4 Steps to Great Stories (Even if You’re Not Good at Storytelling)

Have you ever nailed a pitch? I mean, really crushed it? You saw that person you were talking to light up? 

Chances are, you told a great story, quickly, in a way that resonated with your audience.

I get to work with incredible clients with important stories to tell. And…it can be hard. When you’re working with complex stuff, it takes skill to tell a great story in a minute or less (stoichiometry and microbial symbioses, anyone?). 

Almost without fail, “communicating to the public!” is an outcome I hear regularly at workshops I’m facilitating.  Those groups have spent a lot of time getting really, exceptionally good at what they do, which isn’t communicating to the public. Why do those same people expect to suddenly be great at something they’ve never practiced? 

If you’re not partnering with a professional storyteller or communications firm, and you’re ready to level up your storytelling, here’s a technique I taught last year at IFVP’s online conference to help my peers simplify and get confident with their science communication skills. 

The Feynman Technique

Richard Feynman was a physicist and voracious learner. He also seems pretty humble and down to earth. Gotta love those folks. He developed this strategy to improve his own learning, and it’s a killer way to outline your story. 

• Choose your topic. What’s your story about? I suggest making a mind map of everything you know about it, then…

• Teach it to a kid.  Three hot tips to help them understand:  

  • Use plain terms, no jargon.

  • Be quick about it, you (probably) aren’t working with a long attention span.

  • Before you start teaching, clarify and write down exactly what you want them to learn. If that’s hard for you to do, you know you can improve. According to the medium article I linked above, “This is also where the power of creativity can help you reach new heights in learning.” Boom.

• Fill in the gaps and keep learning. Not knowing everything doesn’t mean you’re dumb, it means you’re human. 

• Organize, simplify, and use analogies. Try teaching that kid again and get their feedback. Make a new mind map. Draw a picture. And keep iterating until it feels simple, clear, and your audience gets that sparkle in their eye that means they GET it!

Once again, thank you from my heart and soul for your support, great senses of humor, brilliant minds, collaboration and what you're each doing to make the world a better place.

Cheers, 

Where in the Virtual World is ConverSketch?

Adobe Creative Campus Collaboration - Summer 2021: Where campuses from around the continent reflect on what’s working, where they want to focus, and how to support creativity in learning for all!

Facilitating Microbiologists: Working on a grant proposal for microbial symbioses in the environment. Here’s a snapshot of the Miro board we worked in over two days to brainstorm, make decisions, and outline a writing plan.

In the Studio: Working on several videos. Here’s a sneak peek of one I just filmed as a trailer for a virtual field trip for the Park Service in Alaska. It’s about climate change, brown bears, and what they eat!

Arizona HIV Leadership Academy: Supporting the closing of a program reflecting on what they’ve learned and want to carry with them as leaders in the community.

Technical Content? Here’s How to Turn Any Idea into a Story

If you’re a scientist, researcher, or someone who works with technical ideas, this one’s for you. 

My wheelhouse is working with scientific and technical teams working with complex ideas and systems.  And almost every single amazing, brilliant, technical client I’ve ever worked with have all struggled with the same thing: 

How to tell their story. 

And why would we expect someone who excels in their technical field to ALSO excel at communicating it to non-experts? I have faith that anyone can become a good storyteller, it just takes practice. And most researchers I’ve met want to work on their research, not figuring out how to tell a compelling story. 

However, the point of much of this research IS to help people make decisions, and those folks often aren’t experts in the technical stuff.

So what’s a scientist to do? 

In July, I had the honor of presenting a workshop to other visual practitioners at our annual (virtual) conference. The title? Talk Nerdy to Me. And it was all about how to best support and work with scientific and technical clients.  

Although we covered all sorts of things, and the participants also shared their experiences generously, I wanted to share one clear, simple strategy to help anyone practice telling their story. 

