The Shortlist Episode 88: Mural: Sticky Notes but Better

Collaboration is at the heart of how the team at Middle of Six works—and being fully remote means finding tools that keep ideas flowing and groups aligned. In this episode of The Shortlist, MO6ers Kyle Davis and Lauren Jane Peterson share the ins and outs of using Mural, their favorite digital whiteboard platform.

From internal brainstorming sessions and design charrettes to client workshops and presentations, Mural serves as a shared workspace where ideas can be captured, organized, and refined in real time. They also share how Mural's user interface makes it easy to onboard first-time users, encourage live note-taking, and import and export to PowerPoint. With this tool in your toolkit, you just might experience more efficient meetings, stronger alignment, and a shift from presenting ideas to actively building them alongside your team.

CPSM CEU Credits: 0.5 | Domain: 2

Podcast Transcript

Welcome to The Shortlist. We're exploring all things AEC marketing to help your firm win The Shortlist.

I'm Wendy Simmons, and today we're talking with Lauren Jane Peterson and Kyle Davis to discuss collaboration and visualization using the tool Mural, which is a tool that we fell in love with sometime during the pandemic and continue using, and it

seemed like a good one to share with our listeners for those who haven't explored it. Lauren Jane, do you want to tell us a little bit about Mural?

Kind of define what it is, pretend that people listening have no idea what I just said, and what is this tool.

Yeah. So I'll back up a little bit, and most of the listeners probably know this already, but at Middle of Six, collaboration is everything.

Everything.

Yes, everything. And as a team, Middle of Six is all remote, and most of, not quite all, but most of our meetings with clients are remote as well.

And so whether it's internal team or with clients, we collaborate every single day, and we need a way to do that smoothly. So Mural is a tool that helps us do that.

You know, we juggle brainstorming and workshops and project planning and management, sometimes all in the same week or same day, and we need something to help us do that smoothly.

So Mural is the solution for us at the moment, and it's working pretty well. So we want to share that with everybody. You know, it's a virtual whiteboarding tool, but does a lot of other things as well.

The reason why I was like inviting you to, you know, define it for our listeners is because as much as we use it in our day-to-day work, or on the weekly at least, that type of thing, when we bring it to a new client or someone we might want to

collaborate with, we always have to ask them, have you used this before? And I'd say half of the time they haven't, or maybe they've used one of the similar programs out there, that sort of thing.

But it's not integrated into Adobe or Microsoft in a way that people are just using it, like some other tools that we use for collaboration. So it still can be a thing that maybe your team hasn't tried out, or maybe just dabbled.

Let's talk a little bit about when you log into Mural, like what are you faced with, what's there, and how do you start using it? How can you be productive? Lauren Jane, you're a pro at it.

If I said, could you pull up a Mural? Like what would you do? What would you use?

What does that look like?

So like many other programs, you log in and you have a couple of options, start with a blank board or start with a template, and a blank board can feel intimidating.

So for newbies and or if you're trying to do a Mural board setup that's different, or atypical for what you normally use, I say click around the template. There are a lot of options and it feels a little less scary.

And even if, you know, I will totally say I've picked a template before and ended up deleting like 95% of what's on the board, but it was a great kickoff and starting place for me to get the wheels turning and be like, oh, okay, actually I want to

put this here and this there. So I would say start with a template. There are tons of options, right? And kind of like how you go into PowerPoint and there's templates to look from or to choose from.

And you have different boards or frames that are on Mural, similar to maybe Illustrator, if somebody is familiar with an Illustrator board. And you can create things inside and outside the board.

So there's a lot of flexibility and in a way that flexibility could feel scary because you're like, I don't even know what to put or where to put it. So starting with a template is a great tip. It's my great number one first tip.

Yeah, you can zoom way in on your board.

You can zoom way out. So you can go all the way into a single frame, a single rectangle, a single slide. You can go even deeper and closer and even more granular.

But then you can also zoom way, way out. For instance, on my screen right now, I can see like 30 different slides from like the 30,000 foot view.

So it gives you that ability to kind of zoom way out, zoom way in, hammer in on where you want to talk about things, zoom out, and show context.

I'm curious if either of you have used the programs. Well, first, Prezi. Either of you use Prezi?

Okay. And Sway, the Microsoft program that's kind of similar.

