THERE’S A MEETING FOR THAT

Why Pictures? Representing ideas visually can help meeting attendees ‘find their words,’ an IFVP conference organizer said.

Practitioners July 23–26, 2013 New York Marriott Downtown ifvp.org

Attendees 112

A Global Snapshot Fifty-seven attendees were from the United States; 55 were from 16 different countries.

Drawing on Walls Allowed Meeting-room walls were cov- ered with paper — and in some cases, so were the floors.

IFVP 2013 – International Forum of Visual

Drawn Together I

f there ever were a group to be voted “most likely to draw on a napkin,” it would be the attendees at the annual

meeting of 10-year-old IFVP, which brings together a grassroots network of diverse artists, illustrators, graphic recorders, graphic facilitators, and other people who, as the group’s web- site describes, “use visual methods to assist learning and communication between groups and individuals.” At IFVP 2013, held in Manhattan,

“Everybody was, at some point, scratch- ing their ideas out on paper” or, absent paper, “drawing in the air with their fingers,” said conference co-chair Dean Meyers, a New York–based visual facili- tator. Communication is the group’s bread and butter, and attendees behaved accordingly, Meyers said. “There were many dinner conversations that started out with four people and grew to 16.”

IFVP is growing Attendance at this year’s meeting — the largest ever — was 30 per- cent higher than at the 2011 meeting.

120 PCMA CONVENE OCTOBER 2013

Why it’s hot With the increasing use of infographics and data-visualization techniques, as well as the greater use of storytelling in business communication, “the whole field has exploded,” Mey- ers said. IFVP 2013 had three tracks: Graphic Recording, Business for Visual Practitioners, and Graphic Facilitation.

Making graphic jam “Graphic jams,” which have become a conference tradi- tion, work like this: There is a given group size, topic, and time frame, and at the sound of “Doodles!,” everyone draws. “It’s all done together,” Meyers said, “and everybody is looking over everybody else’s shoulder.”

Can you make an apple cry? This group can. A second full-group graphic-jam session was dedicated to anthropomor- phism. Other sessions included “How to Empower 300 People to Draw in 30 Minutes” and “Content Is King, Con- text Is Queen, Design Is the Pope.”

. —Barbara Palmer PCMA.ORG

PHOTO BY M. J. BROADBENT