I received an invitation to attend a Sales and Marketing Bootcamp put on by Geoff Affleck of Leader Consulting. Rather than using their prepared workbook for participants, I brought along a sketchbook and a “mini-recorder” kit: a set of 12 kids felt pens and 10 Prang chalk crayons. I sat in the front row so that I could be sure to hear everything and see his Powerpoint slides without craning to peer around heads. The two-hour workshop was quite exhausting, mostly because I think my writing hand needs to get stronger. I’m going to scan the results because I’m quite happy with how they turned out.
A few things to note about this event:
I’m happy with the way my recording attracted attention, from the other workshop participants and the speaker himself. I handed out a few business cards and told some people who were interested about how graphic recording and graphic facilitation work.
Sidebar: I used to take horseback riding lessons when I was a little girl. My first teacher told me at my very first lesson that falling off is inevitable, and it takes 100 falls to become a good rider. Well, it only took a few more lessons before I did something beyond my capabilities and sure enough, off I came. I landed and rolled (showing a coordination typical of eight year olds and that I have never demonstrated since) and as I jumped to my feet, the first words out of my mouth were “ONLY 99 LEFT!” So… going out there and showing people what I do with this graphic stuff is very much like learning to ride a horse. It takes a lot of falls before you become a good writer and even the best fall off from time to time. But I digress…
The other thing I observed during this presentation was that there are very few truly new ideas under the sun, especially when it comes to sales and marketing seminars. There wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before… but this time I had to listen three times as hard to take it all in, distill the nuggets, and record it visually. Applying a graphic and colour layer added more complexity to the task. All in all, my brain is kind of throbbing this afternoon.
Tags: Graphic Recording, samples
