Snapshot of the Images Inside My Brain During a Meeting

Are there people who simply do not get you? You know the type. They veraciously take notes with their neat, tight handwriting. They’ve time-stamped their notes. Ask them for facts from a meeting held two years ago, they’ll extract them and prove you wrong every time. But we love them dearly when information saved from two years ago saves your bacon.

In one camp we have the textual note takers–the logical ones–on the other, people who think in images–often the creative ones. This is what my mind looks like during a meeting or lecture:

My mental images are in vivid colour, they have movement, they can be bold or small, and they can be erased at my whim.

My twitter hunts for eye-popping ideas led me to graphical note taking (GNT). I hadn’t heard of it, though it was created over forty years ago. Which led me to meeting Avril Orloff, who is a whiz at this craft.

She told me I am not alone in my love-hate relationship with text-based notes and that most people are visual learners. And many connect with GNT.

I was playing with the idea of creating a co-presentation with Avril but we came to the conclusion that likely GNF  is not suitable for presentations as it could be distracting. GNT is suitable for facilitated and brainstorming meetings. A benefit of this process is that everyone feels heard once their idea is on the page.

So what about the permanence factor? The graphics are photographed, and then scanned. The original notes often remain hanging in boardrooms or offices until the recorded goals are met.

And no, I do not really think the text based note taker types are insufferable, they think differently than me and have saved my bacon more than once.

Does your mind look the same as mine or do you covet your pen and notebook?

More information:  http://visualpractitioner.org and  http://graphicfacilitation.blogs.com/pages

Tags: brainstorming, communication styles, facilitation, graphical note taking