Visualisation helps book author promote the message of peace

Visualisation helps book author promote the message of peace

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Jacquline McLeod

Book Author

We are always curious to hear why our students want to learn visualisation. Over the years, we have had a fair share of agile coaches, facilitators and business consultants but we believe Jacqueline McLeod has been our first book author.

tick I think the Visual Friends approach is so interesting and personal. And the little icons are very appealing. Using bikablo® instead of just words and tables gives text a lot more character and interest. And it’s simple. You get it immediately. I’m thrilled I’ve done the course, and I’m so glad I’ve found Visual Friends.

Can visualisation help when publishing a book?

Early in 2019 Jacqueline published her first book, “Feminine Masculine Balance. A Paradigm Shift for a Peaceful and Abundant Society”. She wanted to learn a visual language to help promote it.  

“Being a paradigm shift to a balance of feminine and masculine, it’s very hard to explain verbally. To add visuals to the text makes a huge difference, it really does.”

A few years in the making, Jacqueline’s book came out of her study of self and the world around her.  A health professional and clinician for many years, she continuously observed the imbalance of feminine and masculine in our world, and how as a society we value the masculine attributes so much more.  These observations and her desire to spread the message of balance contributing to peace and abundance led to writing this book.

Not a writer, Jacqueline took a few years to turn her idea into a complete manuscript. Eventually she found a publisher and next faced another big task – promoting her work.

Just like with writing her book, Jacqueline just got on with it, once again courageously and gracefully stepping out of her comfort zone.

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Turning her idea into a manuscript

Jacqueline McLeod

After her first podcast interview, “I was terribly nervous”, she googled a podcasting course and taught herself some new skills. To prepare for talking in front of people during promotional tours, Jacqueline joined the Toast Masters and practiced her presentation skills.

One of the members of the course recommended and referred her to Visual Friends, so Jacqueline googled the course.  “I could immediately see that it was going to be useful.   I know visuals are important and my book is heavy with words.”

Jacqueline also wanted to add drawings to the promotional material for workshops and lectures.

“I wanted to learn PowerPoint which I still will. But I think the Visual Friends approach is much more interesting and personal. And the little icons are very appealing. Using bikablo® instead of just words and tables gives text a lot more character and interest. And it’s simple. You get it immediately.”

 

tick I could immediately see that it was going to be useful.   I know visuals are important and my book is heavy with words.”

After completing a two-day course, Jacqueline enrolled in the online Visual Coaching program and practiced some more.

What she found particularly helpful was getting feedback on her work and playing around with different ideas. While other Visual Coaching program students focused on what’s important to them, Jacqueline worked on developing visual icons for her book and presentations.

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Masculine and Feminine Attributes
Jacqueline McLeod

One of her main challenges was devising icons for a table explaining masculine (rational, analytical, logical, etc) and feminine (emotional, imaginative, intuitive, etc) attributes.

Jacqueline wanted to find or create images for all 45 words presented in that table. “Some of them are quite abstract.”

Now in the middle of promoting her book, Jacqueline finds that visuals give her a helping hand explaining the books’ subject matter during talks and workshops.

“I’m using it for clarification and impact.”

Jacqueline’s main incentive for writing her book was trying to help eliminate violence, poverty, inequality and toxic relationships that can result from the imbalance between the feminine and masculine.

We feel honoured to be helping Jacqueline in spreading this important message of peace, and find her dedication and courage in learning and applying new skills quite inspiring.

We can all take a few leaves out of Jacqueline’s book. Literally.

The article was written by Natalia Tsygankova. Natalia has always loved words and talking to people. She has put that passion to good use and has been sharing people’s stories in the community radio, TV and print media for the last 10 years. Natalia is also a big fan of true storytelling events and regularly volunteers at the most famous one – The Moth, interviewing the winner. You can hear her own story of moving to Australia from Russia in 1999 here. Natalia believes that everyone has a story – So what’s yours? Contact her today to share your story.

