Issue link: http://www.insightdigital.biz/i/355934
40 | I nsIgh t • A u g u s t 2 0 14 w w w . i n s i g h t o n b u s i n e s s . c o m S tudents and CEOs alike fall victim to the three-day rule: an estimate that 90 percent of the information you hear is lost aer 72 hours. Accompany those same words with relevant illustrations, however, and memory becomes almost seven times as potent. Enter Mick Walsh, whose company sketchBiz turns drawing into a performance art, a blurring of the lines between the concreteness of artistry and the action of film. "As people talk, I draw," Walsh says. his primary technique, known as visual recording, involves standing at the front of a room, listening in to his clients' conversation and drawing out their ideas in real-time. "When you leave and this guy leaves, you don't go away with different thoughts in your mind because you can see it," he says. Introduced to visual recording little more than a year ago, Walsh founded sketchBiz last October. he has since been hired as a contractor by Crowley & Co. of Washington, Alchemy of Denver and school specialty of Appleton. his immediate success in the industry can be traced to his 35 years as a graphic artist and an interest in art from a young age. "In seventh grade I started drawing hot-rod cars and popular cars of the time, like Chevys, Corvettes and t-Birds with big engines, but I would put a monster driving the vehicle. And I did these with Magic Marker and I would do it on the backs of t-shirts." e going rate was $1. If you wanted color, $1.25. "From that time forward I always knew I could make a career out of drawing." From his upbringing in northern Illinois Walsh traveled, propelled by talent but subject to the uncertainties of the creative industry. he joined the navy during the Vietnam War and served for four years, returning to northern Illinois University to complete his degree in graphic design illustration. Aer living and working in Colorado, Boston and Minneapolis, Walsh took the position of creative director for school specialty in Appleton. e company's 2012 bankruptcy le him in freelance work, experimenting An image can be worth 6,500 words (give or take) Moving pictures in focus { s m a l l b u s i n e s s } B y S a m A l l e n with quick sketches for the new north and Fox Valley technical College. Ann Duginske, director of marketing and development at new north, Inc., worked with Walsh on the video for its Fast Forward 1.0 initiative. "It can be difficult to use very few words in that process, really condense the storyline," says Duginske. "e video was really effective for those who were visual learners and needed to see how everything fit together in a picture … and those who needed it to have a story and a description," she says. "ere were a lot of different needs, and this was able to bring a lot of needs together into one with a single unique solution." Walsh's success prompted him to take an entrepreneurship class at FVtC that exposed him to a field he had been well- Pictured is a self-portrait of visual recording artist Mick Walsh, who launched his company, SketchBiz, last year. C O U R T E S Y M I C K W A L S H