Case Study: Building Engagement One Image at a Time

The Challenge: How to make a virtual event as productive as possible?

Last week, Kingman Ink joined an annual conference hosted by the Las Vegas My Brother’s Keeper Alliance. This event gathers all stakeholders, from legislators to educators, to work on improved educational and mental-health outcomes for boys and young men of color. Although this year’s event was virtual, the organizers wanted to keep the discussion vigorous. 

The Solution: Drive the discussion with graphic recording

We captured sessions in a series of graphic recordings. The completed images were displayed during the Q&A portion, maximizing impact and giving attendees a refresh of the big themes. Using these colorful summaries as a reference, attendees had more engaging questions and deeper discussions.  

More than just note-taking, the boards were evocative — with visual cues and imagery that captured both the information and its impact. Tapping into an emotional connection with what’s being said makes for a more engaged audience.

Participants also received the digital images post-event. Graphic recording is great for information retention, but it’s also a powerful communications tool. Sharing the images on social media helps spread important messages further.  

For more information about how Kingman Ink can draw in your attendees, contact us.

The Las Vegas My Brother’s Keeper Alliance is part of the My Brother’s Keeper initiative, launched by President Barack Obama in 2014. It’s focused on community approaches to racial justice, education equity, and building a culture of mental well-being for boys and young men of color.

Planning a virtual event? Think like a TV producer.

The new year brings with it new hope for having events face-to-face again. But even when “regular” life/conferences resume, virtual events will still be a big part of the conference mix.

So how do we make the most of this? Zoom fatigue is real. It’s easy for attendees to log on, check in, and then completely check out — putting a device on mute and getting lost in multitasking, missing valuable content and connection. You’ve got to make those online discussions come alive. But how?

Think of attendees as TV viewers. After all, it’s an on-screen broadcast. You’re not just programming an event, you’re producing a program — so think like a TV producer. Here’s your crash course!

1. Refresh Every 10 Minutes

Digital graphic recording of a virtual conference session by Kingman Ink. Graphic recording is done in real-time and can provide a fresh visual in lieu of slides.

Eyes wander, because brains wander! A talking head will eventually lose our interest because our brains want something new about every 10 minutes, according to the research. It’s your job to keep the screen dynamic, and online events let you decide where the “camera” is pointed at every moment. Creating a run of show is a great way to make sure your event stays visually interesting, creating spikes that refresh the attention span. Your schedule can switch focus between speakers and well-designed presentations with compelling images, or you can hire a digital graphic recorder to engage attendees with an evolving mural of the key points.

2. Invite Personal Connections

There’s nothing quite like the energy of a roomful of people. So you’ve got to pull attendees into the digital room with something that warms them up and sparks interaction. Start with a poll — people love sharing their opinions! In smaller groups, ask attendees to introduce themselves. Begin with something fun or unexpected that reaches through that screen — like a virtual trivia game with factoids about your event’s focus. Whatever you do, the key is to get participants out of their shells and their voice into the conversation.

3. Leave a Visual Trail

You’ve got killer speakers and topics. That’s it, right? Not quite. Signage is critical, even when you’re virtual. Forgetting prominent and repeated visual cues is a common problem with online events. Make sure the audience is clued in to the flow of the event — with sessions, speakers, schedules, and highlights integrated into the “show” itself. Even guidance on navigating your online platform makes attendees feel welcomed and helps drive traffic to all the right places (like an online sponsor exhibit). Make participants feel like you’re taking them along with you, and they’ll be less inclined to wander off. And since everyone’s multitasking these days, display info more than once!

4. Lean into the Small Screen

Andrew Davis demonstrates his lightboard.

Digital platforms have some clear advantages: a broader range of speakers and attendees, more integrated visuals taking centerstage (or center screen), seamless shifts between sessions. But with many speakers pre-recording their sessions, they’ll need a new toolbox to keep it interesting. Speaker Brian Fanzo has been experimenting with everything from animated avatars to Prezi video to help things, as he puts it, “stop sucking.” Andrew Davis, keynote speaker and former TV creative, has gone as far as filming in multiple locations for a talk, and even built his own lightboard for presenting. But it doesn’t have to be high-tech — you can do simple things like using Zoom’s annotate feature to highlight parts of your slides, or using physical props during your talk to emphasize your points. It also helps to film yourself while standing, so you can move around, and make sure to keep your eyes on the camera with a teleprompter app.