On courage with Alice Edy

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Alice Edy

Graphic Recorder and Partner at Visual Friends

In this episode we are talking to a talented graphic scribe, an illustrator and visual facilitator Alice Edy about courage.

Alice dared greatly and ended up scribing for Brene Brown herself. She tells us how overcoming fear has helped her create important career opportunities for herself, shares her advice about preparing emotionally for a scribing session and gives us her tips about failing publicly and how you can’t grow creatively without making mistakes.

We loved talking to Alice about how stepping outside of the comfort zone allows you to direct and shape your career in an exciting and unique way.

Podcast notes: during our interview conversation Alice mentions Brene Brown, Heather Martinez, Kelvy Bird and Jessamy Gee.

The article was written by Natalia Tsygankova. Natalia has always loved words and talking to people. She has put that passion to good use and has been sharing people’s stories in the community radio, TV and print media for the last 10 years. Natalia is also a big fan of true storytelling events and regularly volunteers at the most famous one – The Moth, interviewing the winner. You can hear her own story of moving to Australia from Russia in 1999 here. Natalia believes that everyone has a story – So what’s yours? Contact her today to share your story.

Kate Baxter on using the graphic skills to live your dream

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Kate Baxter

Kate is a recognised expert within the global community of visual practitioners, with a specialism and passion for digital mediums of capture. With over 7 years experience globally as a graphic facilitator, scribing sessions across Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, New York, Houston, Delhi, Barcelona and London.

In the latest episode of Visual Friends podcast, we interview talented and fabulous Kate Baxter – a recognised expert in the global community of visual practitioners and an amazing graphic facilitator with a passion for all things digital.

Learn about how Kate, a reluctant and shy scribe with a background in fine art, went from thinking she can’t do it to successfully scribing for big clients all around the world. Find out what helped her transition from scribing on a whiteboard to nailing it as a digital graphic facilitator. Kate shares advice on how to develop your own style and deal with difficult topics talks about the challenges of this profession and what you need to succeed in this job.

We hope you’ll find it as interesting as we did. Enjoy!

The article was written by Natalia Tsygankova. Natalia has always loved words and talking to people. She has put that passion to good use and has been sharing people’s stories in the community radio, TV and print media for the last 10 years. Natalia is also a big fan of true storytelling events and regularly volunteers at the most famous one – The Moth, interviewing the winner. You can hear her own story of moving to Australia from Russia in 1999 here. Natalia believes that everyone has a story – So what’s yours? Contact her today to share your story.

Primary school teacher and now a part-time graphic scribe

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Matt Handley

Matt Handley

Primary school teacher and now a part-time graphic scribe

tick Anyone can learn visualisation. Once you learn basic icons, fill your page and get a grasp on shading, the world is your oyster.

From teacher to a graphic scribe

Matt loves his work. “I’ve always been creative and being a primary school teacher provides a creative outlet.”

Now that Matt knows bikablo®, his work has become even more interesting. And not just for Matt but also for his colleagues.

Like many of our students, Matt saw bikablo® in action when someone was scribing at a meeting. Matt always enjoyed taking notes, but this seemed to be next level. Curious, he began researching visualisation skills and came across Visual Friends.

“I saw what people can do, it’s quite inspiring. I thought it would be great to take my knowledge to the next level.”

With the support of his principal, who understood the great benefit of bringing such applicable skill to the school, Matt enrolled in bikablo® fundamentals training.

Teachers can be fussy students, but he found the course really useful. “It was hands on from the word go which is the best way to learn. I learnt to use the space in a smart way and it gave me confidence to work through a page.”

As a teacher, Matt also appreciated the research behind visualisation. “It engages all areas of a learner.”   What also appealed was how easy it was to learn this skill and how much you could achieve once you understood the basic principles.

“It’s not that complicated. Once you learn basic icons, fill your page and get a grasp on  shading, the world is your oyster. You can then go on and develop your own style.”

