap.ALSO: he actually crowdsources ideas to his audience
Except traditional communications people: very unimaginitive people who think they know how to communicate (in a pushy broadcasty way).
Stand alone visuals, The media could pick up bits they liked.
Overlap between professions: not an illustrator, not marketing, not communications officer – but all of them
Draw a cat
Draw a dog
-draw a cat with an identity crisis
Draw love
Draw frustration
Personal level: kids not cleaning their rooms, your toaster that doesn’t work Work level: Project goal,
Society level: Brexit,
Frustration
PROBLEM WITH CURRENT WORKSHOPS (post-it notes, improv etc) NOTHING SHAREABLE
What is produced is hard to share. It’s dull. There are countless reports that gather virtual dust in a shared folder somewhere. What’s the point?
Post-it notes and writing only engage part of the brain.
CULTURE increasingly important: “culture eats strategy for breakfast)
workshops as tools for
- solving problems
- getting everyone (literally) on the same page before a big project or initiative
- a way to get people to share good stories/solutions and help them spread wider inside a company (maybe turn into a booklet)
- as a culture mapping exercise (when there are a lot of unspoken rules, maybe threatening ideas - soften them a bit)
- as an exercise to list behaviours/ways of thinking that are not desirable, as well as list the desired behaviours
Overlap between professions: not an illustrator, not marketing, not communications officer – but all of them