Companies and individuals are questioning their own future, working out what their short term and longer term options are. Change direction, stick with the plan, shift strategies?
Outside advisers can help, and given citizenbay helps companies with their approach to consumer relationships, I guess I would say that.
Ultimately though, no-one but the company/individual can decide the right route for themselves, no matter how many consultants/third parties get involved or case studies are analysed.
I have found that a useful way to help shape direction is doodling, drawing, scribbling, mindmapping. There are some good software out there. I have played around with Inspiration which works pretty well for all sorts of mindmapping needs. I even use it in client meetings, tidy up the map afterwards and send it back to the client as a visual representation of next steps of a project. Beats a word document status report any day!
However, this is merely a little step in to the world of visualising business strategy.
For me, this is the kind of thing I like.
This was created for a speaker at SBSWi by Sunni Brown, who you can find here. For some, this is just not workable in a company. Yet when such a visual is created by the group, everyone who contributes to the session has a little stake in what has been created.
This is not new though. In my time at Levi Strauss, I had the pleasure and privilege to work with Dan and Meredith Beam from Beam Inc. They would not only help the organisation shape their strategic direction, but turn them into visual feasts that would energise everyone. The visuals were created by their son, Drew, at the time (now working at Farenheit 212), but now have other great illustrators with them. You can find a link to Meredith and Dan here.
So if you are a company working out the business direction or an individual working out where to go, sometimes you might find clarity comes with crayons and colouring...
Love this post Paul. Thank you. I always take oil pastels with me to every client session. I do drawing warm-ups to democratise the process. Also encourages people to realise that they can express themselves through image without beeing a fabulously technical artist.
I like the idea of shaping up process documents so they become a product to enegrise and motivate. And love the idea of using illustrator in meetings and as a record of next steps. I do this for my self anyway, in analogue. Really useful suggestion. And fun.
Hope you are well
Posted by: Deborah Khan | March 18, 2009 at 08:37 PM