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Writing as a Social Process

Matt Handley

Matt feels that’s an important part of learning visualisation or any other subject for that matter – to build on your skills and develop your way of doing things. 

“I think the key is to be flexible and just draw things that stand out to you. It’s about making it your own, whether it’s using your own font or your favourite picture. It doesn’t have to be perfect. And of course, the more you practice, the better you get.”

That’s exactly what Matt has been doing.  

Since completing the course, he has been giving back to his workplace, creating posters, helping with presentations and meetings.  Matt’s three-meter canvas describing school’s self-improvement project journey was displayed at the school library and generated some interesting discussions.

“People have been looking at it and talking about it.  Some say they wouldn’t be able to do something like that, but I assure them that with a bit of practice everyone can do it.”

Following his original interest, Matt also took his notetaking to the next level and tried live scribing at school events.

“It was stressful, but it also taught me to focus on the main points instead of trying to capture every word. Those key points are the ones that will trigger people’s memories and will facilitate the conversation.”

Matt is pleased with the feedback he’s received so far. “People comment on how easy it is to read and follow two hours worth of talking on one page.”

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Journey of Learning – Matt Handley

The skills Matt has leant with Visual Friends are definitely making a difference at his workplace. Visualisation is now seeping in the way the school does things.

“In terms of transcribing and professional development, it’s been more than beneficial for our staff and school. Our principal is pleased with how it has turned out.”

Matt is pretty happy too. He has developed a long-term interest in visualisation and added a unique skill to his toolbox that will have a positive effect on his career.

“It’s definitely something I see myself using in the future, wherever my career takes me. It’s a great tool you can share with others.”

P.S. Since we’ve interviewed Matt, he has started his own business  working as a graphic scribe in his spare time. You can find him on instagram  @_highlyvisual.

The article was written by Natalia Tsygankova. Natalia has always loved words and talking to people. She has put that passion to good use and has been sharing people’s stories in the community radio, TV and print media for the last 10 years. Natalia is also a big fan of true storytelling events and regularly volunteers at the most famous one – The Moth, interviewing the winner. You can hear her own story of moving to Australia from Russia in 1999 here. Natalia believes that everyone has a story – So what’s yours? Contact her today to share your story.

Championing visualisation in the workplace with Nuzakat Ali

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Nuzakat Ali

Problem solver. Product maker. Team builder. Visual Facilitator

Nuzakat admits, she’s never been a fan of plain text.

tickI’ve always loved colour and have been interested in doing things differently, in such a way that leaves something in people’s memories. You might not remember the text on the board, but you will remember a picture. A picture will stay with you for much longer and it helps everybody to be aligned.

As a developer, later a business analyst and then an iteration manager, Nuzakat found client meetings with text only bland and inefficient. “I was going to client sites trying to understand their vision and needs, and each time there would be just phrases on the board. I longed for something more.”

But Nuzakat didn’t think she was good at drawing, so she shied away from it.

Working on a project at MYOB a few years later, Nuzakat was impressed with the visualisation culture there at the time. “I’d walk around the office and see these lovely images. Everything was visually presented rather than just written on the board, so I thought I’d better learn how to do it!”

A lot of people mentioned bikablo® and Nuzakat wanted to give it a go. Unfortunately, her then employer didn’t believe it was a necessary consultant skill. “I disagreed because as a consultant you are constantly facilitating and recording information, and you’d want your clients to be aligned and leave with a great image, rather than with text you can forget. But maybe I didn’t put up a good business case.”

Nuzakat went on with her work, but the thought of upping her visualisation game wouldn’t let on. “I’d hold these meetings and attempt to draw, but I was too slow and not good at it, and people would ask me to just write it down.” She approached her management again, and again her request was rejected. She did it anyway.

Nuzakat took annual leave and spent

two days learning bikablo® technique with John Hibble in March 2018.

“I always thought I could only draw stick figures, but I found bikablo® easy to learn.”

