Welcome, Ewan. Thank you. Thanks for joining
us for our second Think Visual YouTube series.
We have started it this year, so it's been really,
really fun and exciting to speak to all the speakers
privately. And this is my first one, so it's
going to be fun. Cool. I'm delighted to be here.
So, first of all, you're wearing a Sketch Note
Army t -shirt. Yes, I am. I came prepared. I
don't have a shapeshifter's one. But you're a
Mike Rode fan. I am now. Funnily enough, though,
I came to that later. I know a lot of people,
the gateway drug, the introduction was Sketch
Note, Mike Rode. But for me, it wasn't. To me,
I came to it later. And I came to it because
I was, early on in my visual journey, I was...
looking for inspiration from other visual artists
and I got into the podcast and I would scribe
the podcast. Oh, that's awesome. In real time
and try and pick up all the styles and learn
from the styles of these amazing visual artists.
Oh, that's a great way to learn. Yeah. I actually
didn't know about the podcast until a year ago
when Mike reached out to Alan to do an interview.
And then I did an interview with him recently
as well. So that was cool. But yeah, he was actually,
his book was one of my first introductions to
sketchnoting. and you've got i've got the book
yeah you've got all that i'm a tall fan boy now
yeah this is my favorite uh paper book because
the you cannot get bleed through it's amazing
paper and it if you are new to it it does have
all the little you know that the high level stuff
that he talks about the patterns etc it's awesome
so a great introduction um i think traffic maybe
graphic gear i got this from yeah and while we're
on the subject of toys this is my favorite of
our pens The Fudenosuke with the hard tip. Is
that Japanese pen? Yeah. So I'm a bit of a New
Orleans fanboy because I was Bacablo originally.
But this is my favorite pen. I use this for everything.
Okay. Maybe you'll send me a link and we'll put
in the notes. Okay, cool. Big shout out to Sketch
Note Army and to Graphic Gear. So Graphic Gear
is Melbourne based, right? They provide all the
Neuland gear for Australia. And Neuland, the
big pens, I've got some in my bag, the big pens
for facilitation and that kind of work, the Neuland
wedge tips are unbeatable. But the smaller ones,
I prefer this fella here. And if you do order
from Graphic Gear, this isn't an advert, by the
way, but if you order them, you get these lovely
little personal notes from the company. Very
thoughtful. yeah we'll put a note we'll put a
link in as well for all the australia -based
artists and i might get a discount for mentioning
them we'll make sure to tag them so they know
that so um tell me a little bit about you like
how did you what's your story so funnily enough
when when i was thinking about about coming in
today i was thinking about was i you know everyone
says you're you're really artistic as a kid And
I don't think I was. But then I started thinking
back. Visuals were always important to me because
I didn't read when I was young. The teachers
couldn't get me to read. So one of my teachers
at primary school used to draw stories for me
with little stick figures. And they were about
things that I was interested in at the time,
like soldiers and football and this kind of stuff.
And she'd draw these little personal stories.
And that got me into reading. And I loved comic
books, specifically Asterix the Gaul, if you
know Asterix. And then I wasn't, I don't think
I was a visual learner. I'm a note -taker supreme,
but not visually. And I drifted out of, I had
nothing to do with visualisation, although I
almost became an architect, and I loved technical
drawing. I ended up not going down that route,
chose another route, which I kind of regret to
this day. What was the other route? Project management?
No, it was to do with building. Okay, still in
that realm. In that realm, but not missing the
creativity. And I think this is what led me back,
was a need for creativity. And so, I think it
was 2021, so it was in COVID because it was all
virtual. I was... Getting really frustrated at
the lack of cut through you get when you write
blogs and stuff like this. And people just don't
have the attention. And so I, it was a guy, a
friend of mine, Fran, who's now out in WA. He
started posting these little things on LinkedIn,
these little one, little single visuals. And
so I pinged him and I said. what the hell is
that? And he goes, oh, I did this thing called
Bicablo, which is the German codification of,
you know, making visualisation simple and available
to everyone. Ideas, not art, as they say. And
so I did a two -day course with Mark Hundleby,
who's the trainer, the Bicablo trainer in Australia,
and it just blew my mind. I posted on LinkedIn,
I think, and various other things like Facebook
the next day with my first ever picture. And
a week later, I was presenting at a town hall
just to do with work. And I had this huge visual.
