Whenever we start a new client engagement, we begin by working to understand our target audience. Who are they? And what is it that they are looking for?
Another way to frame that question is to ask, “What keeps them up at night?.” If you can figure that out, then you can begin to understand how to best address their needs. If you’re striving for solutions, it’s best to begin with the end in mind and work backward from there. So what keeps you up at night? How about a little Visual Meditation doodle therapy to clear your head?
Okay pencil and paper ready?
Sketch it, scan it and upload it to our xBlog activities Group on Flickr.
- Exercise: Draw a big head and fill it with the things you worry about
- Optional: Add a speech bubble
- Flickr tag: xworries
Doesn’t it seem like life is moving faster and faster every day? We’re always moving from one fire to another and we become consumed by pressing deadlines and client satisfaction, while giving little thought our own mental health.
This week for our Visual Meditation, let’s take a few minutes to think about the things that make it all worthwhile and bring relief from the craziness.
Think about the things in your life that make you happy.
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At XPLANE we love to draw. In fact, our entire approach relies on drawing as a means to get people thinking, talking and sharing so we can better understand all the information that resides in their heads — or in an organization or elsewhere.
Visual language is a very powerful way of doing that because words can be deceptive. Pictures however, can be universal and help bridge those communication gaps. As our founder Dave Gray says “If it can’t be drawn, it can’t be done.”
Even prehistoric people used drawing to communicate and to understand their world. They used cave paintings to develop strategies and maps for hunting buffalo and finding water, or simply to relate to their world. Our ability to draw is innate. Every five-year-old in the world knows they can draw, enjoys it and will not hesitate to show off their abilities — sometimes on walls! The problem is that as we get older we talk ourselves out of drawing because we’re not as good as we think we need to be — or we’re told that “that’s for kids.” So even though it’s fun and can be very therapeutic, we’d rather not be embarrassed about it so we let it go.
Well, forget all that. We want to encourage all of you to draw and we have some simple exercises that we think will help get you going. Let’s call them “Visual Meditations.” They are short, weekly drawing exercises developed to encourage visual thinking and to reignite your innate ability to draw and communicate with pictures.
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