After leaving consulting Nuzakat went to AGL, where she again began to sneak visualisation in her work. “I started by creating visualisations of user journeys and task lists. I’d put them up and once I heard a couple of comments, I began to sign my posters and include information on how to learn the technique.” Nuzakat inspired a few of her colleagues who followed suit and did training with Visual Friends.

Having come full circle, Nuzakat is now championing visualisation at MYOB, the place that inspired her to begin her visualisation journey in the first place. After a restructure, the culture in the company has changed and visualisation is no longer front and centre, something that Nuzakat is trying to turn around.

She helped promote visualisation ‘lunch and learn’ sessions and volunteered to help organise Visual Friends Meetup. Nuzakat was also an MYOB host for the first-ever Australian Visualisation Conference held last year. It was a great success and VizConf 2019 is returning to MYOB in October 2019.

“At MYOB we are always looking for new ways to do things, and a lot of people here are very visual.”

Although Nuzakat’s new role doesn’t allow her to practise visualisation daily, she is not giving up. For now, she practices by creating visual summaries of the business books she’s reading, attends the meetup and looks forward to the next Visualisation Conference. Nuzakat is also considering becoming a Visual Friends Leader, an initiative for those Visual Friends students who are passionate about the craft and want to champion it at their workplace.

Visualisation is now firmly part of her career regardless of her future roles.

tickIt’s so impactful. You see these lovely colourful images up on the wall, you can take the information in one glance and understand the message without a ton of words. I think it’s really inspiring and motivating that anyone can do this, you just have to try. It’s simple, it’s concise, it’s beautiful to look at and it’s a much better way to convey a message.

Do you want to start a visual revolution in your workplace? Come to one of our courses, attend a meetup or join us on slack. Keen to learn more – have a look at other stories on our website and listen to the Visual Friends radio.

The article was written by Natalia Tsygankova. Natalia has always loved words and talking to people. She has put that passion to good use and has been sharing people’s stories in the community radio, TV and print media for the last 10 years. Natalia is also a big fan of true storytelling events and regularly volunteers at the most famous one – The Moth, interviewing the winner. You can hear her own story of moving to Australia from Russia in 1999 here. Natalia believes that everyone has a story – So what’s yours? Contact her today to share your story.

How bikablo® revitalised my career with Marc Hundleby

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Marc Hundleby

Marc Hundleby

Visual Friends Trainer, Agile Coach, Bikablo® Global Trainer, Project Management Coach and Mentor from Sydney

tick Bikablo® was the glue that was needed to pull all these different parts of my working life together – drawing, facilitation, teaching, coaching and working with new people.

Four months before Marc taught his first Bikablo® class, he wasn’t aware Bikablo® existed. Back then he was an experienced Project/Program Manager who was seeking a new career direction without much clarity. Bikablo® changed all that.

Today Marc is a proud and excited certified Bikablo® Visualisation Practitioner who simply can’t believe he gets paid to do what he loves.  Bikablo® has revitalised his career and brought him back to what always made him happy – drawing.

Coming from a creative family, Marc had a talent for drawing but his career took him elsewhere.  He missed it. Receiving a late relatives watercolour set as a gift from his mother reconnected him with his passion.  “I started drawing again in my spare time. I’d take this little watercolour set with me when I travelled and made sketches.”

Watercolour by Marc Hundleby
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Watercolor Painting

Marc Hundleby

Marc’s roles within Project Management were not creative enough and he tried to incorporate sketches in his work. For the last few years; he’d pepper his workshops, presentations and materials with figures and icons. At one point, he decided to create illustrations in his Agile training materials. It reminded him how much he enjoyed visualisation and highlighted the lack of balance in his role. “I liked the refreshing mindset and ways of working that Agile has brought to organisations but in Waterfall project delivery there was not as much room for fun and creativity.”