It’s called the Feynman Technique, and it goes a little something like this: 

1. Identify a subject

2. Teach it to a child

   1. Speak in plain terms

   2. Be brief (Quick like a bunny)

3. Identify your knowledge gaps (yes, yes, more research is needed…)

4. Organize + simplify + tell a story

   1. Practice reading your story out loud. Pretend to tell the story to a classroom of students. That way, you’ll hear where language stops being simple. Stumbles could indicate incomplete thoughts, or cumbersome language.

   2. Use analogies and simple sentences to strengthen your understanding of the story, like this example from F-diggity himself:

“All things are made of atoms — little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another.”

How do YOU tell good stories? Share your strategies and ideas!

Once again, thank you from my heart and soul for your support, great senses of humor, brilliant minds, collaboration and what you're each doing to make the world a better place.

Cheers, 

Where in the Virtual World is ConverSketch?

CSU Vet Medicine Research: Capturing the first framing class for the renowned researcher Sue VandeWoude for her Vet Med Research course. What a way to launch the semester!

Children with Medical Complexity: Continuing in the 7th virtual site visit reflecting on accomplishments, challenges, and where teams want to take their work serving these children and their families.

Strategic Planning: With a consortium of financial folks as they began planning for the future and how to better work together - but I can’t share any of the drawings.

Tales from New Jersey Part 2: What I Decided to Step Into and How It Went

Have you ever shared something that seemed like second nature to you, but when you shared it, people were delighted and learned something new?

Last month I got to surround myself and learn from others in my professional field at the International Forum of Visual Practitioners (IFVP) conference. Here’s part two of my reflections from the event on where the field is headed and where I’m showing up.

For the first time, I presented a breakout workshop during the conference. At IFVP, I’ve always seen myself as a newbie, even though I’ve been a graphic recorder and facilitator for more than 8 years. I love teaching and facilitating, and I thought it was about time I offered something from my perspective back to my community. The topic? Email marketing that feels authentic AND builds your business.

Stepping into my expertise felt GREAT. People had a blast and applied what they learned. I may have flossed (the dance move, not the dental hygiene…At least not during my workshop). Sharing things that seemed obvious to me were revelations for my audience, and it was a treat to get to share more of my quirks and winning humor with my captive audience ;).

So I encourage you to consider: How might you stepping into ownership of your knowledge? How are you giving back to your community? Whether it’s volunteering or simply offering smiles to strangers, you can have an impact far greater than you know!

Want your meetings to have a greater impact? Let’s talk about how visuals can elevate engagement, understanding, and action at your event!

Once again, thank you from my heart and soul for your support, great senses of humor, brilliant minds, collaboration and what you're each doing to make the world a better place.

Cheers,

Where in the World is ConverSketch?

CU Boulder: Teaching a short-course on basics of visual communication and graphic recording for the Master of the Environment summer program. These students got it right away and immediately jumped in with two feet to re-design infographics on agriculture in Boulder County.

Albuquerque, New Mexico: Back with the New Mexico Breastfeeding Task Force to support a Summit on Maternity and Infant Care for professionals across the state. A favorite session and graphic recording chart was on Mindfulness Meditation as a tool for self care. Namaste!

Aspen, Colorado: For the 10th annual Tech Policy Institute Aspen Forum! I learned about and scribed everything from “tech-lash” to cryptocurrency regulation to AI and machine learning and the role policy plays

The Other AI

You know when you’re having a conversation with someone you admire, and pretty much every other sentence they say blows your mind?

Last fall I had the joy of getting to sit down with one of those people in my life, Heather Martinez, and something she casually dropped has been bouncing around inside me for months as I figure out how to chew on it and what it means for my graphic facilitation practice.

We were talking about process design for facilitating meaningful conversations, and I was gushing about Design Thinking and how complementary visual thinking is to that process.

Then Heather says something to the effect of “Yeah, but you can’t prototype humanity or emotions. That’s why I love Appreciative Inquiry!”

That brought me up short. I’ve dabbled with Appreciative Inquiry (or AI– not artificial intelligence AI), but with that statement, I immediately felt like it was a tool I needed to learn more about.

