DRAW WHAT MATTERS Wade Forbes “This is not going to work.” That was my first thought when I saw the plan for one session at the Braver Angels convention this summer. One session ran ninety minutes and moved twenty people across the stage to do it. A fifteen-minute talk, then someone else had seventeen minutes, then twenty-five, then two people would come out to dance. Stage would clear, and a piano would roll to the front for a song. If you run events, or you’re new to this kind of thing, I’m...
29 days ago • 2 min read
DRAW WHAT MATTERS Wade Forbes This past year, I had a fantastic experience that helped me shape how I interact with all of my clients now, in a great way. A client flew me out to their company all-hands, which is not anything new. Here’s the transformative (for me) part…alongside the drawing, they asked me to run a session for the whole room on how to work with a graphic recorder. Whoa. Thirty minutes on the practical side of the work: when to pass along the agenda and materials ahead of...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
DRAW WHAT MATTERS Wade Forbes The World Cup is happening right now (sad that it’s winding down, actually). TVs around the world are tuned in, and it's taken the US by storm as well. Bars around the country were full of people you wouldn’t normally find rooting for the same thing. Strangers high-fiving on goals. Half the bar wearing the same colors. This camaraderie is real. And nowadays it seems, increasingly rare. A week or so ago, I spent a weekend watching the same thing happen, but this...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
DRAW WHAT MATTERS Wade Forbes You might say I got beat up this week. At least that’s how I put it. No bloody nose. Nothing dramatic. Nobody yelled at me, nobody pulled a contract. Just a series of small things that, taken together, sat on my chest for most of a week. The 11 PM email about a payment status. The math in my head about what the job should have cost compared to what I billed. (OOF!) The internal negotiation about whether to send another follow-up on an unpaid invoice that’s been...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
DRAW WHAT MATTERS Wade Forbes When I first started this business, I had it in my head that being a graphic recorder meant “to show up and draw”. For a while, that’s what I did. Got hired, showed up, drew, went home. The client got the boards. Vibrant, colorful, and engaging, and I figured they had what they needed. Along the way, and somewhere around 500 events later, I know that my job is more than that. The drawing is the visible part. But I would argue that there are three other parts that...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
DRAW WHAT MATTERS Wade Forbes I have a conspiracy theory that I think needs to go viral and could use your help. What if the Scots invading Boston for the #worldcup knew exactly what they were doing by spreading copious amounts of joy in the U.S.? It’s easy for us to be stuck in our own mud. The mired goop of polarization from political social media posts thrust at us constantly, and all the while, the world is watching us too. The world sees that the people of the U.S. have forgotten about...
2 months ago • 1 min read
DRAW WHAT MATTERS Wade Forbes Halfway through the weekend of a youth retreat this past spring, I observed something profound (at least to me)…a few kids took off their headphones and started drawing during my lesson. The rest of the weekend, those headphones had been on. For this group of kids, the retreat had a lot of stimulation going on. The singing, the yelling (the good kind), the dancing, the emotion of some of the talks. These kids needed a quiet space, like many of us do, and the...
2 months ago • 2 min read
At the end of May, I went to three different events. A celebration of life, a church cookout, and a neighborhood block party. As usually happens when meeting new people, we started talking about what we do for a living, meaning I’d give the same answer I’ve been giving for nearly seven and a half years. I draw summaries of meetings. And the same thing happened next, each time. The other person nodded. They sort of didn’t really get it. So I’d reach for my phone to show them a picture of the...
3 months ago • 2 min read
What if I asked you to draw me an S…not just any s, but the S. Right now, on whatever's in front of you. Bet you could do it, or at least picture it. Six lines first, three and three stacked on top of each other. Pointy at the top, symmetrical, shaded so it looks 3D. You know the one I'm talking about. Megan, the boys, and I did it the other night. All four S's, lined up. You could barely tell whose was whose. You probably just drew the same one too. And if not, I bet you will soon, next time...
3 months ago • 2 min read