A client mentioned Bikablo® and Marc was curious. As soon as he saw the images of Bikablo® posters Marc felt a strong connection to the visualisation style.  A course was coming up and he enrolled immediately.

tick“Something was really driving me towards it. It would have been very easy to say, “There’s too much going on, I’ll leave it for next year” and you miss an opportunity. But I believe that when your intuition is telling you something you need to go for it.”

Though Marc was a little sceptical. He could draw well already so did he really need to spend two days learning the Bikablo® technique?

The course exceeded Marc’s expectations.  “It showed me the structure, gave me the confidence to draw in front of people, how to strip out unnecessary detail in my sketching. Essentially, the Bikablo® technique teaches you how to simplify drawing, its not about the drawing its about the insights. While it’s still visual, creative and a lot of fun it gives you the tools to put it all it together quickly and easily. Half way through my first day I was hooked. I felt; this is it! “

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Round the World Yacht Race
Bikablo Basics Day 2

Bikablo® seemed to be exactly what Marc was looking for. “It was like the glue that was needed to pull all these different parts of my working life together – drawing, facilitation, teaching and meeting new people”.

The very next day after the course Marc was back at work putting the new skills to use in his workshops. The reaction was really positive, and the participants loved his work.

Marc knew he wanted to pursue visualisation as a new career.  It was a case of lucky timing as Visual Friends was looking for new trainers. He was introduced to Marcel van Hove, the company’s co-founder, and asked to send some of this work and a visual answer to why he wanted to become a trainer.  This plus a water colour sketch, Marc’s final poster from his Bikablo® class and his illustrations for the Agile training materials were sent and so began an anxious wait. In the meantime, Marc practiced like crazy and sketched daily.

Become a Visual Trainer
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Watercolor Painting

Marc Hundleby

He didn’t need to worry. His passion for drawing, his talent, his excitement about Bikablo® made him a perfect fit for Visual Friends. Within weeks, Marc was at the company’s off site and helping out during a Bikablo® course.  A training in Germany followed and finally his very first class as a Visual Facilitator.

tick I truly felt privileged to be delivering this wonderful course alongside Danny (Low) in March. There was so much joy in seeing the class pick up the technique so quickly and how thrilled they were to see the results at the end of the two days.

Marc couldn’t be happier. He feels that Visual Friends has allowed him to reinstate the balance in his working life. “Instead of an occasional drawing, I’m able to inject something that makes me and others happy into my every day.”

In addition to drawing and teaching, one of the most satisfying parts of the job for Marc is helping clients overcome fear and build their confidence.  “It’s so interesting to see how people think they can’t do it. It’s really rewarding to see students improve and overcome their inner critics.”

Marc believes that being a Visualisation Trainer allows him to make a positive contribution to the corporate world and more. “I can influence my clients and in turn they can positively impact corporations.  A lot of corporations out there are a bit sterile, and people spend so much time at work. If you could make people smile and contribute to a more engaging and fun workplace, they’ll be a lot happier at work, out of work and eventually you can see the potential to make the world a happier place.”

If you feel like sharing the passion for drawing with Marc, want to learn a unique new skill and enrich your life and career with Bikablo® visualisation technique, book the next Sydney Bikablo® course on 11-12 June here. Who knows where it could take you! No experience required.

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Bikablo Nauts Poster
Sydney Launch 11th to 12th June 2019

The article was written by Natalia Tsygankova. Natalia has always loved words and talking to people. She has put that passion to good use and has been sharing people’s stories in the community radio, TV and print media for the last 10 years. Natalia is also a big fan of true storytelling events and regularly volunteers at the most famous one – The Moth, interviewing the winner. You can hear her own story of moving to Australia from Russia in 1999 here. Natalia believes that everyone has a story – So what’s yours? Contact her today to share your story.

