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Think With Ink®

Dive into the world of visual thinking with our blog. At Lizard Brain, we specialize in visual facilitation. Based in the Washington, D.C. Metro Area, we offer teams across the country an evolved approach to brainstorming, helping them unlock their full creative potential and achieve breakthrough results.

Here on our blog, we share insights, tips, and stories about the power of graphic facilitation and recording. Discover how to transform your meetings, spark creativity, and achieve breakthrough results. Join the conversation and learn how to make your ideas truly visible.

Chris Cushing Chris Cushing

Personal Visions: Creating High-Performing Teams with Shared Aspirations

Unless you have a deep admiration for the management philosophy of the Enron corporation, you’d probably agree that collaborative team environments are valuable assets in any organization. At Lizard Brain, we partner with organizations to intentionally design and develop high-performing teams and collaborative environments.

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Chris Cushing Chris Cushing

Crafting Clarity: How Visual Templates Transform Group Decision-Making

Unless you have a deep admiration for the management philosophy of the Enron corporation, you’d probably agree that collaborative team environments are valuable assets in any organization. At Lizard Brain, we partner with organizations to intentionally design and develop high-performing teams and collaborative environments.

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Chris Cushing Chris Cushing

From Chaos to Coherence: Navigating the Pitfalls of Hybrid Meetings

Navigating the challenges of modern meetings often involves choosing between in-person, virtual, or hybrid meetings. Hybrid meetings, where some participants gather in a room and others join virtually, seem like a flexible solution, but they come with huge drawbacks. At Lizard Brain, we universally discourage the people we work with from using hybrid meetings.

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The Power of Paper: Enhancing Discussions in Meetings

I’ll just say it. Presentations aren’t effective for communication. 

Vilifying PowerPoint is nothing new. But if no one likes sitting through a presentation where the speaker reads every single word on the slide, why on this green earth do we keep doing it? It’s monotonous, ineffective, and insulting to the intelligence of the participants.

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5 Ways to Facilitate Ambiguity

Dealing with facilitation ambiguity is a skill that every team leader, CEO, coach, or HR professional can benefit from mastering. By asking the right questions, you can navigate uncertainty with confidence and keep your group focused on achieving their goals.

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Appreciative Storytelling in 4 Parts

It can be tough for team members who live in the day-to-day reality of their work to easily articulate their organization's core purpose. As a remedy, some companies use elevator pitches

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Advice From a Hero

 “The only way to learn how to write and draw is by writing and drawing … to persist in the face of continual rejection requires a deep love of the work itself, and learning that lesson kept me from ever taking Calvin and Hobbes for granted when the strip took off years later.”

--Bill Watterson

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Implementing Visual Learning in Your Organization

Visual learning isn't just a trend; it's a powerful tool that can transform your organization. By integrating visuals into your workflow, you can improve problem-solving, boost retention, and streamline processes. For CEOs, business leaders, non-profits, and educators, mastering visual learning can be the key to unlocking your team's full potential.

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Create Space for Unscripted Insights and Flashes of Inspirations with Morning Percolations

There’s a temptation to jam as much content and activity into an agenda as possible, to demonstrate that “we’re being productive.” But really meaningful group work happens in the spaces and discussion between the prompts and presentations and prescribed activities. There’s something inherently awkward about saying, “We’ve created a structured activity for you to be as innovative and inspired as possible!” So how do you create space for those flashes of inspiration without overprescribing and smothering the spark of creativity? How do you bottle group lighting?

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Persuade and Decide: "Meet me in Paris"

Where would you meet me if all I said was, "Meet me in Paris?" This seemingly simple question can unmask the intricate layers of group decision-making dynamics. Interestingly, most people would answer "The Eiffel Tower." But why?

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Case Study: Four Visual Methods FasterCures Used to Advance Research Partnerships

In late 2019, the FasterCures team within Milken Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think focused on accelerating measurable progress on a path to a meaningful life, hired Lizard Brain for visual notetaking at their annual Future of Health Summit. FasterCures leads a network of patient organizations focused on advancing research into diseases that sometimes fly below the radar of the big pharma companies and the disease research industry.

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Why Every Professional Should Consider Visual Facilitation

Visual facilitation is making waves in various industries. Imagine transforming your meetings and workshops into dynamic, engaging sessions where everyone is on the same page. This blog will guide you through the benefits of visual facilitation and explain how it can be a game-changer for professionals in business, education, and team facilitation. Let's explore who can benefit the most from this approach and how it can revolutionize your next session.

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Science-Backed Engagement: Transform Meetings with Visual Facilitation

Meetings often get a bad rap for being dull and unproductive. But what if we told you there’s a game-changing technique that can turn mundane gatherings into dynamic, collaborative experiences? Enter visual facilitation—a cutting-edge approach backed by science that significantly boosts engagement and drives impactful results.

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