As online collaboration tools like Mural and Miro are adopted with increasing velocity, our comfort level with these platforms and the reality of continued remote work begs the question “what’s next?”

I ponder this question as a facilitator, concerned with tapping into the phenomenal potential of every individual and the drive for connecting, being relevant and making meaning.

The organic flow and energy of a group of people coming together to solve a challenge is a marvellous thing. And for the most memorable pre-COVID interactions, that flow often had a bigger story running through it.

More than a work project

In one project, I worked with a team of would-be astronauts who shared their ambition. They talked of a moonshot, and needing a big plan to get there. The industry was actually banking, and the challenge was to work out the market gap and prioritise their work streams.

Another time, a crew prepared for a journey across rough seas to a distant shore. An ocean-ready boat and a clear map to their destination were needed. In reality the technology team in this project was up against a deadline to stabilise critical systems and faced a series of complex decisions before they could move forward.

Then there was the challenge a group faced in creating the optimal design of of each room in a house. The house’s structure, plumbing and electricity were fixed, and there were competing needs and requirements for the internal theme and the various rooms. In reality, the team was working out how to translate a global directive to local needs. The house structure helped integrate two levels of strategy - global and local.

Or there was the time a restaurant team needed to understand the tastes and appetite of diners they had never cooked for before, then design a menu and try new recipes. In truth, this team was challenging the norms in their industry, exploring how they might overcome blockers like policy and regulation to serve an audience that had been previously been underserved.

The hero’s journey, thinking in pictures

What these projects have in common is the weaving of a theme and symbols that transcend time and culture. They each had elements of the hero’s journey – the team sets out, faces challenges, overcomes them, and moves towards to the goal. The hero is the team!

The use of themes and symbols embedded in a journey helped make the experience of co-creation more engaging and the outcome more memorable. The mental images stay with us, a brief reference such as “the new recipes” or “when we were all in the rocket on the way to the moon” immediately conjures visual imagery, helping us think in pictures.

More than tasks and post-its

Colourful post-its catch my eye as I scan across the plentiful digital canvases I’ve created or contributed to in Mural, and more recently, in Miro. Mostly the post-its appear on white templated backgrounds. Through digital workshops and interactions, the work was completed. But as I look across them, the canvases that jump out both visually and in my memory are the ones that carried a theme.

I love the process of my work and the architecting of workshop based interactions. I like to experiment, to see how I can upshift and how workshop design can enable better experiences and outcomes.

In recent remote workshops, I tried a new approach. Those same themes that worked in pre-COVID live workshops made an appearance in Miro. The backdrop was a landscape and all the activities of the workshop were experienced within that landscape.

A landscape used in Miro and Mural for online workshops: the team journeying in a boat

Shifting theming from a physical space to a virtual space required thinking about what would translate easily, what type of imagery to use, as well as specifics like layouts, navigation and staged reveals of the landscape. It does take abit more planning and effort than using one of the standard canvases. Perhaps it is unnecessary for every digital collaboration. However theming can be the twist that truly engages everyone and makes it more memorable.

Once you get started, it can be surprising how the metaphor can quickly evolve in all sorts of unexpected and fascinating directions. In one workshop the nautical theme extended to artefacts that reminded the participants of the decisions made together, including a ship’s wheel that listed out key principles. In another workshop, the topic of each person and each recipe’s “secret sauce” was an idea that lived beyond the workshop, turning differences into strengths.

The benefits of theming often run deeper. Participants have shared that the theme woven into a workshop provoked them to see a situation differently and helped shift thinking in ways that linear, and directly focused tasks would not have. Connections and relationships between elements have been found that may have been missed without the metaphorical layer at play.

The other advantage of theming with a visual representation, is that it can be forcing mechanism to get the whole story into one page, translating to immediate artefact generation. Getting the whole story onto one visual page is an approach that resonates in our world of information overload.

Endless possibilities

The potential for different themes to introduce energy to business topics and learning contexts is boundless. It’s worth shortlisting some potential themes to draw from, which will speed up the whole process of preparation.

I have a go-to list of themes, which lend themselves to some common challenges and anticipated artefacts. Four “tried and true” themes (landscapes) that I would use in a pinch in Mural or Miro are:

Launching the rocket: Identifying the goal, and the work to get there
Cooking in the kitchen: Creating new recipes / new ways of doing things
Boating in the ocean: Identifying the goal, obstacles, and aides along the way
Designing the house: Balancing different needs, strategies or approaches at the same time

These landscape images are available for download by clicking here.

Tips for theming digital collaboration

Theming can be used for a wide variety of situations and challenges. Here are some things to consider:

Theming with a hero’s journey format helps when there are multiple consecutive stages of co-creation and/or experience involved.
Theming with simple metaphors may be appropriate for shorter interactions.
Keeping in mind the audience and the situation is important, and common sense is required. Some themes and scenarios will be broadly relevant whilst others may alienate. If in doubt, test it out first.
Find a way to bring every participant into the landscape. It could be that each person has an avatar, a special colour post it, or their name on a key element within the landscape.
Depending on the depth and effort required in each stage, it may help to have different canvases that build up to the complete themed canvas. If rounds of divergent and convergent thinking are required, this can be done outside the main thematic visual with converged components then brought into the landscape.
Reconsider theming at all, if there is a risk that it will trivialise the topic or cause offence in any way.

A landscape used in Miro and Mural for online workshops: the team’s moon-shot plan

Not quite there yet…?

As I write this piece sitting at the dining table, my kids are gaming on their devices – at the same time as talking with their friends who are in the same game! The applications they are using to learn and play are colourful, fluid, and changing every day. They’re jumping between worlds, constructing, deconstructing, and constructing again.

Whilst we continue to interact remotely, I hope that we can bring some of that dynamism to our workplace interactions. Today it might be themed landscapes, tomorrow it might be augmented reality based workshops!

The way we interact to co-create will continue to change, and we’ll need to keep upshifting. To make a new recipe, design the best house, chart a course to the island or reach for the moon.

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