Visualisation Transformation with Christiane Anderson

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Christiane Anderson

Christiane Anderson

Agile Coach and Trainer/Visual Facilitator/Extended DISC Consultant AGL Energy Visual Friends two-day course, October 2014

Learn

Christiane first saw Bikablo® when meeting Marcel through her daughter’s school. She was intrigued. At the time she was looking to add something else to her toolkit and Bikablo® seemed like a perfect fit.  “I felt limited in my ability to communicate complex concepts, and I also didn’t feel like I was having a lot of fun in my role.” Christiane attended one of the first Bikablo® courses offered in Melbourne, back in 2014.

Not only did Christiane learn a new skill that allowed her to inject some fun into her every day work, the course changed the trajectory of her career, allowed her to meet some amazing people, be part of unique events and play a role in changing the company culture at her workplace.

Christiane’s biggest insight from the Visual Friends course was how easy it was to learn“It’s a technique that anyone can pick up. If you can draw a stick, you can draw Bikablo®.”  

tick “Visualisation helps break down communication barriers, removes ego and takes away a lot of tension and bias. It makes people really happy. Drawing and playing with colour reminds us how to be free, creative and unburdened, it helps us reconnect to ourselves and be present in the moment.”

 

Christian Anderson Celebration Piece
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Visual Friends training final poster

Christiane Anderson

Practice

She began to put her new skill to use immediately. Christiane would ask teams to allow her to visually record their meetings or capture retrospectives. Her hand drawn posters began to appear all over the office.  “I got a lot of really positive feedback. People felt the drawings added a different dimension to what was being said and helped them remember the key messages. At first the leaders were concerned scribing would be distracting, but instead it helped people focus on what was communicated.

For the next four years, Christiane worked with Marcel van Hove, Visual Friends Co-founder, scribing for various conferences, breakfast events and even international speakers.”It gave me an opportunity to meet some amazing people and have access to events I would not have otherwise had access to.” A particular highlight was scribing for Barry O’Reilly, the author of Unlearn and Lean Enterprise. He used her drawings in his marketing and training materials.  

Christiane also did lots of drawing at work and began to play a role of a visual coach helping teams with visual templates, metaphors and concepts.

Not only did Christiane learn a new skill that allowed her to inject some fun into her every day work, the course changed the trajectory of her career, allowed her to meet some amazing people, be part of unique events and play a role in changing the company culture at her workplace.

Christiane’s biggest insight from the Visual Friends course was how easy it was to learn“It’s a technique that anyone can pick up. If you can draw a stick, you can draw Bikablo®.”  

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Barry O’Reilly in front of Christiane’s work

Why visualisation

For the next four years, Christiane worked with Marcel van Hove, Visual Friends Co-founder, scribing for various conferences, breakfast events and even international speakers.”It gave me an opportunity to meet some amazing people and have access to events I would not have otherwise had access to.” A particular highlight was scribing for Barry O’Reilly, the author of Unlearn and Lean Enterprise. He used her drawings in his marketing and training materials.  

Christiane also did lots of drawing at work and began to play a role of a visual coach helping teams with visual templates, metaphors and concepts.

Not only did Christiane learn a new skill that allowed her to inject some fun into her every day work, the course changed the trajectory of her career, allowed her to meet some amazing people, be part of unique events and play a role in changing the company culture at her workplace.

Christiane’s biggest insight from the Visual Friends course was how easy it was to learn“It’s a technique that anyone can pick up. If you can draw a stick, you can draw Bikablo®.”  

The article was written by Natalia Tsygankova. Natalia has always loved words and talking to people. She has put that passion to good use and has been sharing people’s stories in the community radio, TV and print media for the last 10 years. Natalia is also a big fan of true storytelling events and regularly volunteers at the most famous one – The Moth, interviewing the winner. You can hear her own story of moving to Australia from Russia in 1999 here. Natalia believes that everyone has a story – So what’s yours? Contact her today to share your story.

Linette Voller

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Linette Voller

Content Designer Manager | Writer | Technical Communicator at an Australian Global Organisation, Leader in IT Service Desk and Project Management Software

Bikablo fundamentals with Danny Low and Marc Hundleby March, 2019

tickI’m so thankful I have come along to the Visual Friends course, it has really shifted and changed things for me.

