Empower Storytellers

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Empower your people to be storytellers and watch the magic happen.

“Tell me your story.”

This is how we start most conversations, and when standing before a big blank map, is the precursor to putting pen to paper. Stories are powerful tools that can be used to create change, build culture, disseminate learning, capture knowledge and inspire movements.

Adding storytelling to your meetings and events engages the heads, hearts and bodies of your people so they can connect to the message more easily. Developing an emotional connection to a message can be challenging at best. As you undergo any strategic change or new initiative, the solution often needs to go deeper so people know and understand you and your message at a different level. 

Going deeper means you must appeal to their emotions and visual sense – they actually need to feel the message. When companies use compelling visual elements, along with strong narration, employees engage with the story and are able to see how their actions impact the outcome.

Feel the Message, Join the Movement

What can you communicate through story? 

  1. Organizational Vision and Mission
  2. Strategy
  3. Values
  4. Behavioral changes
  5. Cultural shifts

Here are some other ways you can incorporate storytelling into your meetings and events.

Messaging and Content Creation – Create a plan for internal or external messaging and content creation that engages your audience in a narrative arc and supports your story. The key to good storytelling is getting people involved at a feeling level. We help your organization utilize the best of neuroscience, rhetoric, writing, and social media to get the word out.

Brand Promise – We are the stories we tell. We help you use storytelling to get your organization positioned where you need to be to increase market share, brand recognition, and enthusiasm around your company, project, products and ideas.

Leadership Stories – Leaders, by definition, are motivators and fire starters. We work to help leaders ignite a team or an organization with their stories.

Change Management – In order to get movement anywhere in an organization it is essential to be both a compelling storyteller and an ardent listener.

At Idea360 we design for ROE – return on experience – that can be measured in employee engagement, customer satisfaction, positioning success, and your organization’s ability to achieve goals by creating a Strategy Story that is not just an idea, but a reality. 

We work to ensure your well-designed Strategy Story does more than push information – your story creates a movement.

Man talking during graphic facilitation discovery

Visual Thinking

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Visual Thinking

When using Design Thinking, there are literally thousands of tools and methods available to help you discover what people want and how to deliver on their expectations. The challenge is to figure out which ones to use and when to use them. This comes from experience and training. 

One method to enhance creativity is Visual Thinking. 

Visual thinking helps you unlock a different part of our brain. It allows you to think in a non-verbal way, and access parts of your creativity. Most design thinkers call visualization “the mother of all design tools” because it is used in every stage of the design thinking process – from  Empathize to Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test. And even through each round of Iteration, until you get it right. 

Visual Thinking is a human-centered approach that gives you and your team an experience that integrates visual storytelling, design thinking, and digital facilitation. It should foster curiosity among people so they feel a deeper connection to what’s possible, can visualize what they imagine, and will choose to act. You achieve this by engaging in a process that identifies the challenge, conceptualizes solutions and outcomes, and locates you (your place and your role) in the story. When done right, Visual Thinking links the emotional and logical brain, thus leading to smarter choices and actions.

Creative problem solving is better done with a picture that gets everyone on the same page and allows them to see themselves in the picture.

Visual Thinking has a big “return on experience” (ROE) that enables people to develop an emotional connection to the work so they are compelled and inspired to take action toward a solution.

At Idea360, we understand and use your learning models and process to meet your needs and that of your people. We humanize strategy and visualize change.

Our services are designed for those who are seeking new ways to problem-solve, build something innovative, better understand their organization or their clients, and ask questions in new and creative ways. 

Idea360 creates immersive experiences that help people imagine, collaboratively create and design a better future through strategic visualization, innovative meeting facilitation and interactive human experiences

We keep the human in process design and digital facilitation.

Small mind map activity done with markers

Pioneering Visual Experiences

by with No Comment The Future OfWhat We Design

PIONEERING VISUAL EXPERIENCES

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VISUAL LEARNING, GRAPHIC RECORDING and GRAPHIC FACILITATION

How many screens, monitors and images have you looked at today?
How many words have you read?
How many pages have you scrolled?
It almost goes without saying: visual content plays a major role in our lives today.

Ninety percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual. And with approximately 65 percent of the population being visual learners, it’s more important than ever to ensure that the images that are produced serve as an effective way of communicating.

