EMPATHY IS THE ESSENCE OF MY WORK

EMPATHY

The creative process is like a silent empathic conversation between my client, speakers, authors, the audience and my markers and heart.

Every person who contributed is part of the creation and I see it as my responsibility to ‘speak up’ visually for each of them. I like my work to be a visual reflection of what was meant to be said.

Just like a mediator mediates between different parties.

Visual summaries and infographics are excellent conversation starters with your (potential) clients. They can help explain complex information, contain multiple visuals and various amounts of text, which is why they are also functional to guide difficult conversations.

The content is either based on the summary of my listening to my client’s words, webinars, keynote speakers, lectures, audio recordings, etc., or it is based on text documents from which I retrieve the essential elements and come up with a concept and visual proposal.

Often visual summaries are created in A3 format. I employ my graphic design and visual communication skills as well as my empathic listening skills to reduce the complexity to the essence of the message.

To ensure what we create is serving, relevant and meaningful, we closely collaborate on selecting the final content and concept.

Depending on the purpose of the work, I believe that graphic recording during a live virtual can happen both visibly as invisible for the audience. Having the graphic recorder present in the background, harvesting the pieces that are used in a series of visuals or combined in one overview serves a higher purpose and offers a chance to increase value, output and stimulates conversations, engagement and connection.

Large sheets of paper, markers, a graphic wall and technical visual skills are the basic tools for graphic recording. A seasoned graphic recorder though, is fluently ‘speaks’ visual language so they can translate and capture what they hear into a meaningful and relevant summary. They also have high (empathic) listening skills and is able to both see the bigger picture as the essential details.

The dimensions range from approximately 1 by 1 meter up to lengthy walls. Most of them are 2-2,5 meters per piece, but larger ones can stretch for multiple day events. I work in English and Dutch, but can also collaborate with translators in other languages.

Learning maps are the result of my listening and visual note-taking during training programs. After I’ve listened, I structure the content, draw up models, and come up with visuals and visual metaphors to convey the meaning of the text. Meanwhile I compile the content in a map that gives a clear overview of it all. This helps the participants see how everything fits together and which relations exist between parts of the content.

The purpose of these learning maps is to increase the integration of the content after the training and supports future participants during and after the training. The trainer can be provided with visual content for presentation slides, workbooks and other (marketing) materials that help increase the impact of their communication, quality of the content and training.

Learning maps are an investment of resources both on your and my end and are therefore particularly interesting for re-occuring programs offered to larger audiences. Language variations are possible.

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Client experiences

“I am known as a ‘chatterbox’; I talk fast, I talk a lot, and am passionate about sharing as much knowledge as possible. Because it is ‘lots’ and ‘fast’, not everyone can keep up. I like visualising my examples too, but they remain mere words, and are never as powerful as images.

Therefore Mireille made a graphic recording of a 4-day summit that I organized. After every hour of training, Mireille published its visual representation.

This way, two things happened. Now participants could see in addition to hearing my words, suddenly some extra pennies dropped; often making them understand even better what the training had been about. Because Mireille made it visual, participants could not only understand the training better, they also remembered more.

It made an already powerful training even more valuable for my participants, during but also after our meeting.“

”All through the process of working with Mireille on several projects I have been impressed and delighted by what she brought in terms of skills at the level of content, very high reliability, ease of working together, creativity and empathic presence.”

I recommend Mireille, because she makes a very professional visual report of the webinar. The content of the webinar is clear at a glance and the results are made visual. The material is also of a very high level and you can use directly in your marketing. Mireille is also a very nice personality to work with. Besides she also advises you how to apply the content created and comes with surprising approaches and possibilities.

I can definitely say this helped me to easier get more clients and that it is an important part of the development of my company’s to make my materials visual as well. Now everything comes together and I can communicate much better and convince people of my message.”

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