Continuing to process

What’s up with the fish?

For the first time in over fifteen years, I painted with paint and paper. The process wasn’t about creating great art, it was more about reclaiming a part of myself. The feel of a real brush is one thing you just can’t replicate digitally. Not better necessarily, just different. I also noticed after being able to easily back up and redo when creating images digitally, there was a hesitation before putting the brush down on the page. Way more pressure, and requiring a different kind of confidence. Which is a bit shaky after all those years.

Painting is also giving me a way to process. Rather than run lots of information around in my head constantly, I can step away and let other parts of my brain engage.

What are we learning from talking to people?

I’ve continued to collect input from customers and colleagues about the places they are finding challenging right now. One comment in particular sums up a lot of what I have been hearing:

Our organization needs to maintain focus on strategic objectives while they are overshadowed by short term financial concerns.

This may be from an organizational view, but, I’m hearing variations of the same thing from individuals. Lots of figuring out how to move forward in alignment with long term goals, despite short term challenges.

How does this relate to visuals and what we do at VisualsSpeak?

Visuals are particularly effective in helping to see and understand complex systems. Things where there are a large number of elements, and some that might seem conflicting.  Systems that involve layers of elements, where you have to have some kind of understanding of the interrelationships and how a change might impact the overall system.

As we look more at the commonalities between our customers rather than the differences, we are seeing that many of them are involved with helping people navigate complex systems.

• Intercultural communication, coaching and counseling help people to understand the complexity of their own identity and values.
• Career and life coaching start from the individual then explore how that individual intersects with the rest of their lives.
• Training and facilitation are often about understanding how parts affect the whole.
• Owning or leading a business is about understanding how many different pieces come together in alignment with a vision.

I am thinking more about how to create systems to help understand systems. Ok, so I don’t have the words dialed in to describe it yet. I’m realizing I need to go beyond just showing people how to reveal deeper information. I also need to show how to structure it to make it useful once it is surfaced. At that point it is about pattern recognition, which we all do everyday. Most often, however, it is not done consciously.

I’m thinking about what kinds of tools make the patterns organize in a way they can be used to shift understanding, so different kinds of action can result. What kinds of tools help manage big data sets without boiling them down so they no longer hold anything beyond the least common denominator?

Creativity is messy

Writing coherent blog posts isn’t easy in a high creative time. At least for me. The ideas are coming fast and furious, but not in a structured or neat way. I have so many ideas flowing, I can hardly capture them. Deciding to stop fighting with myself and how I thought things should be, admitting what is really going on, and returning to the practice of art have combined to unleash creativity at a level I have not felt for several years. It’s like coming home to myself again.

I still don’t know what will emerge. So many options. Stay tuned to see.