Inception, Infographics, and Discipleship

Fast Co. announced an contest today to design an infographic for the movie Inception.  See here for details: Inception Infographics Contest.

Can you design a chart that elegantly explains the most complicated movie of the summer?

Inception, Christopher Nolan’s trippy popcorn shoot-em-up about dreams within dreams, was pretty much made for an infographic. In fact, that movie, with its many layers of dreamers inhabiting the mind of other dreams, could probably have benefited from a running infographic right in the corner of the frame. Unfortunately, the infographics that have been created around the movie so far are all lacking.

Infographics are just that: graphics that depict information.  The intention is to communicate rather complex data in a simpler, easy-to-understand format.  The real benefit of an infographic is that is can great a story, narrative, or picture out of disparate and differing numbers.

Creating a story helps us link this piece of information with that piece of information in a way that has structure and plot while also being easy to remember.

Creating a picture helps us remember, let’s say, 25 pieces of information as 1 piece of information.

While certainly not new, infographics are becoming more common and necessary.   One reason is the systems around us are getting more complex.  Naturally government agencies are complex.  Grocery stores, businesses, and shopping centers are all more elaborate than they used to be.  This is why the most common infographic everyone knows is the “You Are Here” signs found in malls and subway stations.

The other reason we need infographics is because of the modern culture differences.  We don’t all come from the same place anymore.  Most of us come from or now live in a big city.  Grand melting pots of peoples, ethnicities, and cultures.  And for those who don’t live in the big city, the big city is coming to you.  Your town has corporate movie theaters, Wal-marts, and  chain restaurants.  We now longer share the same set of iconic mental symbols as the person next to us.  The question becomes how to communicate effectively across the board.  Many times infographics are the best introductory and immediate way to get a point across.  This graphic explains how to order coffee.

Infographics help us anticipate unexpected results: what’s is this suppossed to do?  New technology, websites, and networks are designed to do stuff we’ve never done before.  How do I know if I’m using it correctly?  Or if I even want to use it?  What does the end result look like?  For instance, Facebook isn’t like a phonebook or a yearbook, but it serves a similar function.  A fourteen-year old has probably never seen or at least used either one.  However, that same teenager is heavily engaged in Facebook.  A sixty-year old grandmother has always used phonebooks and yearbooks to remember or stay in contact with others.  What should she expect from social media?

These are pretty basic infographics, but more complex data and ideas can be represented.  Here’s two I included for explaining the decision-making process and describing demographic elements:

All this is well and good, but what about infographics for your church?

Try this exercise: have your staff design an infographic for the discipleship process at your church.  It’s a red flag if you get a roomful of blank looks or they end up with this after an hour:

This exercise illustrates one of the best uses of infographics: displaying what you don’t know.  One of my favorite business gurus, Edward Deming, explains it this way, “If you can’t explain what you’re doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.” Going to church is not a process for creating disciples, any more than going to the gym will make you Mr. Olympia.

When you draw the process out it becomes clear that there is a starting point and an ending point and something that has to happen to get you from one to the other.

What are some of the ways you can use infographics to re-enforce a sermon series?  Not promotional materials, but actual infographics?  Use infographics to teach Old or New Testament introductory courses.  On the up side, there’s already plenty of infographics available for the book of Revelation.

If you need to increase the level of communication and retention at your church, and you do, infographics greatly add to your arsenal of options.

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