A hug was not something Linette would have expected going into that meeting. After all, all she did was draw. 

But that’s exactly what happened. The team manager was so thrilled at the breakthrough Linette created through her visuals, that she leaped across the room and gave her a big hug.

The product development team of 25 had been working on the project for nine months. There was a lot of conceptual and abstract data that was difficult to wrap up into a neat, mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive process they were trying to create. The  team was stuck. Linette visualised all the elements on paper and immediately everything became clear. Her visuals became the key that unlocked the project puzzle.

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Deep work

by Cal Newport

Funnily enough, Linette never  considered herself visual. “I was interested in art and did a bit at school as an elective. But I was discouraged from pursuing it.  There was very much a feeling  that anything visual was only for people who couldn’t do science. Science was more important.”

After school Linette completed a degree in Industrial Design which further cemented her belief that drawing was not her strength.  “Other students were doing these brilliant sketches and my little stick figure next to their 3D rendering would look awful. That confirmed in my mind that I didn’t have great visual skills.” 

So for years the only drawing Linette did was doodling while talking on the phone.  Until she heard a colleague, Ben Crothers, the author of “Presto Sketching”, give a talk about sketchnoting. 

“Wow! I wish I could learn that skill, “ thought Linette. She had seen visual facilitators doing this work and thought it was amazing.  A colleague mentioned bikablo. “And I thought, what on Earth does bikablo mean? What is this?”.

A few people recommended the course as a great starting point in the area of visualisation, something really useful, and Linette was in. She persuaded her manager to send her on a course,  “but I was wondering, actually, how and if I’d be able to apply it in my day to day life and work.”

Linette did the two-day bikablo fundamentals course in March, 2019 with Danny Low and Marc Hundleby

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Content Design
with Sarah Richard

“I found the experience excellent. It was reassuring to see other people in the room saying, “Well, I’m not good at drawing, I find stick figures challenging. It made me feel very safe.” 

The step-by-step process allowed Linette to tackle one mini skill at a time without sliding into the familiar mindset of “I can’t draw.”“Going through the steps,  each time I thought,  yes, I can do this and yes, I can do that too.It was challenging to put up our creations on the walls and, at first, I was scared that my work would be the worst. But I was delighted to see that we all did different things, we interpreted things differently and absolutely everyone had something really impressive. It was amazing to see the skill developing around the room.”

Back at work, initially Linette was apprehensive to use the skills she’d just learnt. She began practising by taking visual notes during meetings without showing it to anyone. Once, at a strategy meeting, she decided to share her visuals with the team, quite pleased with what she had sketched. 

“The manager looked and  said, “Wow! They are fantastic”, shared them with the product leadership team, got the same excited response and my drawings were published on the strategy internal webpage, for everyone in my area to see. I did have to run away and tidy it up a bit, because it was sketched on lined paper without proper markers.” 

From then on, Linette  became known as the visual person at work. “People would ask me, “Oh, we are trying to get this idea across, can you draw a thing?” She also began to regularly take visual notes during monthly strategy meetings and they were always very well received. “I feel it’s certainly because of these visuals that people higher up in the organisation knew a bit more about who I was, people who otherwise might have not met me or interacted with me.” 

And that’s how Linette ended up in the meeting that we started our story with.  “Essentially, all I did was listen to the team and sketched what they were saying. They had all the information but the challenge was communicating all that complex conceptual data visually.”

Unfortunately we can’t share the drawings or the details of the project here, but we can say that thanks to Linette’s drawings helped communicate the process to a lot of people. In addition, visualisation, as a part of the process,  was recommended to the next team that was working on a similar project. 

Since then Linette has done a few other things. Visual Friends training gave her the courage to enrol and complete a nature illustration course. Practising visualisation by creating visual summaries of non-fiction books led to her being approached by a publisher who saw one such drawing on instagram. It is now going to be used as an illustration in a future book. Linette is also mastering the Apple Pencil and virtual scribing. Her morning ritual during the covid-19 isolation is drawing virtual zoom backgrounds. 