5. Give Your Audience a Reason to Watch Live

In 2020, streaming officially became king and the trend is only growing. People enjoy watching things at their own pace and on their own schedule. So how do you get an on-demand audience to join a live event? Davis recommends more immersive experiences that actually incorporate more live elements. “When so many people are asking for so much of your time to attend a virtual event on the day it happens, I think we're going to have to really come up with a smarter approach to being live.” Davis explains. Are there opportunities for interaction and networking that are only available to attendees who show up “on time”? What’s that can’t-miss element, that can only be experienced in the moment? For example, even if speakers are pre-recorded, they can be there for a live Q&A after the presentation.

What’s next?

As virtual events take up more of the conference space, it’s important to get it right. There’s more opportunity to expand what they can be. Davis says to look out for more Virtual Reality experiences like Spacial and Rec Room. You can watch his three predictions for virtual events in 2021 here.

You don’t need to be a TV exec or have a full-scale studio in your house. All you have to do is use some key guidelines to create a visually appealing and well-paced “broadcast.” Good luck!

Part of real virtual engagement is upping your visual game, and graphic recording can help! Contact us to find out how and schedule a demo.

4 Visual Tools to Kick Off Your New Year

A new year is a fresh start. I think we could all use that as we leave 2020 behind. So what plans do you have for 2021? What would you like to accomplish? It’s time to look forward!

For goals big and small, it helps to organize your thoughts, to figure out what you really want and how to keep yourself on track. What better way to do that than with some visualization? No artistic skills required! Read on for a few simple but rewarding ways to get inspired for 2021.

1. Map Your Goals

   • On an index card or piece of paper, write 2021 large in the middle.

   • For each area of your life in which you have goals this year, draw a line out from the middle. Write a descriptive word and maybe a small icon. You could make branches for things you want to be, do or have this year, or for areas such as body, mind, heart, and spirit. Let your intuition guide you and just get it all out.

   • As you make this high-level overview of all your goals, pay attention to which areas are overloaded with goals and which don’t have any. 

   • After you’ve gotten everything on the page, select the most exciting, important or critical goals and re-draw your map to reflect your new focus. 

   • Post your final map somewhere you can see it and it will inspire you throughout the year.

2. Prioritize projects with the $100 Test 

   • Play this game to sort out how to invest your resources. You can do this on your own as a personal exercise, with your partner, or with a team.

   • You need:

     • A list of items you’re prioritizing along the left of one sheet

     • Columns labeled “$” and “Why”

   • Now, imagine you have a total of $100 to spend on the list of items. The dollars represent importance of items, and you have to decide how to divvy up the $100 across the items on the list. Using this “false scarcity” helps focus wants and needs.

   • Jot a note about why each item was assigned its relative dollar amount.

   • Don’t let the literal costs associated with items on the list distract you — focus on the relative importance of the items to each other.

   • I adapted this exercise from one in the excellent book, GameStorming by Dave Gray and Sunni Brown.

3. Open Up Your View with a Wheel Calendar

   • The Idea Shapers by Brandy Agerbeck has a course called Draw in Your New Year.

   • Draw the largest circle your page will allow (or print this pie chart image and create a blank center with a mailing label, white-out or by gluing a small blank circle in the center).

   • Write the year and sketch a little avatar of yourself in the middle. 

   • You can create tracks for each area of your life (work, family, health, etc.) and note important dates as needed. If some activities or projects are seasonal, you can show them as an arc across several months.

   • If you really like this method, check out this gorgeous round wall calendar from the Round Method.

4. Color Your Goals

• One of the weaknesses of being human is we tend to forget pretty quickly just how far we’ve come. By making our progress visible, we give ourselves a motivational boost by seeing just how much we’ve done and how far we still have to go. When we’re keeping up the effort, we want to keep our chain unbroken. 

• You can easily make a fun habit-tracker. Simply draw some loose, organic shapes (about 30) on a page and fill one in each time you take the desired action. A big, colorful poster like this one from Poketo can make it extra fun. 

• If you want to create momentum by taking an action every day, download this free 30-Day Challenge tracker from Austin Kleon, or buy yourself this beautiful journal to see your progress unfold.

Cheers to a healthy, happy and productive New Year!

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