Is Sketchnoting only relevant to people in creative roles?

Rachel writes : This blog is the first in a short series looking at some of the questions and feedback I have received recently.

I want to start with this question about the relevance of Sketchnoting to different roles. Sketchnotes make use of a combination of words and simple pictures and I confess that when I first started offering workshops introducing people to Sketchnoting, I thought that the people who would find Sketchnoting most useful would be people in roles that were clearly creative such as learning designers, writers and communicators. But over the last 6 years I have worked with a very wide range of professionals including forensic scientists, healthcare professionals, coaches, software designers, engineers, chemical regulations experts, librarians, educators, academic publishers, quality improvement teams, people professionals and yes, even some learning designers!

What continues to fascinate me is the wide range of ways in which these professionals are using Sketchnoting to help them to be even more effective in their work.  Lots of people are initially attracted to Sketchnoting as a way of making meaningful notes when attending meetings and conferences, but then find they can apply Sketchnoting to their work in many other ways. Through working with diverse groups and seeing the uses that they put Sketchnoting to, I have realised that Sketchnoting can be used not only for making notes, but for planning work, to aid reflection, for sense-making, as a flexible communication tool and many other uses.   For example, some coaches use Sketchnoting to create shared notes with coachees; managers have used Sketchnotes to map out processes with their teams and research students have used Sketchnotes to synthesize ideas from multiple data sources. Sketchnoting can be an aid to creativity as it enables you to make fresh connections and see things differently because of its use of visuals, layout and metaphors.

There is a huge amount of change in the world of work, with many roles facing constant change and requirements for new skills and behaviours.  Over the years many attempts have been made to suggest what skills will be needed in the future. One of the requirements consistently predicted for many roles is increased demand for creativity. So perhaps all of us could gain from having a go at Sketchnoting.

Let me know what you think.