And all of a sudden, people were just going,
like, they were responding. And all of a sudden,
the message that was landing on deaf ears when
you were talking or showing slides, just a one
-page visual was just, like, getting so much
attention from people. That's incredible. Wow.
It was. And, like, so it became a bit of a, I
couldn't stop. i did i kind of said to myself
i'm going to draw every day i almost did that
not quite but for two years i almost drew every
day even if it was just a little doodle and i'm
going to share pretty much everything so i agree
i made a commitment to myself that i would work
openly and so it's quite funny now i look back
and i'm like geez these are terrible but that
was the journey that's amazing so you were sharing
it on linkedin or was there yeah was it internal
at work both okay so i i did get a bit of a name
at work for i was a griller posting so i draw
i draw like a poster about something and i'd
stick it up in the kitchen at work around and
around the place next to the lifts and so all
these like nobody ever took them down they're
probably well the building's not there anymore
but but that's during covid so people were probably
very happy to have a little bit of a you know
something different happening yeah and it was
great like I had a whole bunch next to the lifts
and people would just be waiting for the lifts
and they'd be like you could see they were engaging
with the content it was work content and it was
just that was quite inspiring and I was also
posting on the internal work sites the workplace
there and I had like One of the C -level, I won't
name names, but somebody who's, you know, one
of the very senior people at Macquarie would
be, was pinging me going, talk to me about this.
And so I got a few little gigs like, you know,
sketchnoting and stuff around the place. Was
there much awareness about sketchnoting before
that? No, there had been a little bit. A friend
of mine now, Stephen... uh steve had had done
some sketch noting previously and run a couple
little courses which myself and another uh graphic
type uh kevin stuck we we rebooted that and uh
we i think we taught sketch noting basics to
like about 150 people over over a couple years
um so that there had been a little bit but uh
you know i it was it was my i was so into it
that you know i was gathering all the anyone
who had ever drawn anything was i got them posting
it and it was great and uh that the the sea level
person i mentioned that um i was talking to her
about sustainability because i've drawn this
picture and posted it and and she was she was
asking questions and she sent me away with some
homework can you draw this thing around sustainability
in the bank. And so I went and did it. And she
goes, you know, nobody ever gives me visuals.
I'm a visual person. And it kind of, it left
a mark because you think, you know, busy, you
know, highly thought of professionals. Like,
why would they be into visuals? But, you know,
they're humans. They love visuals. It's actually
really interesting because I can't think of anyone
who doesn't say, I mean, I know it's not 100
% of people are visual, but almost every client
we've had has said, oh, you know, this is really
good because I'm a visual person. You know, I
really can get it. I'm on board. But it's often
I think we find that. it's hard to get it into
like get buying within an organization and it
sounds like you kind of really really were a
champion within like internally yeah and you
know we macquarie had a tech conference and and
i pulled together i think it was about 10 of
us and we went to all these different um sessions
and every you know people sketch noted all the
different uh things and we posted them and got
a great response the one thing i would say is
In a big corporate organization, you will push
up against things like branding. So whilst on
a personal level and an informal level, people
love the drawing, you're not going to, my experience
was, the brand is very protected. They're not
going to post it online or anything like that.
Yeah, so I post on LinkedIn. i also use instagram
but you know that's me outside of any but i find
that these kinds of visualizations they're really
useful and very valuable internally just to for
everyone to just for teams to be engaged for
everyone to be on the same page like you know
i don't know if you've used it in meetings yeah
so that's that's probably where i use it most
yeah um facilitation um just shared understanding
if we're brainstorming things like that. Yeah.
Yeah. And do you find that engagement is higher?
