Visual storytelling for International Womens Day
I was recently asked to be the visual storyteller for ‘A Woman’s Worth’ - an Institute of Directors event in the the Bay of Plenty (New Zealand), for International Women’s day.
Seven inspirational speakers shared their personal and professional experiences, and reflected on how influential women have impacted on their success.
The event showcased you need to step into your space and own what makes you unique, vulnerable and special. The overall message from the presenters was that doing this can bring you a deeper sense of what success can look and feel like.
Key themes:
At the end of the session I summarised key themes I’d observed to the audience, with the presenters holding up their pictures.
Creating space
To be you - self care, being kind to yourself, helps you create space to be kind to others
Letting go of control - helps you have more impact for others - creates space for them to step up to the challenge
Curiosity
Explore what's authentic for you, what your superpowers are, your gift (taonga)
Ask questions - e.g. what is the source of that data?! why was it created? what does it mean?
Explore what gifts are available to you - e.g. being a servant leader and tapping into your team's superpowers
Asking for help
Your superpowers include asking for help, you don't have to do it all. Links to creating space…
Feedback & reflection
This was the largest visual storytelling event I’ve done and I feel good about the output and summary.
The organisers liked my work and one of the sponsor organisations is using the pictures as an input into a company-wide discussion about International Womens Day.
A number of presenters said their pictures resonated with them so much they were taking them home to put on their wall and show their children – I felt honoured.
A cool thing I also learnt from one of the speakers, Ngapera Riley, CEO of website/charity ‘figure.nz’, is about this free resource of publicly-available data collated in a user-friendly form. Worth checking out if you ever need to find and use data about New Zealand, for free.
My background in visual storytelling
As a consulting business analyst with 20 years experience in financial services, I am well-practiced at using visual techniques to help stakeholders understand the complexities of a scenario or context, highlight key areas for consideration, and facilitate making smart decisions.
I learnt how to do graphic recording in 2012 after attending a facilitation conference in Melbourne and meeting US-based visual facilitator Peter Durand. I took Peter's online courses on the basics of Graphic Recording, 'Rockstar Scribing - learn to scribe, change the world' and 'Business Model Studios', on facilitating business model design visually using the business model canvas.
I went on to create and deliver well-received workshops in Wellington teaching an introduction to graphic recording, both for a bank and the Institute of Business Analysts - meetup.com/Wlg-IIBA/events/109014082/I moved to Tauranga in 2018 and currently serve as the principal analyst in Digital Transformation for Craigs Investment Partners.
I created the Digital Tauranga meetup in mid-2019 to meet like-minded professionals, and the group now has over 150 members, meeting every month or so to explore topics of interest - I use some visual techniques to explore questions and make decisions.
I was asked to scribe for this Institute of Directors event via connecting with a local professional with similar interests in graphic recording who popped up on my LinkedIn feed - I arranged a coffee to connect and was offered this opportunity.
I prepared by brushing up my skills, practicing with TED talks and looking at the present biographies and thinking about images that could be used as metaphors for their key messages.
Keen to do more!
This event was the largest visual storytelling event I’ve done and the output was well-received. It was also an interesting, fun and rewarding experience.
Connect with me if you have an event, workshop or occasion you would like represented visually. You can reach me via the contact form on this website or my LinkedIn profile