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Unf*ck your boundaries

I found that training with Visual Friends helped me unlock my creativity. I genuinely think that I would not have had the confidence to do all that, had it not been for doing the bikablo course.” But the highlight so far is still that first strategy meeting, when Linette’s notes were used as a visual for the whole product strategy. 

“Even now people refer back to that illustration to explain our focus and goals. That was the moment when I switched from feeling like my notes were a creative ‘indulgence’ to seeing how much they could help others.

 I”m so thankful I have come along to the Visual Friends course, it has really shifted and changed things for me.”

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The article was written by Natalia Tsygankova. Natalia has always loved words and talking to people. She has put that passion to good use and has been sharing people’s stories in the community radio, TV and print media for the last 10 years. Natalia is also a big fan of true storytelling events and regularly volunteers at the most famous one – The Moth, interviewing the winner. You can hear her own story of moving to Australia from Russia in 1999 here. Natalia believes that everyone has a story – So what’s yours? Contact her today to share your story.

Melaine D’Cruze about Visualising Learning for Kids

Younito Man
Melaine D'Cruze

Melanie D'Cruze

Visual Thinker, Mum and Educational Manager

Melaine D’Cruze has been a visual thinker all her life. Through her school years and her career, she always took visual notes and doodled to focus and to remember ideas. She didn’t know that there was actually a professional field for visual thinking until one day when she discovered the TED Talk from Sunni Brown, Doodlers, unite!

Melaine read the book, subscribed to an online course from the Doodle Institute, read several books and through that became a very good sketch note taker. She even got invited by the Harvard Business School to publish a blog post after visualizing one of their online courses. However, her main application for visualization and visual thinking is not at work. Her main application is in the field of educating her kids.

Melaine D'Cruz Sketchnotes
Younito is thinking

Visual Notes
Melaine D’Cruze

Melaine has two amazing boys, who are much faster understanding and accessing information when seeing them visually. She started to visualize ideas together with the boys and through that, they could memorize the content easily. The other boy stammered from time to time and with visual cue cards she could remind her boy to slow down whenever they stumbled. Today both boys are doing fine, and we’ll talk more about ideas on how we can educate kids visually.

In summary, this episode is a statement to believe in yourself, follow your passion and let no one take you down. I hope you enjoy this episode with Melaine D’Cruze from Karachi, Pakistan.

Marcel van Hove

Marcel combines agile team coaching with visual thinking. Marcel believes that a group of people drawing together on a whiteboard can change the world. He loves high-performing teams and therefore coaches teams every day.

Danny Low about Visualisations of Legal Contracts, Agile Coaching & Kung-Fu

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Danny Low

Danny Low

Trainer & Partner at Visual Friends

Let me introduce to you Danny Low. Danny is not only a bikablo® trainer and partner at the Visual Friends. He is also a very good friend of mine and in many ways, we are very similar. We talk a bit about that but we forgot to talk about one great story. So in the early days when I met Danny, he told me that he will take time off and travel with his family around the world.

He told me that he would like to pass on some of the experiences he and his wife Anna had and to show the kids the world. With that, we pretty much hit the core DNA of Danny. He likes to pass on his life experience to others – not only to his kids but also to his students at the Visual Friends. He likes to help others and is a great mate that everyone would like to have as a friend. We follow his personal journey, learn how to visualise legal contracts, hear about project management, agile coaching and how he became part of the Visual Friends. For me, Danny’s story is another great example of what can happen in life when you follow your passion and make a couple of choices at the right time. Please welcome our lawyer and Kung-Fu master Danny Low from Brisbane.

Marcel van Hove

Marcel combines agile team coaching with visual thinking. Marcel believes that a group of people drawing together on a whiteboard can change the world. He loves high-performing teams and therefore coaches teams every day.