Category: Visuals

I knew that the JRC, the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission that I joined only a few months ago, is a furnace of ideas and projects, and that the colleagues who work there are incredible people. I can see now how much I underestimated both things after I participated in the JRC Science Summit.

During 3 days, JRC colleagues offered sessions and workshops on the subjects that fascinate them, on which they work, all related to the present and future of the centre. As a graphic recorder, this was my task during the 3 days, I was amazed by the enthusiasm, the quality of the research, and maybe I didn’t understand everything either.

I was inspired by the visual identity of the event for my visual notes. I reused the color code to distinguish each of the 3 days while marking the continuity between them. Prior to the event, I created a separate canvas on my iPad for each of the 3 days, which I completed live during the event. Here is the result of the 3 canvases assembled to each other and the 3 taken separately:

Below is a small Prezi animation that goes into even more detail:

I want to thank my colleagues in the JRC who organised this event for giving me the opportunity to capture it visually, and especially Elke Hanssens for helping me put the material together.

I’d the privilege to visually harvest the first ever meeting of 2 communities in the EU institutions that are close to my heart, the data visualisation and the graphic designers communities.

As mentioned and repeated by the Directors-general of DG COMM, JRC and the EU publications office, these visual thinkers are crucial for the EU communication. With their visuals, communication is more impactful, clear, transparent, meaningful.

As communities, they expressed the same main needs: more sharing among members and communities, and peer support. Wishing them to work more together in collaboration with scientists, communicators, and policymakers.

A tribute to these colleagues who think and work visually:

I discovered after that my graphic recording app, Procreate, records in time lapse my work (all mistakes, attempts, modifications, corrections, etc included). You can watch in less than 5 minutes how I captured live the whole event that lasted a few hours. Interesting, instructive, isn’t it?

Conflict and tension are part of (work) life and can become toxic if ignored. If we address them with care, wisdom can emerge and we can foster safety and trust in our teams.

Based on non-violent communication (NVC) and Theory U, Raffaella Toticchi explained us the 4+1 steps to have the needed conversations in our teams to finally resolve the tension:

1. Clarify the tension, perceptions and observations
2. Invite (with care) to have a conversation
3. Bring out the elephant (in the room)
4. Go deeper in the di-alogue and sense-making
5. Resolve the tension and look at further agreements and actions

The talk was part of the “Coffee and Learn” initiative organised by the One-Stop-shop in DG JRC, European Commission.

To best support the EC’s new HR strategy, announced by Gertrud Ingestad Director-General for Human Resources at European Commission, a community of HR professionals has been constituted.

I had the privilege of attending their first meetings where they discussed how to translate their vision into practical ways of convening, collaborating and being user centric. A solid team of expert colleagues guides the first steps of this community of practice.

This is my graphic recording of the last meeting.

Welcome to the newborn.

How to run an hybrid team event, a workshop by Ljiljana Simic and Dale Coulter .

Main takeaway among many others: Spend 3* more time on preparation and 2* less time on planned activities.

My sketchnotes of the workshop: