Applause to the synthesizers

To those who make sense of mess.

Who connect the dots and help us understand what’s going on. 

To those who just look at a spreadsheet and know what’s going on. 

Who can succinctly summarize the outcomes of a meeting, the key points of a presentation, the plot of a film. 

We applaud you. We so need you. 

You work out what the key pieces are and deliver them to us with clarity, precision and brevity. 

You cut to the chase, get to the point, and bring things together so we can move things along. 

Your way of distilling and reducing, integrating without losing meaning and holding the important bits together is needed. 

In all of the information, you find a way through so we can follow. 

And then together we can decide and act, putting ideas into practice. 

To the synthesisers who comb through complexity and are able to bring a lot of information together in one piece, thank you. 

Please keep doing what you do. 

Look around and listen out for the synthesisers who help bring disparate pieces of information together, help build understanding and help make collaboration easier ... thank you. 

Know a great synthesiser? Get in contact with them and say thank you. 

Cough up that complexity furball

Go on ! *cough cough* Get it up... and out !

That furball of complexity that's lodged in your team's throat is disengaging, dull and not getting through to people across the business. 

But when you've got so much detailed information to get across to so many people - and you need to do it quickly, or you've lost them - it's no wonder we try for pages and pages and packs and packs and more and more... 

*cough*

I worked with a team recently, actually, four teams. They wondered how to present their four complex projects of work from the past months (and for some, years) of effort. 

How do you do that without losing some of the essence, the detail and depth that sits behind their key points?

These four visual storyboards did the trick!

*cough*

I created them on an ipad (using the app Brushes and my finger as a stylus). I have no artistic training by the way. It's about the thinking, not the drawing. The images were able to be printed out and laminated and 'spoken to' by the leaders of the projects. They could just as easily be projected on a screen.

Engaging, made-by-a-human, told-by-a-human and a sweet-as change from the hardcore digital stuff the leadership team had been pounded with up until now.

Now these visuals will go on a story tour around the business' offices and sites to share the message and the vision and so much more. 

• Sort through your thinking and your story.
• What does this audience really need to know?
• How can you deliver that in an engaging way? 
• And a final tip: you don't need a big-bucks agency to help you get closer to being a real human. 

 *cough*