And this past week, the amazing and talented Christine Whitney-Sanchez facilitated over 700 IT professionals from across Arizona State University using Appreciative Inquiry and Open Space to build community, understand what’s most important to these people, and where to prioritize resources for the next year.

I think Appreciative Inquiry is a rad tool because it focuses on positivity, storytelling, human connection, discovery, and designing a path toward action. Unlike a lot of process design, it doesn’t assume to know the answers.

Here are the 5 D’s of Appreciative Inquiry, and you can learn more at this link.

Interested in applying Appreciative Inquiry to a question in your organization?

Once again, thank you from my heart and soul for your support, great senses of humor, brilliant minds, collaboration and what you're each doing to make the world a better place.

Cheers,

Where in the World is ConverSketch?

Provincetown, Massachusetts: Graphic recording for the second annual Broto Conference on Art and Climate Change where artists of all mediums and walks discussed how art could be used to scale climate action globally for good.

Photo: Michael & Suz Karchmer

Las Vegas, Nevada: With a group of engineers discussing the future of tech, trends, and big questions they’re thinking about. I can’t share much, but here’s one small illustration from my digital graphic recordings:

Tempe, Arizona: Back with the amazing Arizona State University Technology Office (UTO) who convened IT professionals from across the University to have conversations about what matters most to them and how the UTO can support a more cohesive IT network across the entire campus. This image was created from responses from an app in real-time during 21 simultaneous sessions!

Denver, Colorado: Supporting the work of Future Earth and H3Uni as they guided an esteemed group of individuals discussing the future of sustainability scholarship and how to address systems-level challenges to doing effective transdisciplinary sustainability research.

Yeah, it was a busy eight days!

Here's What I've Noticed About Great Leaders Across Sectors

One thing I love about my job is getting a unique slice of trends and conversations across sectors. In the past two weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of graphic recording and facilitating with a county government, a national foundation, a private tech giant, and a non-profit conservation organization (yes, I slept for the entire long weekend afterwards).

Some of the conversations these groups had were difficult – that’s often the case when groups have the courage to move beyond the same old ideas they’ve always had. These conversations have potential to be transformative…or not.

What can make the difference?

I’ve noticed that when leaders approach the conversation in a defensive way, that shuts folks down. But if they come in with two ears wide open and a humble mind, the results can be remarkable!

Often people are frustrated or critical because they don’t feel heard, so when leaders and decision-makers put themselves in a space of listening, then thinking about solutions, tension and hostility shift to tenacity to find a path forward together.

If you want to read more about listening...I've written about how to improve here, storylistening here, and different levels of listening here.

Once again, thank you from my heart and soul for your support, great senses of humor, brilliant minds, collaboration and what you're each doing to make the world a better place.

Cheers, Karina

Where in the World is ConverSketch?

From Adams County Children and Family Services in Denver, to the Buffet Early Childhood Foundation in Omaha, to Adobe in San Jose, to the Environmental Defense Fund in Fort Collins, August was buzzing! Here are a few highlights:

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

And speaking of buzzing…we also harvested honey from our beehive this weekend. Labor Day, indeed, but the rewards are sweet!

View fullsize

View fullsize

How do You Paint what Makes A Community Unique?

You’ve probably seen some cryptic emails from me over the past few weeks about a surprise project I was working on. I’m delighted now to share it with you all, along with a special behind-the-scenes look at what went into the design.

On August 2nd, to the sweet sounds of the Hazel Miller Band, the 100th Piano About Town was officially unveiled as a part of our community! And yep, you guessed it, I was the lucky artist to get to paint it!

The typical piano process includes a request for proposals from artists sketched out, which are then reviewed and selected for painting outside where passers by can watch the piano unfolding and sometimes even play while it’s being painted.

For the 100th Piano, the Bohemian Foundation wanted to do something a little different and include voices across the community. Enter: a graphic facilitator to conduct and capture focus groups to gather ideas for the piano content.