I have not. I have not used that one.

But for folks out there who have used either of those programs, that made me feel like Mural was similar in that way. Prezi was something that I probably learned about in 2010, I don't know, just kind of guessing.

Like right around there, I built some really fun presentations because that flying around and zooming in and out, it was, you know, we had automation to it, which was really fun. But you could make people sick and dizzy and disoriented.

You had to be careful of how much you're flying around. So Mural has that capability that Kyle was talking about. Like you could see all 30 slides at once.

You could be like, hey, here's what we're going to get through today or at this retreat or whatever your time frame is.

You're like, and we're going to start here and you can just more manually, but just easily like zoom over there and you can kind of see what the path will be. Yeah. But then focus people's attention.

And if you're facilitating, you can, you know, kind of keep them focused. But then also they have a lot of freedom to peek around and, you know, go where they want to go. There are options to turn that off, but we never do.

We like people to be free. Be free and go look around. So, I don't know, but that's a little context of what that experience is like, the flying piece of it.

And then the other thing about the template, since you mentioned that, I haven't gone to it for so long, but I'm sure it still exists.

I feel like there was a template like Mural 101, or how to use it, because it was a great starter template, because it actually had instructions on the template to say, to create a new sticky, double click with your mouse. And it opens it.

Those little bits of instructions which were helpful for me as I was learning, but also they were intended for the people who were gonna use the mural in your session, so that they came prepackaged with instructions.

And that's another good reason to use a template, because help yourself out.

Well, another route is kind of one that we went, right?

Is once you get a little bit more familiarity, you could say, oh, we're a PowerPoint firm, and we're trying to evolve and move forward and just recreate your successful PowerPoint slides in mural.

It's both kind of like a simple blueprint to follow, but also gives you that like hands-on experience of using the tool.

And then what I also really love about the thing, it's not revolutionary or anything, but you have the ability to then build out a really cool deck, build out a really cool presentation, and then duplicate it for future different works.

So if it works really successfully for one client, and then a month later, you want to do it again, duplicate it over, swap out the details, make it unique and interesting to what you're going to talk about.

But a lot of efficiencies within the actual dashboard of the mural where you have really easy access to all your archived work and the ability to duplicate and the ability to go through it that way. So that's been really helpful for us as well.

I will say you can also go in the opposite direction. So there are export functions from mural.

So if you want to export to PDF or I think, don't hold me to this, I'm pretty sure there is like a mural to PowerPoint, like convert to PowerPoint PPTX function, which is very interesting, right?

So if you're feeling desperate, like, dang, I really have to have a PowerPoint because I don't have another option in this scenario. I think that there are options to convert.

Now, everything isn't perfect, but it's at least a time saver, so you don't have to recreate it back in PowerPoint. If you ever need to do so, that feels pretty handy.

Yeah, good tip. I haven't tried that, the export out, but Lauren Jane, remind us, is the bringing in a PowerPoint as easy as like drag and drop or is it more complicated? How do you make that happen?

Yeah.

So when we were converting one of our big templates, PowerPoint templates to Mural, I of course was like, how can I make this more efficient? Because that's where most of that work is. The bulk of the work is like, okay, I have to make the first one.

And then once we have the templates better, it doesn't import in the same way. But there are some efficiencies like copying objects.

Typically, you can copy an object and paste it if you don't need it to be editable, such as we use specific icons, so I could copy the icons from PowerPoint, paste them into Mural. So there are some efficiencies there.

It is not a perfect one-to-one import.

But you can get pretty darn close, and then you're gonna wanna sort of tear it apart anyways, because now you've got the, you're like opening up this component to be interactive.

So you wanna just experience it differently again, like we said a bunch of times. It's not the same, but you can get a lot out of it if you're open to bringing in the feedback. Let's see here.

So Kyle. Yeah. How do you use Mural in your day-to-day at Middle of Six?

Yeah, in my realm, we use it a lot for our website work.

It also applies to a lot of other things that you require collaboration for, like branding work, or even we've used it for showing clients' proposal templates and working through creative issues and brainstorming, of course.

But when thinking about the website work and the website discovery, it's been really helpful to kind of gain that alignment and just keep everybody on the same page. And I always kind of think of it as like, because we used to do PowerPoints, right?