Oh, yeah. Deeper? Yeah. So as part of my role,
I, you know, I've run a lot of retrospectives
over the years and I would really use, I mean,
Sarah talked about she loves the sailboat. I
would never use a sailboat. I would draw something
specific for that team. oh okay interesting so
in context yeah totally or i don't know if you've
looked through books through some of my work
but i i love like pop references and movies and
this stuff and so uh i quite often you know use
that kind of things like harry potter retro you
know these kind of things that's really great
because i think most people can relate to those
you know and it kind of breaks the the you know
pretense of you know we're in a professional
setting sometimes you really need those human
stories that you relate to the most yeah i think
there's i have got caught out a couple times
where you you have an assumption like i think
it was i did something it might have been three
little pigs or something and i thought that that
was a universal story apparently the teams in
india didn't know the story oh that's interesting
yeah i can't remember if it was the three little
pigs maybe that is a universal story but i think
you know the the cultural side of it you have
to be able you know you can't assume that everyone
has seen an Indiana Jones movie yeah that's true
that's that's interesting because when we're
live live graphic recording at an event or something
like that often we do use pop culture references
and it's not always sometimes it's because it's
coming up in the conversation you know when there's
a workshop something like that lots of times
it's you know casual conversations so people
do reference things that are quite personal but
Sometimes it's just an idea that we just thought
of because of our experience. I'm a big fan of
Indiana Jones or Star Wars, and so I'll draw
something like that. And yeah, we don't often
think about it in terms of everyone needs to
know it. That's interesting. I feel like it's
still OK, though, because. There is an aspect
of graphic recording that's very personal to
the artist, right? It's kind of an art and science.
So you're listening, you're synthesizing, but
at the same time you're bringing your own experiences
and your own hobbies and everything you enjoy
into it to create a really good piece of art,
right? Yeah, it's your interpretation. Yeah,
yeah. So Mark, my trainer, when I did Baccablo,
as part of Baccablo, the two -day course, we
did a little bit of graphic recording. I still
find that the hardest of all the visual arts
is the real -time graphic recording. But Mark
talked about, you know, don't overdo it. You
just want the key points. And specifically, this
clearly registered with me. He said, look for
those little... human moments their sides the
you know when the presenter says something off
the cuff makes a joke it's like if you capture
those things six months later you'll go back
and you'll look at a sketchnote and you'll be
like ha I remember that and it's like you know
those are the human moments yeah exactly they're
the most memorable moments as well so everyone
there would have remembered them so they can
actually act as a bit of an anchor totally and
you know you think about how you would if you
were recording just you know a very dry note
-taking style you would you probably ignore that
because it's not the content yeah true but what
you know what you learn when you when you're
visualizing is that's the key moment that's the
anchor i guess that's the difference between
note -taking where it's more like minutes and
it's more objective and graphic recording where
you're telling a story so it's much more emotional
yeah and i i'll go back to My own experience
is that six months down the line, I've got a
couple in here. This is a new book, so I don't
have a lot, but that was the Sydney Design Meetup.
And just a couple of little things that they
jumped out. So there was something about democratising
optometry. So I've done Harry Potter's glasses
there. And there was a thing about severed limbs.
I don't know if you remember that. It was the
play park, I think, wasn't it? And those are
things you remember. That was really funny. Yeah.
And also scary, a little bit scary. But yeah,
yeah, exactly. And when you're graphic recording,
actually, I'm curious because you said you were
a very, like a note taker. And I also, when I
was growing up, I was a very good note taker.
So I would pride myself on not missing one word.
Like I can actually write exactly what everyone
was saying, right? How did you move from that
to, you know, you kind of need to let go a little
bit, right? I've not totally moved, I'll be honest
with you. You can knock this off the camera later,
but I still find myself, like this is an online
book that makes it easier, but I still have,
books of line notes they do tend to have little
doodles in them I sign all my work ATW which
is a thousand words that was what it stood for
and that was as much a challenge for me as it
was some kind of you know name it was a challenge
for myself to go I can either write a thousand
words or I can do some graphic work and some
easter eggs, visual easter eggs as we call them.