Graphic recorders and graphic facilitators can be valuable assets in meetings and events to ensure that ideas are accurately captured, complex thoughts are synthesized and strategic initiatives are given levity to flourish. 

What We Do

At Idea360, we’ve been offering these visual learning experiences to help solve some of the biggest problems for some of the world’s biggest companies for more than 22 years. 

Today, we are pioneering how neuroscience, learning theory, graphic facilitation, visual learning and problem solving, graphic recording, and storytelling tap into your creative brain power. 

We design meetings and events that link to your goals, create an interactive experience that are highly visual, and tell a story – always keeping you, the human, at the center.

Visual Learning

We help meeting attendees learn and retain key information using visual learning strategies. Our visual sense takes up 50% of our brain’s resources. Because of this, pictures truly are worth the proverbial 1000 words. In neurology, this is called the pictorial superiority effect. 

If information is presented orally, after 72 hours one will only remember approximately 10% of what was heard. But when a picture is added, recall reaches 65%. Our brains are wired to find visualization, graphic facilitation, and graphic recording compelling. Use this in your meetings and events to create a new and more effective way of communicating.

Graphic Recording

The intent of graphic recording is to capture the essence of the discussion and the specific points, statements, and agreements in a graphic format. 

Using felt markers and large sheets of butcher paper, sometimes in combination with pre-made templates, the graphic recorder will illustrate the meeting live. The output of each process is large, illustrated maps that can be used to unpack the conversation at a later time. 

This visual method is a powerful tool that assists learning and communication between groups and individuals, especially considering that visuals are processed 60,000X faster in the brain than text.

Graphic Facilitation

Graphic facilitation is a visual thinking process that creates understanding as we begin to see patterns and combine ideas in new ways – allowing us to see things more clearly, and to innovate and problem solve together. 

This role combines understanding of group process, meeting facilitation, and agenda design. 

Often, we partner with internal/external teams who are responsible for the meeting outcomes, and together, integrate visual learning processes into the agenda and meeting design.

The Idea360 Advantage

At Idea360 we design for ROE – return on experience – that can be measured in employee engagement, customer satisfaction, positioning success, and your organization’s ability to achieve goals by creating a Strategy Story that is not just an idea, but a reality. 

We work to ensure your well-designed Strategy Story does more than push information – your story creates a movement.

Two team members sketching graphic facilitation map on large paper

Strategic Planning

by with No Comment Creative Tips + ToolsThe Future OfWhat We Design

Strategic Planning is more fun than you think

What you hate about Strategic Planning Meetings

People with big ideas are often challenged to find new ways to be strategic, innovative and creative in their business approach. 

Yet, many “strategy meetings” leave them feeling frustrated and with more unanswered questions than they started with. They are bogged down with binders, worksheets and other endless materials that won’t get used. 

And, at the end of the day, there’s no concrete map to get the business to where they want it to be. They feel stuck in their ability to take the strategic work further because they can’t tell what’s going to come next. 

Hold a future-focused Strategic Planning Meeting 

The business environment is constantly changing. Rapid technology advancements play an important role in the business environment, and customers’ needs and demands are changing too. 

We get it. 

It’s hard to keep up in this ever-evolving world. You need new ways of leading and working to do the work of today. And foresight and vision to prepare for the business of tomorrow. 

Right now, you are trained to think incrementally to 10% beyond where we are today; but that will only get you so far. The future will be here faster than that. You need to think beyond 10% to reach the consumers of tomorrow. You need to see the future. 

By anticipating changes in your industry or marketplace, you may totally transform the way you work, lead and move ahead. To create a competitive advantage, you need to seize opportunities and address the challenges of the future. 

But unfortunately, many companies can’t keep up: they can’t move that fast or they are not set up to be nimble and adaptive. 

Don’t be one of them.

People with big ideas want their company to do more than just keep up: they want to be able to see what’s around the next bend and prepare for it. Seek out ways to be creative, innovative and more strategic so you can stay ahead.

A New Age is Rising

Say ‘goodbye’ to the Information Age and ‘hello’ to the Imagination Age. 

Business decisions can no longer be based on data, analysis and incremental thinking. The emerging future of business requires creativity, vision, unconventional approaches and exponential thinking, and creates value from your ability to explore all the possibilities. 

“Creativity and imagination become the primary creator of economic value.” 