We used to have website discovery PowerPoints, and we had a very robust process. We had really great templates. Everything was designed really beautifully.

But there was just a little something lacking when we took it to clients, either in person or remotely. And we were just kind of looking for a little more horsepower, a little more oomph.

And I think Mural provides that exactly with the ability to kind of collaborate more in real time rather than just showing a screen to someone and talking. There are interactive elements that I'm sure we'll get into. Like, you can vote on things.

You can have a sticky note. You can do mind mapping and put icons and drawings and sketch and move things around. And it's just way more dynamic and way more interactive.

So rather than just having Middle of Six, like present to the client, website discovery, this lets the client kind of into the process.

And I think it just, especially when we're talking about content creation, design preferences, it can really spark a lot more collaboration and creativity rather than just kind of sitting there and looking at a screen.

Yeah, so I mean, I know this from working with you, of course, and Lauren Jane, too, on those websites.

Now that we've built out a space in Mural for websites, it's like a go-to tool for us. And it's in many ways replaced that PowerPoint item, that tool for presenting.

But for both of you, when you are thinking about, I have a presentation, I have an idea I need to explore, what's going through your mind where you're like, oh, we should use Mural for this. I know that happens to me, but I'm curious for you all.

What does that, what triggers that move where you're like, no, no, no, get me out of InDesign, get me out of PowerPoint, get me into Mural.

Yeah, I'm using Mural more and more.

I would say even a year ago, I was still opening up PowerPoints, but I found that, Kyle mentioned this already, I was finding that I needed to exit the PowerPoint and the presentation mode of the PowerPoint and maybe draw something in PowerPoint or

try to take notes somewhere. But the group needed to see the notes that I was also taking and that didn't work because I was in the view mode of PowerPoint and it just felt clunky. So it wasn't serving me anymore.

And again, sometimes we still use decks, right? If we're presenting or doing other things that don't necessarily require active listening in collaboration with our clients or with one another as an internal team. But I need those tools.

I need that extra flex that Mural gives me. So...

Can't go back.

I know. Yeah, this year we made a big shift at Middle of Six and said, all right, we're gonna build our whole discovery deck in Mural and we're gonna run with it and try to do it that way.

And it's been a little bit of a learning curve because the tool simply is just a different tool from PowerPoint, but I think it works really well. I'm very happy with it. I don't want to go back to using the PowerPoint version.

So, mm-hmm.

Yeah, to jump off what Lauren Jane said, I think we get the most power from it or the most effectiveness from it when we are asking active questions of clients or if we are trying to gather feedback or brainstorm in real time, that's where it's

really kind of shines. I would say you can do anything in Mural that you can do in PowerPoint, but you can't make PowerPoint do what Mural can do.

So if you just wanted to show a quarterly earnings report or just present some findings or some recommendations, you could do a bog standard PowerPoint style mural and keep it very simple. No notes, no sticky notes, no bells and whistles.

And it would be exactly the same experience for the client. But then if you're trying to gather up people's opinions, you're trying to build consensus, you're trying to brainstorm, that's where you have that ability to...

I agree with Lauren Jane, you have it all in one place. It's on the screen, it's in front of you, it's in front of the client. What I really like about it is you can take those notes in real time.

People see the notes you're taking. Sometimes we even have clients go, oh no, it's not that word, it's a different word. Or what if we called it that instead of that?

And it's kind of like, it just gets everybody locked in on the process way more than being like, oh, and Wendy, what do you think about the color pink? And then you feel like you're on the spot, you feel like you're being called on.

It's not like an organic conversation, whereas if you have it on the screen, everybody sees it, it just kind of gets everybody swimming in the same pool, and it just sparks a lot more collaboration, just kind of naturally without having to force it.

So that is super helpful because when you're actually kind of using your hands and moving things around and clicking and dragging and typing and seeing what other people are typing, it just is a different experience.

And I think it just gets your creative juices flowing in a different way.

I'd love to ask Wendy a question.

Oh, okay.

Did it feel daunting or, I don't know, did you have any reservations about us using Mural with clients more?

Like, you know, PowerPoint is so nicely tidy, right?

Right.

How did that feel for you to start using Mural with clients more?