So I've not totally got over the note taking
yet. Yeah, I totally get it. I understand. But
yeah, I find it interesting because I think it's
definitely a different, like you're using a different
approach because when you're note taking you're
just kind of downloading everything exactly as
it is but when you're drawing you're kind of
processing and thinking a bit more and you're
yeah and that's that's exhausting and that's
really hard to hold those you know hold the listen
in one ear and pause you're still processing
the previous piece and trying to come up with
something creative there but I do think you're
it is an act of creation and I think that's that's
the the real difference is that you you're putting
so much energy into it Even something as, you
know, a little teddy bear in a box or the L90
bus here going up to Palm Beach. That was Lara's
when she did her talk at Think Visual. You put
so much energy into the process that you are
listening really hard. So I think you compare
that to just scribing line for line. It's just
going. going over your head yeah yeah you just
have to kind of read it again later yeah and
you know i'm not saying you can't take stuff
in like that but i come back to notes six months
later and it's it's lost on me i come back to
a picture six months later and i'm like oh yeah
so what's the biggest thing you want to bring
out of visual thinking like your practice of
visual thinking in your own context or in your
own career so whilst i use it in my job as an
agile coach. For me, the biggest thing is I'm
an activist. I read deeply and think deeply about
what I would call the meta -crisis, the big wicked
problems of our time. And for me, visualization
is fundamental to that. So I started out trying
to... draw these interlocking systems and it's
just too big but the the visualization helped
me get my head around you know the relationships
between systems and and the interplay between
systems and then how I try to how I try to articulate
that is the real challenge and that's probably
where I'm going to go with with the talk that
we're going to do is How do you communicate huge,
huge subjects in one visual? It's not easy. And
so I started out trying to draw everything and
my evolution has led me to little moments. So
I tend to now draw small pictures as opposed
to big, overblown visuals that try and connect
everything. Now I'm tending to... to pick up
on a small moment. So I recently did a bunch
of, I think, six maybe cartoons. I've never done
a cartoon strip. So I did this, created these
characters called Sushi and Sprat. And it was
all about essentially what the plastics are doing
to the ocean. And it was little moments to try
and articulate big problems. And I don't know
if you're, I'm a bit of a musician and there's
about to be a word for this in German. I should
have looked it up. But if you're familiar with
Billy Bragg's music, He sings these songs that
are little kitchen sink dramas, little personal
stories, but he's telling the big systemic problem.
He's talking about the big cultural thing that
this exists within. That's very interesting.
That's cool. It sounds like it actually has more
impact than trying to tell the whole story because
that would be very overwhelming. Yeah. So that's
what you want to do. I still do, I still occasionally
go back to those kind of big relationship pictures.
But what I've found is that it is overwhelming
and you can't do it justice. Complex systems
are so, the relationships are, there's so many
more relationships than you can even understand.
And so I think. trying to visualise all of them
is a redundant task anyway because you're going
to miss some just through your own lack of knowledge.
Yeah, that's interesting. I think what you're
trying to do with those little stories is very
important. Have you heard of systems thinking?
Yeah. Yeah, so I think systems thinking definitely
makes use of visual thinking to try to tell those
really complex stories and complex systems. But
I think the biggest role visual thinking plays
is... collaboration so being able to bring all
the different voices all the different people
who do different roles or different aspects of
the system together to be able to visualize it
and bring it all into okay what's the biggest
big picture and then how do we zoom in on on
those little things but it is definitely a big
a very big project yeah it is and so i i kind
of i when you're talking to when sarah was giving
a talk she was talking about uh was it venn diagrams
and stuff yeah and i i sort of see i see activism
in three ways this is just my view of it so i
see there's it starts there's the first thing
is self so like what is my own education like
what is my own actions that I can take. At the
other end of the scale, there's how people come
together, so movements. So when I'm doing a lot
of my visualisation around things like the Metacrisis,
I'm targeting this space. I'm trying to get people
thinking about topics, you know, plastic in the
ocean, whatever it may be. But then in the middle
here, there's community. And I know a lot of
the work that you and Alan do so beautifully
is around community. And so I think I tend to
draw either for myself or for the movements,
but I think there's also, there's probably, I
need to be more active in the community, but
also that will probably lead me to drawing more
at a community level. So that's just how I see
activism as those three. Maybe they're, I don't
know if they're interrelated or whatever. Yeah,
I was just going to ask if they somehow overlap.
Well, they definitely overlap. Whether they're
subset of each other, I'm not 100 % sure. I don't
think they are because I think, yeah, so it's
probably, Sarah will be really upset with my
rubbish Venn diagrams, but it's probably something
like that. And communities in the middle. I think
it is. I think it, because it's both macro and
it's human interaction too. It's kind of like
they're leading into each other. Yeah. Because
you can't start a movement by yourself and you
need a community. But to start a community, you
need the self. Yeah. So, I mean, I think it all
starts with self -education and with passion.