I listened to people answering the question “What makes Fort Collins unique?”: from seniors to second graders at summer camp to young professionals to those who represent diverse groups at university to musicians. I listened, captured, asked questions, and scribed each group’s conversations.

Then, I took all the charts and began looking for themes. What places did each group bring up? What characteristics make our community special? Then, I sketched out a concept design to gather feedback and refine before painting the piano itself.

This was, to me, the most challenging part of the whole process. How do you distill over five hours of stories, memories, and connections into a single illustration? That’s where the scribe training of listening for themes, distillation and synthesis really shone in this process. It was important to me to make sure all the ideas were included, that key words emerged throughout the imagery, and most of all, that when anyone from the community looks at the piano, they see themselves somewhere in it.

The painting took place inside so it would be a fun, beautiful surprise when it was unveiled at a free concert series last week. Over 12 days, the landscape, people, and stories emerged!

Want to tickle the ivories and see it for yourself? The 100th Piano will be in Old Town Square for a couple more weeks, then will live in the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery for the winter.

For more musings on pianos and creativity, check out this post.

Once again, thank you from my heart and soul for your support, great senses of humor, brilliant minds, collaboration and what you're each doing to make the world a better place.

Cheers, Karina

Where in the World is ConverSketch?

On My Way to New York, New York! This week is the first of three meetings between multiple academic groups and the Mayor of NYC to create models and plans for storm water management and sea level rise in the City of New York. Stay tuned, or check out my Instagram profile and story for real-time videos and pictures.

In the Studio: Working on the third Wildfire Risk Management Science Team illustrated video. This third video focuses on challenges of fires that cross management boundaries, and mapping tools the Team uses to make recommendations for safer and more effective fire management.

Happy Summer from ConverSketch

While I’ve touted the power of consistency in previous posts, the fact of the matter is…it’s summer. Between graphic recording jobs, we took a week and explored San Francisco and the Northern California coast on the way to a stunning wedding of dear friends on the Smith River.

And, as I mentioned in my last dispatch, this summer I've had the honor of working on a surprise project which will be unveiled on Thursday, August 2nd in Old Town Square, Fort Collins at 7 pm. The Hazel Miller Band will be playing a Thursday Night Live concert in the Square, so if you're in NoCo, come on down, listen to some great music, and check out what I've been up to!

That big ol’ surprise project isn’t quite done, so…that’s my cue to leave you with this short, sweet update email. Now go enjoy some summer time!

Once again, thank you from my heart and soul for your support, great senses of humor, brilliant minds, collaboration and what you're each doing to make the world a better place.

Cheers, Karina

I'm Up to Something.

I’m up to something. And I really can’t tell you about it yet, because it’s top secret. But I CAN tell you about it in August, and if you’re in Northern Colorado, I’ll be sharing some details later this summer.

And although I can’t say much this week, here are a few things my graphic recording clients are saying:

“Your work brought an element of clarity and action that I haven’t seen with this group in 10 years.”

— Michael Wade Smith, University of Kansas

“We have the chart you made two years ago and we hang it up at every quarterly meeting to remind us of our goals and where we want to go!”

— CSU College of Liberal Arts

“Your work helped transform a group of people who did not know how to talk to each other, or even really hear each other, into a plan for collaborative action. Thank you so much! ”

— Kate Brown, Ph.D.

“The day was a success and we have you to thank! Your work was all anybody talked about the entire 30-minute bus ride.”

— JBA Communications

“You aren’t just an artist, you are a designer of stories.”

— Tonya Malik-Carson, Colorado State University

Want more secrets? Try this on business from the desert, these from visual thought leaders, and this one for creativity.

Once again, thank you from my heart and soul for your support, great senses of humor, brilliant minds, collaboration and what you're each doing to make the world a better place.

Cheers, Karina

Want people to be saying these kinds of things at your next event or meeting?

Where in the World is ConverSketch?