Yeah, I don't remember there being fear or friction. And in preparation for this episode, I was also trying to think, when did we first start using it? Well, where did I see it or where did it come from?

So I should have asked you two this question, too, because, oh, chime in if you remember, you know, where that came from.

Well, I think of Lauren Jane as the mural master, so she's going to have a better answer than me. I can't remember when it first came into our world. I feel like Lauren Jane brought it to us.

That's my memory.

No, Mural was here when I came. Mural was here when I came. Yeah, I used Muro.

You just perfected it.

I used Miro at my former employer, and I liked it, and it's very similar tool.

You know, we can get into some of the differences a little bit later when we talk about the different products in the market or competitors in the market to Mural, but Mural was here when I came, so.

Yeah.

All right, well, I'll take credit for it. It was me.

Good job, Kyle. I was gonna say if I had to put money on it, I would have guessed that in collaborating with one of our architect partners, they maybe suggested, oh, maybe we should do this in Mural.

Like, I think it was something that was dropped very casually like that. They pulled it up. I just don't have a memory of like, who was that?

When was that point?

Makes sense that it would have maybe been an architect who brought it to the table. It has that kind of vibe to it.

Right. And so I feel like most of the time, our architect clients are familiar with Mural or Miro. Those two are very similar.

And I think you can kind of jump between them easily too. If you're familiar with one, you'll kind of be familiar with the other or understand how to use those tools. And I was drawn to it right away.

I always say, I'm such a visual person. I don't know if that's true or crutch or something. I just like to say about myself.

But if I can see it, I can really grasp it in that visual learner. So I get more out of even meetings that I'm facilitating. If I can see it and place it and move it and put it in the right position.

And as our team has gotten really comfortable using the tool, again, I'm just getting more and more out of it and those conversations, because we're just, instead of thinking through the ideas, we leave with something on paper or on the screen.

Absolutely.

Right? To say, yeah, we moved forward. We went from here, we went, you know, we got all the way over here.

We were just in a meeting before recording this where we were referencing some mural documents and it's great. Those notes are more alive to me.

They are easier for me to find and understand, interpret than if I were to scroll through a bunch of notes or search in other ways.

So I guess that's the longest way of saying like, yeah, as soon as we started trying it, we're like, oh, this is great. We have to have it. We have to subscribe and let's go for it.

That's a great point on the note-taking.

I totally echo it in past experiences. We like to make things interactive. We like to get people's feedback.

I can remember doing sticky note exercises on white literal physical whiteboards and writing on big Post-it notes on the wall. And it was all very valuable and it's all very interesting. But then what were we doing?

We were like taking pictures of walls. We were like downloading images from our phone to reference later. And the great thing about Mural doing it digitally is like you just said, I can pull up any given client's website kickoff mural right now.

And I can see every sticky note, every exercise we did with the group. I can kind of see the process we went through to like start at like a high level brainstorm and like move down into more like precise decision making.

And then I can also see my own internal notes and it just creates, it's just a one stop shop. This is everything.

It's got the notes, it's got the visuals, it's got the process, it's got input from my, from the Middle of Six team, it's got input from the client's team. And it's just all in one place.

It just makes it a really handy resource when you're trying to capture a ton of information in one place and not lose the thread or forget what you did a month ago. Like we're constantly referencing it, both for like content writing, design stuff.

And it's just all right there for everybody to get.

Yeah, I totally agree. And for listeners out there, I will also add we have started using Mural for our in-person Discovery Sessions as well, right? So we're not just using it for digital collaboration.

We are actually driving, quote unquote, driving around the Mural board in person with those teams.

And like Kyle said, it just creates a lot of efficiency, and everyone can add things on their own laptop or their own device, and we don't have to spend time recording what we already wrote down once digitally afterward.

And it makes me think about the question you asked, Wendy, right? Like, was it a little too, like was it not as buttoned up as you wanted, or was it not as kind of streamlined and like super professional?

I actually view that as a strength of it, in that it is slightly more informal. It's not just a perfectly polished rectangle on a screen going from slide to slide. Very sterile, very clean and professional, but can be very sterile.

And honestly, I think it can kind of put people on the spot. They feel like they're in like a more formal atmosphere, which has its time and place, right?

