April 28, 2008

Power of a Vision Statement Visualization Tip by Dave Gray, Founder and Chairman of XPLANE Vision statements are designed to clearly and concisely convey the direction, purpose and value of an organization. A powerful vision statement will effectively communicate goals, motivate teams towards a common future vision and align the organization. Below Dave Gray presents easy techniques to make any vision statement come to life. Materials Large "stickies" or index cards Markers Digital camera Meta TIME | Short (5-10 minutes) DIFFICULTY | Low PARTICIPATION | Medium GROUP SIZE | Variable How IMAGINE THE RESULT | Close your eyes. Imagine the result you want in your mind's eye. Imagine it happening in real life. WHAT'S IT LOOK LIKE? | Now imagine yourself as a "fly on the wall" observing the event. Observe it as objectively as possible. What do you see? THE PAGE IS THE STAGE | Now think of yourself as a film director whose job it is to visualize the scene for a movie. Think of the page in front of you as a stage, on which you'll visualize the scene. What "props" do you require for your set? Who are the actors? What are their roles? What is the action? What are the people saying, thinking and/or doing? DRAW IT | Now, from the perspective of that "fly on the wall" try to draw the scene as you see it. SHARE | When done, everybody can present their vision to the group in order to provide not just a goal to reach for but a metric for success for the session or meeting itself. Supporting Links: Communication Nation Blog Think Visual VizThink Visual Thinking School xBlog: Visual Thinking Blog   Retraining a Sales Force on New Service Offerings XPLANE Deploys a Comprehensive Training Program Increasing competitive pressure from abroad prompted Eaton Corporation's Truck Group to investigate new and profitable service opportunities. XPLANE was asked to help educate an experienced sales force, accustomed to selling manufactured products, on a host of new service offerings. Business Challenge: A new "black box" service offering needed to be added to the repertoire of Eaton's seasoned, yet product-focused, sales force, creating challenges as a result of targeting clients outside Eaton's usual customer base. XPLANE Solution: XPLANE conducted a client consulting session and recommended the following tools to facilitate change in Eaton's sales force: A visually engaging PowerPoint deck that illustrates Eaton's strategic direction and motives. Descriptions of how the black box service works. Further preparations defining the new sales cycle and approach for selling services. An informal learning card deck featuring pitfalls and solutions to facilitate conversation and success. Training on how to use new sales tools efficiently. Business Results: The Truck Group's sales team had an enthusiastic and immediate reaction to the new training. Requests were soon made for additional support materials. Eaton continues to utilize XPLANE's approach as the company's service offerings evolve.   XPLANE's ability to synthesize a complex solution and develop a meaningful, yet "cool" picture that communicates our solutions to our customers and sales teams delivered high value to our sales enablement program. Josh Buckley, HP Services Upcoming VizThink Events Are you a visual thinker? Do you want to learn from some of the best in the industry? VizThink is offering a series of one-day workshops all around the United States. These workshops will help you improve your visual thinking skills. Visual Information Workshop Register now! May 2, 2008 8:00 am - 5:00 pm NEW YORK: Dave Gray, Founder and Chairman of XPLANE, and Karl Gude will run this workshop at the Crowne Plaza White Plains. May 7, 2008 8:00 am - 5:00 pm CHICAGO: Dave Gray and Karl Gude will run this workshop at the Conference Center at UBS Tower. For more infomation on the upcoming workshops VizThink.com. VizThink Europe '08 Oct. 12 - 14 2008 Berlin, Germany Come visit the XPLANE booth and meet the team! For more infomation on VizThink Europe '08 visit: VizThink.com

Campus Management Corporation Sr. Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer Tim Gilbert XPLANE: Please explain the business challenge you set out to solve. Tim Gilbert: I contacted XPLANE because I knew they had a proven process to help us prioritize things and convey them in a simpler, more compelling way. We want universities and colleges seeking a more student-centric, customer-friendly approach to Enterprise Resource Planning to understand that Campus Management is a visionary leader in administrative software. XPLANE: What was your deliverable designed by XPLANE? Tim Gilbert: First, a large wall poster that captures the value proposition and vastness of Campus Management's platformbut also something that could be used systematically throughout our communications, a part of the core brand. Click here view Campus Management Value Proposition XPLANE: How did visual thinking techniques aid in the process of clarifying the challenge you wanted to address? Tim Gilbert: Product managers are incredible people, but as evangelists of products, it is challenging to get commitment to a few well-chosen words that really set you apart. Engaging XPLANE literally means locking yourself in a room for a day, to arrive at some very crisp, thoughtful differentiators. Having XPLANE in the room brought not only a process to the proceedings, but impartiality as well. Hey, they were college students once, too, right? XPLANE's people are strong thinkers to have at your table. XPLANE: What kind of feedback or results did you receive on the project? Tim Gilbert: The project helped us convey our vision for the "One Campus Ecosystem," the idea that you can have one computing system as the backbone to all your administrative and online education needs. Our company has been recognized by Gartner as "visionary," our flow of sales leads surpassed last year's totals before the end of three quarters, and most importantly, our sales people, board and executives are now aligned to a singular, distinctive expression for our strategy. XPLANE: Would you choose XPLANE for future projects and why? Tim Gilbert: Yes, I think the next step is to help us expressing what our software programming interfaces and our consultants can to streamline business processes and unite various software systems.

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