  • Dr. Rita King, NASA Scientist

By helping people with big ideas see what their organization could become, and drawing a picture of what that will be, you can prepare, strategize and create a future to everyone’s advantage. 

This requires a shift away from short-term “incremental thinking” to a more productive long view, where you are able to figure out who you need to be and feel confident that you will arrive there. You need to find ways to be creative, innovative and more strategic so you can get, and stay, ahead.

In order to do this, you need to reimagine your business model and find competitive advantage.

How do you do this? 

New Skills Are Required

Creativity and future thinking are required to create a competitive advantage in the future.  

To think bigger and more strategically, you need more than “big pictures and big words” to articulate your big ideas. 

You need a partner who can confirm, clarify and tightly define your strategy, ensuring it is integrated effectively throughout your strategic planning event. You need to use media – in all forms – to create a unique strategy story that engages the head, heart, and senses of your people, to build emotional ties to your key messages. 

The output should be a strategic, visual roadmap people can use to create and choose their next move.

Pioneering The Future of Visual Thinking 

Only Idea360 uses future-focused, strategic visualization – going beyond “big pictures and big words” – to help people have broader, more strategic conversations about “what’s after what’s next” in their business or work world.

We help people discover their own hidden leadership talents and visionary capabilities; map out their collective thinking to articulate changes that are emerging in their industry; create new possibilities and solutions; and see the future of their work. 

We partner with global companies seeking new ways to problem-solve, build something innovative, better understand their organization or their clients, and ask questions in new and creative ways. 

What’s The Big Idea? 

We partner and collaborate to create strategic alignment.
Our process is focused on the bigger conversations about business strategy and solving big problems. We work to understand a client’s specific experiences that led them to the challenge they’re trying to address, and what happens during and after their event or moment of change.  

Our services are designed for those who are seeking new ways to problem-solve, build something innovative, better understand their organization or their clients and ask questions in new and creative ways. 

We design for impact!
We help people strategically frame conversations by structuring collaboration, identifying patterns and discovering the common threads that bring us together. 

We provide tangible tools and a process you can use and share with others once back in the office. You walk away with a strategy that you can immediately put to use, share with others, and continue the conversation without having to start the process over every time. 

At Idea360, we apply tried-and-true methodologies, philosophies, and the tools we have developed and fine-tuned over 20 years.

See the Future graphic held by three corporate team member after graphic facilitation session

Stories Inspire Action

by with No Comment People + Things We LoveThe Future Of

Stories to Inspire Action. 

Storytelling has the potential to create new and deeper meaning in your organization.

Through storytelling, we challenge current frameworks and thinking, and present ideas in  ways that deliver meaningful messages and inspire people to think and act differently. Storytelling is powerful. It can be used to create change, build culture, disseminate learning, capture knowledge and inspire movements. 

With support and conscious work to grow attendee skills, your organization will experience the payoff of storytelling again and again. Even after the initial engagement ends: that is when the magic really happens, and results are realized. When using storytelling, participants have access to a full memory of the experience, which allows them to relive it, and begin to create their own meaning, becoming the storyteller themselves. That’s why “Tell me a story” has ROI when “Hand me those slides” does not.

Storytelling has all the components that neuropsychology explains you need to motivate, engage, innovate, free creativity, get aligned, and move your organization forward. 

Stories help you build stronger emotional ties to your critical messages. They provide triggers and ideas for bringing the stories home so that your attendees become the storytellers themselves. This happens when a concept called redintegration comes into play. Redintegration is the ability to bring a memory back full-force and it happens not in the logical centers of your brain where powerpoint can access it, but in the emotional centers where storytelling and visual learning occur.

At Idea360 we design for ROE – return on experience – that can be measured in employee engagement, customer satisfaction, positioning success, and your organization’s ability to achieve goals – and to create a strategy story that is not just an idea but a reality. 

We work to ensure your well-designed Strategy Story does more than push information – your story creates a movement.

Graphic facilitation idea map

More Than a Meeting, You Want a Movement

by with No Comment Creative Tips + ToolsPeople + Things We LoveThe Future OfWhat We Design

Don’t have another meeting. Create a movement! 

One of the worst parts of any business has to be the meetings. 

You know the ones. Everyone is late. Or doesn’t know what’s going on. 

The technology doesn’t work:  the call won’t connect, the video won’t load, the powerpoint file is corrupted. 