But when you're actually wanting to get people to engage with things and answer questions and think out loud and no wrong answers and throw it all against the wall, kind of like the rougher around the edges, sort of informality of it, it kind of does

just feel like we're all just kind of like rolling up our sleeves around the same table. And, you know, nobody has to feel like there's a lot of pressure or that they're going to say the wrong thing. It just kind of opens it up more in that way.

So I think the informality almost is better, a strength of specifically the things that we're using it for, right, where we want people to be open and collaborative and not buttoned up and siloed and careful about every little thing they're going to

Yeah, that's such a good point.

The finality of a PowerPoint where it looks like...

Feels like you can't change it. Exactly. It feels like it's set in stone.

Can't, not allowed.

So then that, even if people don't realize it, they're thinking like, well, I'm not going to mess with that. I'm not going to, you know, add something here.

But as soon as there's the option to like throw a sticky note on, the new, you know, changes the conversation for sure, which we really like.

Yeah. And it makes me think of one of our best practices or one of the things that we've had a lot of success with. Right.

And Lauren Jane's kind of been the spearheader of this one. We like to give, in a group that's medium or small enough, like right off the bat, we like to say like, here's your sticky note color. We might even put their name on it.

Right. So it's like Kyle is blue and Wendy is green. Lauren Jane's red and then, you know, client X is pink and the other person's yellow and the other person's light orange or whatever.

So then everybody has their own fun little color. And again, you don't have to call on someone and go, hey, Wendy, what's your sticky note? You can just prompt them.

Like for instance, what's a key differentiator of your firm? Okay, now we're going to give everybody a little bit of time to think about that.

And rather than again, calling people out or putting people on the spot, everyone's just kind of in there, the sticky notes are flying around, everyone's got their own color, everyone's kind of free to think and explore the way that they're most

comfortable. And then you come back a few minutes later and go, okay, now we've got this whole mess of sticky notes. Lauren Jane, I noticed you wrote these down. Like, what did you think of that?

Or, oh, that's the same as what Kyle wrote down. Like, isn't that interesting? How can we kind of consolidate or think about that idea?

So again, just kind of a more effective way to gather that type of feedback.

Yeah, and you're saying sticky notes, which is totally what these little colored squares look like and replace for us.

Digital sticky notes.

No, no, no, and that's good. But I also want to just share with our listeners who haven't used it that imagine a sticky note that you could write, like, seven paragraphs of content to.

Imagine a sticky note that grows once you get to the end of it and you don't run out of space.

It's like Mary Poppins' bag.

That's so nice. Yeah, because, I mean, I know that in person times you were writing on a sticky note, and you're like, oh, I can't really. Then you have to actually describe what you mean by that sticky note.

And, you know, the mural version is you can write as much as you want. It all fits.

Yeah, you can delete the whole sticky note and start all over. You don't have to scratch it out with a Sharpie and throw it away and start over. Like, it's just more dynamic that way.

It's simple, but true. Like, the sticky note is just way more flexible on the digital realm.

Yeah. Let's see, what else?

Things that we've learned, tips and suggestions. There's definitely like modes you can toggle between.

I feel like we most often use the present mode, which is like presenting your PowerPoint slides, you know, like you have your deck structured in a way. But there are other modes as well that include timers and, you know, ways to let people work.

Either of you have experience using some of those modes that you want to share?

I like using the facilitate mode that has the timer. And I think that there's like a polling or voting function.

I can't remember what they call it specifically, but there is that function, which those two are very nice when you have larger groups, you know, 15 plus people, because it's a little, it can be a little hard to make sure to stay on track if you're

in breakout groups, et cetera. So there's a visual timer that's actually going. And there's also a little celebrate feature, which is cute. It puts like confetti all over the mural boards.

So sometimes it's like, yay, we're done or yay, we finished this exercise. And it just provides a little bit of relief and humor.

And like Kyle was saying, it kind of breaks down that breaks down the wall, breaks down the barrier when you're facilitating a, facilitating any kind of workshop, you want people to loosen up a little bit. So that's fun. The facilitate mode is nice.

You can also have people quote unquote, follow you around the board when they mentioned that that can feel nice when people might not be as familiar with Mural. And they're like, oh, where is she? I can't see, right?

And they want to look on their own machine instead of looking at the main screen that we have shared as well.

