Heading home on the train last week, I was given a golden opportunity to exercise my 'elevator speech' muscle. I was sitting beside a lovely Irish-Canadian gentleman, and when he asked what I'd been up to in Montreal, I answered simply that I'd been at a conference. We later reached the question of what kind of conference and what I do for a living.
I told him, "I'm a graphic recorder." Pause.
"What's that?"
"Well, a graphic recorder is present during a conversation to listen to and capture people's ideas in visuals, and puts them in a large format so everyone can see them..."
I could see that it made sense to him. If you believe that the most active part of a conversation is not speaking, but in fact listening, it's really interesting to imagine what might be going on at the 'receiving end'. Sometimes we feel that a connection has been made, other times, not so much. In this instance, it seemed that what I said did indeed fit into his experience, and we continued our conversation.
The train ride back to Toronto was also a perfect chance to let all the learning from the conference really soak in. I had had some pretty major insights over the course of those three days, and I wanted to give them lots of time to really land. One such insight was that when you are recording a conversation or an event of any kind, whatever you do needs to serve the client as a tool, not just end up as pretty wallpaper. Part of the reason I was drawn to graphic recording in the first place was the element of service, but as someone who does a lot of painting, I can sometimes get lost in the aesthetics. This thought had been brewing during the whole conference, but it sort of smacked me over the head during Dawn Sutherland's presentation. Graphic recording can certainly result in something beautiful, but more importantly, it is a tool for learning.
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The IFVP conference was definitely a worthwhile experience. This year was my first one, and I will be back next year without a doubt.
Reilly
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