And with action, you know, how can I live my
life in a way that is authentic to... creating
the systems in the future that I want for my
kids and for myself. So I think it starts with
yourself and you know if we were training leadership
teams we'd probably have that same line as well
for coaching leadership teams. But me tilting
at windmills is a redundant process. Well it's
not redundant but it has little reach. If you
can build movements around these ideas then that's
when we'll get change we'll get societal change
and we'll start moving the systems to to be more
fit for purpose amazing yeah do you have an easy
job easy job yeah big job um do you have i guess
as we wrap up do you have any advice for people
who are who are in a similar position um and
maybe in a big corporation who they themselves
see the value of visual thinking but they don't
know how to perhaps or how would they actually
start starting a movement within their organization
so it's specific to visual thinking um you need
the courage to share i think i think you i the
stats i don't know what the stats are everyone
has different opinions but most people have are
visual in some nature yeah and People respond
to visuals. But lots of people, even if they
doodle on their own notes, don't share them.
So the advice I would give is start sharing,
even if you think it's embarrassing, that little
stick figure that you did. You share with your
team. You put a couple little visual Easter eggs
in your meeting notes and share with your team.
people will respond and from there it's about
dropping your ego and just it's you know i see
some of the visual artists around and i'm thoroughly
embarrassed at my sketches but it's about communication
it's not about um the best visuals um so if you
can communicate with your visuals then you're
doing everyone a favor including yourself i think
so don't be just share and you'll get that response
and and you know you might build other people
might start sharing theirs i i love that so basically
you're you're being a bit vulnerable you're allowing
yourself to be vulnerable and then other people
will just kind of be able to open up because
of that yeah and you know the i think vulnerability
is a great word for this like you know any form
of creativity but visualization you're putting
yourself out there It's an imperfect art. You're
never finished, but you have to share it at some
point. And I think we judge ourselves too much.
I think you're right. It's actually about thinking
and about communicating. And I love your drawings,
by the way. Everyone has a style and it's very
unique, but we're very tempted to judge ourselves
against others and kind of put ourselves in like,
oh, no, I need to get to this level. it's just
about going back to that child and kind of letting
go being like um you know whatever comes out
that's what i have at the moment yeah i guess
that's what opens up for improvement yeah the
the analogy i would use is you go like you go
to like a campsite and there's somebody has a
guitar yep and they play a little song on the
guitar and they're probably a million miles away
from being a professional musician but in the
moment It's authentic, it's beautiful, and people
sing along with them. And I think when it comes
to visualisation, that's kind of where I look
at some of the work and I'm like, I'm miles away
from that. But then I have people come up to
me and say, she should do this for a living.
And I'm like, I'm rubbish. But again, I think
it comes back to what we try to achieve. We're
not here to make beautiful art. We're here to
communicate. To achieve our purpose, to make
change through. Through visual thinking, right?
Yeah, and you don't have to be an artist to do
that. I mean, we've got Alan here who is an artist,
but not all of us come from an artistic background.
That's okay. I think that's healthy. Yeah, I
think Alan would say the same thing. Well, thank
you, Ewan. If people want to find you online
or connect with you, where should they go? So
the two main places I play is LinkedIn. And these
days I'm mainly focused there on the Metacrisis,
but also some agile work on LinkedIn. And Instagram,
ATW Visual is my little name, a thousand words.
And that's... It's a lot of the same content,
but I do post some things there that are probably
not applicable for LinkedIn. Just a quick story
to finish. The reason I chose not to use my own
name was because I thought I was going to be
this political cartoonist. And I spent two months
drawing Scott Morrisons. I had thousands and
thousands of Scott Morrisons. And thinking I'm
going to destroy this idiot politician. But I
started thinking of ideas and I couldn't even
come up with anything. The reality was so crazy
of what was happening at the time. I was just
like, I can't even do justice to the satire of
this. So that's why I chose a name that wasn't
me. I thought I'd better separate the professional
and the personal. But to be honest, I just post
the same things mainly. It's a good story. Also
a good name. I like a thousand words. It sounds
like it challenges you to just kind of keep going
as well. So we will link to all these in the
notes and people can maybe hopefully connect
with you. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for
having me.