View fullsize

Detroit: Last week I headed up north and was pleasantly surprised by my first trip to Detroit. Working with Together for Safer Roads for their annual meeting, I learned about the science and partnerships that save lives on the road.

View fullsize

Fort Collins: Celebrating achievements and looking to the future of Liberal Arts at Colorado State University.

We Had A Kickass Retreat. Now What Do We Do with Those Drawings?

You pulled it off.

The right people in the room, excellent process design, a location that stimulated creativity and collaboration, excellent food. You even had a graphic recorder visually capture the conversations for you, which captivated participants and helped them see connections and build ownership of the ideas generated. The retreat. Was. Amazing. Everyone left feeling energized, with clear direction and shared understanding about where you’re headed and why.

Now what?

Aside from a cold beverage to celebrate pulling off such a stellar event, you know that you’ve got to figure out a way to keep participants motivated and energized after the retreat. How can you make sure they don’t get distracted with the day-to-day urgency of their work, and are able to keep the clear vision and energy front-of-mind?

Lucky for you, when the retreat is over, my job isn’t. The visual charts that are created are incredibly useful during, and also after the event. That’s why I create a custom list of suggestions to use the charts after the event, tailored to each of my clients’ needs and goals.  

And today I’m going to give you a sneak peek into what goes into them. A huge shout out to Lisa Arora for the framework I’m about to share.

Once again, thank you from my heart and soul for your support, great senses of humor, brilliant minds, collaboration and what you're each doing to make the world a better place.

Cheers, Karina

Want to get more ideas for how to use your charts after an event? Let’s put your visual meeting notes into action for your organization!

Cheers!

Where in the World is ConverSketch?

In the Studio: Filming videos for the National Park Service and US Forest Service about climate change and wildfire risk planning. Things are heating up around here!

Albuquerque: To graphic record for a women’s health mentorship program. Looking forward to cactus and desert vibes.

How to Get People So Excited to Participate in Your Event They’ll Be Talking About It for Weeks

There’s this thing I’ve noticed about people: we love ourselves. Now, wait a minute, just hear me out on this one, okay?

Even if you’re the most generous, self-aware, kind and thoughtful person, you will almost certainly get a kick out of seeing yourself as a little roughly drawn character, especially if you get to watch while it’s drawn. And if we get to see how our experiences and stories compare to those around us, we get even more interested.

Last week I created a Story Wall for the Arizona State University Unconference on the future of learning in a digital age. During happy hour, I talked with about 100 people about when they first became involved with digital learning and drew their stories for them while they watched. It was rapid-fire with people clustered around, waiting to have their story captured and perhaps a picture drawn. It was messy and unfiltered.

Everybody loved it.

I heard things like “You learned that software program too?! Do you remember…” Old friends and new friends were standing shoulder to shoulder, watching and chatting.  And it wasn’t just during that first happy hour – for the rest of the two day Unconference, people were continuously gathering around the Story Wall and talking with each other.

These Walls lead to direct opportunities to connect face-to-face in an authentic way, something we seem to be craving more and more in this increasingly technological world.

As a graphic recorder, I am always trying to improve how I listen, how I draw, how I make marks to capture not only content, but the energy of the room. Which sometimes leads me into the Art/Design Rabbit Hole of Continuous Creative Improvement, and I forget the most important thing about what I do: It’s not about me or how “pretty” the drawing is. It’s about helping my clients see and understand their stories.

Once again, thank you from my heart and soul for your support, great senses of humor, brilliant minds, collaboration and what you're each doing to make the world a better place.

Cheers, Karina

Want to boost engagement and creativity at your next event?

Where in the World is ConverSketch?

Arizona State University: Unconference for Dreamers, Doers and Drivers around the future of digital learning in higher education.

Colorado State University: Last week CSU hosted a University-wide, then community-wide event around how to cultivate compassion in the workplace. After a presentation from researcher and thought leader Leah Weiss on the power of purpose and compassion in the workplace, the participants discussed what they wanted to see and what they can do where they work.