Survey Results : What's Your Role?

Results from our March poll...

QUESTION: "What role do you primarily play with your clients?"

Are you working with executives as a strategist?

Are you a consultant on a particular subject or industry who uses graphic facilitation as a tool? Are you looked to as a facilitator who guides a group through a process?

Do you serve as a visual communicator turning ideas into images? Are you primarily an illustrator creating images that tell a story?

Or a you an artist, bringing your personal vision to life through any means necessary?

RESPONSES
48% - As a Visual Communicator
22% - As a Facilitator
13% - As a Strategist
11% - As a Consultant
  4% - As an Illustrator
  2% - As an Artist

We heard from practicing graphic facilitators in Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States. Many of the 46 respondants replied that it was very difficult to choose one primary role, since every project and every client requires a nuanced approach, and the skills to deliver require constant growth and evolution.

Here is a synopsis of the experiences from the field, in the words of some of our readers.

One of our respondants is the mega-blogger behind Loothtooth.com, Chicago-based artist and graphic facilitator, Brandy Agerbeck.  Although she considers herself an artist first and foremost, Agerbeck expresses a bit of queasiness when called one in a professional setting.

"I always feel funny when clients call me an artist. I define artist as being so much about self expression, that it doesn't feel right in that context."

When it comes to work with her clients, this extrememly prolific visual practitioner sees herself more as a hybrid facilitator/visual communicator who expresses on behalf of the many, instead of herself.

"The images are truly in service to the ideas and the process of the group."

From his vantage point in the corporate world, Mark Pinto of Cleveland sees two diametrically opposed reactions to his presence as a graphic facilitator. 

"You are a either a darn smart and innovative business consultant or you are the artist, which often rears its head as: 'Hey, let's see if the ARTIST can draw THIS!!!!!'"

In working for more word-oriented professional services, for example accounting and consulting, Mark's sees that his clients have a hard time handling anything that is difficult to quantify or to measure concretely. He finds that people from the healthcare and the non-profit world, however, are much more receptive. Perhaps this is because they already work with difficult and intangible and human notions of "value".

As he sees it, they sense that "feelings and emotion play a stronger part in their solutions."

Even in more conservative circles of strategic planning, the desire to visualize planning is on the rise.

John Caswell, sees interest growing across all industries. His firm Group Partners, based in the heart of London, works internationally with leadership teams in large and complex organizations, delivering everything through a blend of consultation, strategic partnership, graphic visualization, innovation, and high-tech computer modeling .

For Caswell, the term graphic facilitation  limits the perception of what his firm can deliver; it fixes the client's mind on the form of the methodology (drawing) instead of the value of the service (making informed strategic decisions faster).

"The client could feel immediately that he didn't need that solution - even though he/she didn't really understand it." In order to deliver a rich package to his clients, Caswell sees the graphic facilitation aspect of his practice is merely one tool of many... albeit a valuable one.

"We believe strongly that there is still a tremendous interest in alternatives to the bland, academic consulting approached provided by the mainstream consulting firms. Still sensitivity by clients around the pure graphical component but once overcome and seen in proper context then not a problem at all. We should all be in very good shape."

Both Reinhard Kuchenmüller and Maria Hubbert find that the novelty of creating rich images out of the vapor of conversation leads to both repeat business and referrals.

Maria echos Mark Pinto's observation about the receptivity of certain industries. "I think the real power of graphic recording is starting to be seen in the health and social care fields, where there is now a demand for true user and participant involvement."

The general consensus of the comments we received was summed up by Miguel Villalba Sánchez of Spain, echoing, perhaps, the spirit of his ancestors:

"Being a graphic facilitator in the world of drawing and illustration is like being a pioneer just arriving to a whole new world... something still to be discovered!"