2008 has been the year of new endeavors for Christine. Sending artwork to museums, working on a book of vintage tattoo designs, and helping to research a book about Albert Morse, her late mate.

In her new blog, Continues Tomorrow, she describes graphic facilitation experiences along with her day to day experience of life.
Graphic Facilitation

For the last 20 years Christine Valenza has been working as a graphic facilitator in meeting rooms all over the world. From the beginning, she could see that having the group’s ideas displayed in front of them was a catalyst for new thinking and for a more reflective conversation.

Currently she is working with an Action Learning Team at IMD University in Switzerland that works with many business clients to solve problems. The graphics are considered to be a critical productivity tool, and it is clear that the innovative ideas generated by the group were a result of the use of visual metaphor and reflection. For example, one client group used the metaphor of a camel with two heads facing opposite directions and feet bound. It showed that two divisions needed to move forward but were unable to move due to a shared system that was outdated. Developing this image with the group helped them understand the problem and move beyond it.

Christine has found that graphics facilitate understanding in inter-cultural groups, virtual groups, and intact teams. She has recorded the thinking in small strategic groups as well as large conferences of up to 400 participants.

Graphic recording is rooted in facilitation and consulting models, and often involves groups grappling with some sort of change. The work is most successful when the graphics are integrated into the process and everyone in the room understands that the mural becomes a “participant” in its own right.

Historically, research on innovation and visual thinking was focused on the individual. In recent years that focus has shifted to groups, and has directed Christine's work to inspire and inform others. Her collaboration with Nancy Margulies on the award winning book Visual Thinking: Tools for Mapping Your Ideas, and her contributions to The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today’s Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems were results of this effort.

Visuals have been the step-child of communication. But now we’re returning to our visual roots, and realizing images are integral. In Thinking Like Einstein, Thomas West says we’re moving from an old world based on words and numbers to a new world where high level work in all fields will eventually come from insights based on the display of images.

Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits. When minds meet, they don't just exchange facts:  they transform them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in new trains of thought. Conversation doesn't just reshuffle the cards:  it creates new cards.

~Theodore Zeldin
An Intimate History of Humanity (1994)

Some of the Benefits of Graphic Recording
  • The recording is designed to meet the immediate and emerging needs of the group.

  • Like a time lapse series of photographs, graphic recording captures and holds the emerging thinking and dynamic process of the group.

  • Capturing and organizing the thoughts and words in a shared workspace can maximize the time that has been allotted for the work that needs to be done.
  • By visually combining what has been done prior to a meeting, with the thinking that will occur at this meeting, the process of the group's thinking together can become more streamlined without losing any opportunities for innovation.

  • The graphic facilitation process intensifies and energizes group efforts.

  • The visual triggers assist in recalling details and content of the meeting later.

  • By keeping a record of the ways that ideas build, nothing is lost, and ideas that might have been overlooked can be expanded. Subtle relationships can be seen. Ideas are not shown in a linear format and can be juxtaposed or superimposed upon one another. Seeing the big picture and the details simultaneously generally leads to more generative and creative thinking from the group (even if the group tends to be very creative to begin with!)

  • The group can take full advantage of the process of idea generation (creative) and funneling those ideas into a work plan (linear). The large charts harness the power of our vision to understand complex information at a glance.

  • The use of metaphor can unleash new thinking.

  • As ideas are represented on the group memory, people feel acknowledged and become engaged. Because their contributions are visible, involvement and cooperation build. Graphic recording centers the work on the ideas, not the personalities of a group. Creating and sharing this common experience can help people interpret events beyond their usual experience. This becomes a shared, continuous record that can help build team and organizational capability.

  • Digital reproduction of the charts created during the meeting can carry the thinking beyond the meeting and allow for further thinking, and create opportunity to invite input from other stakeholders.
What Christine Brings to the Process
  • Deep listening

  • Rapid, in-real-time visual synthesis of ideas and processes

  • Diverse corporate and community involvement, over 20 years of experience

  • Understanding of the unique language and process of your business

  • Commitment to facilitating change and innovation

  • Continued involvement in global societal issues, including reproductive health in emerging economies, work with AIDS researchers, faith groups and community visioning.

  • The ability to organize and redesign meeting notes. This is particularly helpful for thinking that will be shared in presentations, documents for external exposure, and inclusion in annual reports.

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