Interactions - July/August 2009

know that the language in which I work is the way human beings encode thought. We don’t imagine in words but in images; we can only think graphically.

The imperfect nature of my strokes makes the big paper human and touchable. In a lively meeting, the big paper demands collaboration, correction, and controversy. Its value is in the moment it crystallizes, and in the passage of time and thought it chronicles, and in the connections it makes. It becomes a member of the meeting in its own right.

With digital camera technology, I can record and download the big paper on the wall almost instantly, so that every meeting member takes away a record, a map of the ideas traversed.

It’s worth noting that the big paper transmitted digitally—though a duplication of what everyone has seen—remains interpretable. It is a tool of lateral thinking and new, better, wilder, more focused, less rigid, or simply different thought. Post-meeting ideas spring out of the big paper when it’s exposed to a broader audience, and its good effects continue, weeks after it was recorded.

More graphic facilitators with sophisticated abilities distilled from new infographics and graphic design are emerging from many disciplinary backgrounds—architecture, illustration, journalism, and business—so the field is in an undefined stage that is still fresh and flowing.

What are my medium’s shortcomings? Because the paper records hand strokes, calligraphy, icons, and purely graphic shapes and tones, it doesn’t respond to a digital search. Ideas in shape and color aren’t searchable until handwriting recognition reaches a much more advanced level. It’s currently possible to notate the big baper’s image after the fact with referencable hypertext, though this requires an extra, time-consuming step. Though these hypertext interpretations are searchable, there is the danger of fixing them too narrowly and losing the evocative nature of graphics that suggest nonlinear associations. One of the “killer apps” of the next decade may be a graphic recognition and archiving program that can search both handwriting and drawings.

Big paper on the wall is artful, not art. It doesn’t concretize ideas; rather, it exposes them.

One of the most important things big paper
records is the participation of the meeting atten-

dant who saw it being created. What is on the big paper is what was discussed. Is there something that should have been said? Some connection that should have been made? Was there an objection that some dissenting voice should have registered? The big paper is a reminder to every member of the meeting, evidence of the meeting’s success, and of any failure to change the big paper. In this way the big paper’s image encourages continued interaction and follow-up.

Big paper on the wall gives the graphic facilitator scope—on that broad field a gifted recorder can use the tools of iconography, calligraphy and information architecture to map the flow of group thought and decision.

Paper, invented in China in another millennium, became commonly available to working people only in the 18th century. I tape big sheets of it to walls. My other tools—markers, chalk—are old and simple. The only cutting-edge materials I use are fresh visual language, a knowledge of group dynamics, and contemporary business and meeting process awareness. What I create is a sea surge of words and colors and shapes. I believe my medium is the most important tool of collective thought in the continuing Age of Innovation.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Christine Valenza has
been a strong contributor to the growth of her pro-
fession. She was one of the earliest facilitators to
connect learning styles, meeting dynamics, and
visual thinking in graphic recording, and to trans-
late ideas into graphics as active catalysts for cre-
ative and strategic thinking in meetings. Her evocative art has
helped many corporations make fresh, innovative decisions.
Valenza is the co-author, with Nancy Margulies, of the award win-
ning book Visual Thinking; Tools for Mapping your Ideas. See more
of her work and understand more about the art of her communica-
tion at www.christinevalenza.com.

Jan Adkins is sometimes called the “Explainer General.” He uses illustration and words to trace the shortest, simplest, and often the most entertaining route to understanding. He’s written and illustrated 40 books—most of them non-fiction—

and hundreds of articles for mainstream magazines. For nine years he was an art director at National Geographic explaining everything from Soviet space shots to deep-diving submarines. In both text, image and graphic design he expresses simplicity with graceful style. Learn more at The Jan Adkins Studio; www.janadkins.com.