The Power of Images: Looking at the World in a New Perspective

Images shape who we are and how we see and understand the world we live in. Images are so powerful that they leave a lasting impact and sometimes even change our perception of people, places, events, and things. Wherever we go, whatever we do, images have practically become a part of our everyday life. In schools, websites, and advertisements for instance, visual feasts make it easier for us to comprehend things, they excite us, and draw our attention, thus creating a better memory recall and a better way of sending messages across multiple channels.  
In meetings, workshops, conferences, and seminars, we have what we call graphic facilitation and graphic recording. These methods make use of large-scale imagery to facilitate and record group activities. For many projects, aligning stakeholders on the current state of work and what they are going to do can be quite challenging. This is where graphic facilitation and graphic recording come in and play profound roles.

Graphic Facilitation

The Grove patriarch David Sibbet pioneered the graphic facilitation method to help people see their thoughts individually and collectively, and make decisions and communicate effectively. Graphic facilitation allows groups to brainstorm, analyze, discuss, and create solutions that truly work. We use graphic facilitation to help stakeholders capture information about their current state, understand the challenges they face, and bridge communication gaps that might exist.
Information overload can become a communication impediment and what graphic facilitation does is it creates shared meaning, allowing groups to share the same understandings of a problem and find quicker solutions. In terms of diversity, it’s also a great tool in building ideas from different points of view. Graphic facilitation also ensures that everyone is on the same page. Experience-wise, graphic facilitation has resulted to increased clarity and understanding of key themes, improved team performance, and better conflict resolution.

Graphic Recording

Graphic recording, on the other hand, involves recording people’s expressions and ideas. Graphic recorders or artists translate conversations and simplify them into drawn images and texts. Graphic recording creates messages that have better retention rates, and just like graphic facilitation, it boosts collaboration and ensures that everyone contributes. No one is left behind. It’s a great tool that can enhance our skills in decision-making, team building, and strategic planning.

From Paper to Pixels

Traditionally, we use markers and white paper to facilitate a workshop, but recent technological advancements have given rise to faster and more efficient tools like IPEVO’s wireless interactive whiteboard system. It’s a user-friendly and versatile interactive whiteboard that has unlimited colors. You can instantly save information on a cloud system. And unlike traditional graphic recording and graphic facilitation tools, this whiteboard system allows you to store meeting history data. If you make a mistake, it’s easy to track and modify it. The system is paired with video projector and supports up to four users who can work together on the same whiteboard.
Of course we know that the traditional paper method is here to stay. However, we are quite confident that wireless interactive whiteboard systems would become extensively popular in the next years to come, making graphic facilitation a central place for business decision making.
We’ve come to a time when more and more people are greatly becoming dependent on visual information and experience. In today’s digital age, capitalizing on the various audio-visual communication tools can allow businesses and organizations to better manage their staff and daily operations. Images don’t only have the power to persuade us and change our beliefs. More importantly, images have the power to deeply connect us with others and reframe the world into a more sustainable one.