Visualizing
Organization
Development
WHO
Students from
EMOD Executive Master in Organization Development
SACI MFA Communication Design and Infographics
WHAT
Collaborative visualizing session
WHERE
Online USA/Italy
WHEN
2020
Sharing metaphors
A collaborative session between students of Bowling Green State University (USA) and SACI (Italy)
Design supporting business choices, business supporting design careers: since 2018 SACI Florence and BGSU Bowling Green State University partner in collaborative workshops for the students of the EMOD Executive Master in Organization Development and of SACI Infographics and MFA in Communication Design. Before the meeting, both student groups prepare metaphoric imagery to introduce themselves, describe their personal status quo and define Organization Development.
During the March 2020 online workshop, SACI students were introduced to the three EMOD capstone clients and developed toolkits to facilitate the dialogic sessions.
The workshop is featured in “The Art of Business and the Business of Art”, Organization Development Review Vol. 54 n. 2 (2022)
“The sharing of the metaphors between the OD students and the Infographics students was illuminating as the perspectives served to highlight the immense learning to be found in expanding beyond our often limiting ways of experiencing and representing the world.”
Deborah O’Neil, PhD
Professor of Organizational Behavior,
Bowling Green State University
“Eleven metaphors deriving from human activities like baking or playing a game, seven from the natural world, like an iceberg or an onion – and six absolute concepts like typography or electricity. It is always astonishing how each individual can clearly think in metaphors, and immediately envision one that is different from all the others.“
Camilla Torna, Director
SACI MFA Program in Communication Design