The speaker drones on. The audience is disenfranchised and disengaged. Nothing actually happens. – The meeting could have been an email.

But! It doesn’t have to be that way.

We believe you need to design for experience rather than hold “just another meeting.” We believe that experiences lead to stories. And stories build movements.

You have big ideas and want to take your strategic work further. You want to become a better leader and be able to see what’s around the bend.  A regular old meeting just won’t cut it anymore.

Your people want to be heard. They want to know their voice counts and that they have a stake in the process and outcomes. With new listening and empathy skills, you can gain that emotional commitment and build an irresistible force for achieving your goals. 

You seek new ways to problem solve, build something innovative, better understand your organization or your clients, and ask questions in new and creative ways.  Today, leaders want to discover NEW WAYS TO LEAD “NEW WAYS OF WORKING” – but don’t know how to do it.  

Here’s how!!

possibility in action
  1. Make it HUMAN! Enable your people to imagine and collaborate.
  2. Make it an EXPERIENCE! Design your event so it is an experience where your people feel a deeper connection to what’s possible.
  3. Make it VISUAL! Create a space where people can see what they imagine so be propelled to act. 
  4. Tell a STORY! Share stories that stick and that people want to hear.
  5. STRATEGY always! Make the direction purposeful and mean business.

Follow the brain science! When all of the senses are stimulated, your  meeting will be more memorable and the experience will be more impactful. Because more parts of the brain are activated, people will retain more information. This creates the conditions where people and ideas collide! 

At Idea360, We design for outcomes and moments of impact. Our meetings are immersive experiences. Interactive activities and tools drive your narrative – and bring your story to life. We take you on an immersive journey that leads to new insights and compels you to take action and results in an unmatched “return on experience.” (ROE)

We create an ROE that demonstrates the value that people can relate to and understand. Our experiences enable people to develop an emotional connection to the work so they are compelled and inspired to take action toward a solution. 

Here’s how:

  • We design and facilitate purpose-driven, strategic conversations that are grounded with buy-in, built upon collaborative and productive energy, and vibrate with ideas. 
  • We create immersive experiences, interactive activities, and tools drive your narrative –and bring your story to life. 
  • We offer a kinesthetic experience of being in a room that has been designed differently. 
  • We create a space where people can explore the adoption of a new mindset and come away feeling energized about what they have discovered and explored. 
  • We help people see themselves as part of the interactive process and we help to bring the process to life. 

Taking the form of a two-hour breakout inside your event or a living lab that fully unfolds over a period of time, our immersive experiences are interactive, connected and generative, which results in more confidence about organizational strategy and allows a new culture of visionary leadership and competitiveness to emerge.

Corporate team after graphic facilitation session standing with their work from the day

Human Centered Design

by with No Comment People + Things We LoveThe Future OfWhat We Design

Human-Centered Design 

Traditionally, businesses have not prioritized human talents, assets and capabilities in their work. Focusing primarily on technological advancements, they’ve lost the balance of humans and tech – the future will require both. To develop solutions to human problems, you need to get to know the people you are designing for. It’s about understanding the human perspective. That’s why Human-Centered Design has become so popular. 

But what is Human-Centered Design?

Commonly used in design and management frameworks, Human-Centered Design is a creative approach to problem-solving. Commonly used in design and management frameworks, it sits at the intersection of empathy and creativity. It requires having a deep understanding of people (empathy) while seeing the bigger picture so you can arrive at something new, novel and useful (creativity).

Creating a culture of human-centered innovation requires teaching people new skills to use in their daily work. These human-centered design skills can spark enthusiasm, promote collaboration, provide repeatable innovation, and measurably impact your work. 

Using Human-Centered Design in meetings and events ensures creativity, innovation and engagement to create transformative change. Whether you seek to make a better product, process or service or just a better company, the activities should be people-focused. A Human-Centered Design approach empowers people to become creative problem solvers. Getting teams and organizations innovating on their own empowers everyone to make the business better.

At Idea360, we understand and use your learning models and process to meet your needs and that of your people. We humanize strategy and visualize change.

Our services are designed for those who are seeking new ways to problem-solve, build something innovative, better understand their organization or their clients, and ask questions in new and creative ways. 

Idea360 creates immersive experiences that help people imagine, collaboratively create and design a better future through strategic visualization, innovative meeting facilitation and interactive human experiences

We keep the human in process design and digital facilitation.