Doodling in the classroom may raise some eyebrows, but a local entrepreneurial artist is finding a receptive audience for her spontaneous drawings and designs in boardrooms and at meetings around Northeast Ohio.

Johnine "Jo" Byrne is a graphic recorder. Organizations hire her to translate seminars, workshops, brainstorming sessions and conferences — in real time — into images and text using colorful pens and markers on large sheets of paper.

"When the meeting starts, that big piece of paper is white, but by the end, hopefully it will be full of all kinds of juicy, good stuff," Byrne said.

A trained graphic designer with a degree from Rochester Institute of Technology, Byrne formed SeeYourWords, one of the region's few graphic recording services, about five years ago. She was working as a freelance graphic designer when the Jewish Education Center of Cleveland asked her to give graphic recording a whirl.

"Judy Schiller (director of JECC's Retreat Institute) had seen someone do it at a meeting in Washington, D.C., and was trying to find someone to do it here," Byrne said. "I said 'Yeah, sure I will do that,' then I panicked and tried to figure it out."

It works something like this: Byrne stands in the front of the room, usually to the side of the presenter. At first she listens and jots down key ideas and phrases in a notebook — much like anyone else taking notes. After a bit, however, she picks up her colored markers and begins sketching a visual interpretation of the spoken words with vivid illustrations and expressive lettering.

The lively mural of words and drawings, which happens right in front of participants, reinforces key concepts and helps with comprehension and retention, Byrne said.

"I am trying to leave a trail of bread crumbs from whatever people are saying so others can follow it," the Shaker Heights resident said, musing "and it adds a dynamic element to a room full of tables, chairs and cold coffee!"

Leslie Yerkes, who runs organizational behavior consultancy Catalyst Consulting Group in Cleveland, has been hiring graphic recorders for more than a decade. Also called graphic facilitation, Yerkes said graphic recording "came in vogue" about 15 years ago and is one of the design principles of World Café, a community dialogue methodology often used when large groups of participants are asked to engage in conversation.

Good graphic recorders, she said, not only capture the content of the meetings but make those ideas stick.

"Graphic facilitation can capture the sort of metaphorical context of the conversation," Yerkes said. "A picture takes complex thinking and makes it very relatable and memorable."

According to Yerkes, one of Byrne's greatest assets is her ability to quickly create "the most wonderful little visual sound bites" based on dialogue. Most graphic recorders have about 20 icons they use regularly to illustrate concepts, Yerkes said. Byrne, she added, has a seemingly endless library.

Byrne has applied her professional doodling to a variety of meetings — from corporate brainstorming sessions or strategy and visioning meetings to community and professional workshops and seminars.

The longer the meeting, the more paper. For full-day events, Byrne unfurls rolls of white paper along walls.

"I start in one corner and literally work my way down the wall or around the room," she said.

Byrne said the diverse topics at meetings she's covered in greater Cleveland have opened her eyes to the breadth of ideas and initiatives being pursued in her own backyard. She is especially proud of being asked to record guest speakers such as journalist Connie Schultz and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown at Trinity Cathedral's Bicentennial Speaker Series in 2016. Byrne "geeked out" at the opportunity to meet Segway inventor Dean Kamen while working at the Rockwell Automation TechED conference that same year.

Still, some of Byrne's most memorable experiences are when she is asked to visually transcribe and document difficult dialogues like a corporate restructuring.

"What is powerful about graphic recording is the ability to demonstrate to people that they have been heard," she said. "I have had people come up to me and cry because of what they saw on the board."

Byrne and Yerkes agree that while graphic recording is a great tool to spice up a meeting and keep everyone on the same page, the biggest wins often come after markers are capped and people are out of their seats. Crowds gather at the murals pointing to illustrations, rehashing key points and/or sharing small group conversations.

Yerkes said it is not uncommon for participants to take pictures to share on social media or for organizations to hang the murals in their offices or lobbies. Recently, Byrne created a graphic record of a strategic planning meeting for a local nonprofit.

"One board member said it was the best meeting of our entire process," Yerkes said. "The graphic is used over and over again like a compass."