About Jill Langer
When you started your career you were full of energy and excitement, but over time your enthusiasm faded.
You still like what you do, but that spark you used to have has all but been extinguished. You have a desire to reignite that feeling of being deeply engaged in your work, but the daily demands of work and your personal life leave little space for that exploration. If only you could find more ways to express yourself creatively, and have a little fun along the way you know your work could be so much more rewarding.
Maybe you’ve gotten into a bit of a rut. Your work feels repetitive and trivial. I get it.
Imagine if you could work in a way that embraced your creative side, be productive, AND do your best work.
Building processes, systems, and templates are some of my innate superpowers. And for years I jumped from job to job because I could always find ways to simplify and streamline my work until I felt bored and uninspired. My only option was to look for a new job to grow. On the outside, people saw me as a high-performer who got quality work done (which was true), but on the inside, I often felt empty and lacked a sense of meaning and fulfillment in my work.
I’m no stranger to hard work and getting things done, but over time I’ve realized that the way we work is often just as important as what we do.
Let Me Introduce Myself
Hi, I’m Jill
I’m a visual facilitation trainer, workshop facilitator, and business consultant. I’m a self-employed professional, who designs and facilitates learning experiences and workshops to help individuals and organizations work better.
And by work better, I mean work in a more human way that engages the parts of ourselves that we often embraced in our younger days, but buried away as we got older.
There are a lot of big problems in the world that need solving today, and I believe it’s going to take a lot more creativity, imagination, co-creation, and experimentation to solve those problems. I’m here to help people like you develop (or maybe just rediscover) these mindsets to help you expand your view of what’s really possible.
How I Reignited My Own Creativity
Early in my career, one of my roles was overseeing a volunteer program at a not-for-profit organization. At the time, I was struggling with my work and feeling bored and uninspired. One day, I was planning a feedback session with volunteers to get ideas on how I could help improve the volunteer experience.
I knew I didn’t want boring PowerPoint slides to guide the conversation. I wanted to engage them in a meaningful way and so I could improve the volunteer experience. As I discussed this dilemma with a co-worker, and they handed me a book called, ”Visual Meetings: How Graphics, Sticky Notes and Idea Mapping Can Transform Group Productivity.''
This was the first time I had ever heard of integrating hand-drawn visuals into meetings. I took the book home and was immediately hooked. I couldn’t put it down, read it cover to cover, and then searched the internet for any other resources I could find on visual ways of working.
Dipping My Toes Into Visualizations
In my search, I stumbled across a woman in Canada who had adapted the approach I had read about in the book and had developed a training methodology based on the author's work. In the midst of my exploration, I had left the not-for-profit and had started my own business in facilitation, consulting, and project management. Eager to delve deeper into this way of work, I signed up for her 3-day training course on the fundamentals of interactive visuals.
And Then The Belief That “I can’t draw” Reared its Ugly Head
I learned so much at the training, but I felt really discouraged. While I could see the potential in this way of working, I found myself in a counterproductive state of comparison. I felt like a total imposter. It felt like everyone else in the training was so far ahead of me in their visual skills. I wasn’t even close to calling myself an artist or a visual practitioner at the time and I could sense my insecurities creeping in. On the last day of training, there was an opportunity to check out the instructor’s collection of visualization books. As I perused the table, I came across a book called “bikablo® Emotions: Visual Dictionary - small figures with big emotions!” As I flipped through the pages, I was in awe of the simplicity and the expressiveness of these characters. As I turned the pages, I genuinely believed that I could draw these figures — and it wouldn’t take years of practice to make them look decent. Stumbling across this book reignited my creative spark, I knew there was still hope for me.
A New Pathway Revealed Itself
Curious to know more about this bikablo organization, I continued my search and found a company in Australia teaching this visualization technique. I immediately signed up for their newsletter and as luck would have it, they were actively looking for new trainers. I emailed right away and they said they were looking to build their team locally, but that they would connect me to the head of the global training program in Germany.
Full of excitement, I connected with the head of the global training program. Only a year later, I found myself in Cologne, Germany at the bikablo headquarters, getting certified as the first and only bikablo trainer in Canada.
Take a visual training course with me.
Academic Credentials
Jill has a business degree from the University of Calgary and a certificate in Adult Education with a specialization in Workplace Learning. She is certified as a Prosci® Change Management Professional, a certified facilitator of the Lego® Serious Play Method®, member of the IFVP (International Association of Visual Practitioners) and a member of the bikablo® global trainer team. She is the only certified bikablo trainer in Canada.
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• Bikablo® 2-day Basics Training Certification (bikablo® akademie)
• BIkablo Extra-class Training Certification (bikablo® akademie)
• Bikablo Advanced Training Certification (bikablo® akademie)
• Bikablo® Visual Storytelling (bikablo® akademie)
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• How to Build A Start-Up (Udacity)
• Business Model Designer (Patrick van der Pijl)
• Virtual Crash Course in Design Thinking (Stanford Design School)
• Design Kit: The Course for Human Centered Design (+Acumen)
• Social Leadership (+Acumen)
• Communicate with Visuals (Benjamin Felis)
• Fundamentals of Interactive-Visuals (Christina Merkley)
• Magic Marker Mastermind (Christina Merkley)
• Level Up Your Lettering (Heather Martinez)
• Make it Your Lettering Year (Heather Martinez)
• Napkin Academy Associate (Dan Roam)
• Rockstar Scribe Course (Alphachimp Studios)
• Visual Thinking & Sketchnoting Bootcamp (Yuri Malishenko)
• Strategic Doing
• Systems Scribing (Kelvy Bird)
• Disruptive Design Method -12 Modules (Leyla Acaglou)
Professional Bio
Jill Langer is a consultant, facilitator, and trainer for innovative professionals and organizations who want to embrace creative and tactile ways of working to design better solutions to help people and the planet thrive. She helps them build their creative thinking, systems thinking, and visualization capabilities to intentionally design co-creative conversations and experiences that are action-oriented, meaningful, impactful, and immersive.
Before becoming a capacity builder, Jill worked in a variety of roles in the corporate, government and non-profit sectors. She helped build a multi-million dollar business in the technology space that was acquired by one of the top 5 consulting companies in the world. In 2016, she and her team placed 2nd in a Citywide Hack-a-thon event for the design of a community engagement app. She also co-founded a not-for-profit tech school in her city that has trained over 300 professionals to transition into tech. In 2021 the tech school was named the Digital Tech Champion at the Start Alberta Tech Awards.
Jill is excited about exploring ways to empower more people to use visualization and other creative approaches to do more meaningful, impactful, and engaging work. She believes that we are all creative beings, and by using tactile approaches in our work, we can foster more collaborative ways of working that infuse fun, playfulness, and light-heartedness.
Through her courses, workshops, and consulting work, she’s here to show you that there are ways to be creative and productive. Everyone has creative skills and capabilities — we just need the right support and stimulation to get them going again.
Jill lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. And when she isn't exploring, building, and designing learning and workshops, you’ll find her outdoors, playing sports, reading a book or drinking a cup of tea.
Fun Facts About Me