Yeah. And I haven't used it, but I noticed that there's a private mode too, which allows you to do your work. And then when you exit private, then it becomes public for everyone.

So if you were, I don't know, I could actually imagine different types of brainstorms where you don't want to have that group think you need things to be kept private, but then you're all still collaborating on that same mural.

Or if you just need some private space before it's in front of everybody, there's that. So something that's on my list, you're like, oh, I should try that at some point because I haven't actually tested it out. There's plenty to explore.

There's the whole like left hand menu with icons and tables and connectors. I mean, the icons, one of them has a llama on it. That just shows you like that humor part, right?

They're sort of inviting people to be a little silly, a little fun.

We should talk about the visiting sea otter. Yes.

Oh, yeah.

Wasn't even on my list. What are you talking about?

So when you...

Say more about the otter.

There are a few ways to share the mural board with other people. One is inviting them to the board to be a collaborator, which you don't actually really need to do ever, interestingly enough.

But the second way is to just copy the URL right from your browser and send somebody the link. This also does not make them join your workspace, so you don't have to pay for a seat if you just use the link in the browser. So hot tip.

But if you send somebody the link, like let's say I made a mural board and I sent it to Kyle and Wendy, if they didn't have accounts or if they didn't want to log in to their account, they enter as a guest.

Well, every guest is assigned a sea creature or like, I don't know, most of the time they're sea animals or, you know...

I think so, octopus is that. Oh, there's a visiting vacuum, so I don't know.

Okay, take that back. Creature. So, Wendy might be the visiting octopus, Kyle might be the visiting sea otter, and it's kind of funny and cute, you know?

If you don't change your name, you also have the option to say Wendy or Kyle, you have to put your name in there, but it's kind of fun to see little creatures flying around the board.

Yeah, it is pretty cute. Where's the octopus going? Get it back over here.

Yeah. We have, I heard us say many times, so far in this podcast, and then when you meet with the client, and then when you meet with the client, you could do this, which is how the world we live in, right? That's just total Middle of Six mind there.

But there are tons of ways to use this if you're not a creative agency or even, that's applicable, I'm sure, for the client, our clients thinking about meeting with their clients, but it doesn't have to be that way.

You can have internal meetings using Mural. You can, I mean, you could have it for a family vacation planning. I mean, it could kind of go all over the place.

So I feel like just replace client with team, family, project. I mean, that's how we think about it.

Any examples of how we're using it internally for like not external facing stuff and maybe that's more casual or just allow their team to collaborate?

Goals. We're using it for our goals. We've got our quarterly rocks and our annual goals through Middle of Six.

And that has been a way that we have shared our quarterly goals with each other and talked about them and discussed progress and things that we might need to get help on.

And so every quarter when we're looking at it, we're able to, the way we're using it is we're able to see kind of like, what goals did you set? What did you accomplish? Are you carrying any over to the next quarter?

Because you didn't quite make it and kind of just track your progress throughout the year that way. And again, it's just the perfect example of like, we wanted a place where seven, eight or nine people could all share a space and a screen.

And everyone has their own color and everyone has their own path through the mural and their own space.

And it's just a very convenient way to put a lot of diverse and different information in one unified area where we can all kind of connect and collaborate at the same time.

And the little personality bits come through too, as people put stickers or things, you know, to decorate what they accomplished or whatever it is. It's fun. Seems like everybody enjoys getting into that.

Lauren Jane, I was thinking about how we've used Mural really successfully for planning workflows, or maybe that's not the right term, but for like e-blasts that have like complicated connections and if-thens, you know, that sort of thing.

Maybe that would be fun for others to hear about how you can use to like understand like a complex process and make it clear for everyone.

Yeah, essentially building a flowchart that we can all work on together.

One could in theory also build this flowchart in something like Illustrator or again, PowerPoint, but the problem with PowerPoint is you're limited to the size that is the slide and it's a little clunky.

Like honestly, we all know that PowerPoint is like jack of all trades, master of absolutely zero.

And the problem with Illustrator is that like Wendy and Kyle and I couldn't work on the same flowchart at the same time, unless one person was sharing their screen and it's like, Wendy, can you move that over a little bit? And that's clunky.

Like, I don't want that. Nobody wants that, right? It also feels like a lot of pressure when you're designing on the fly in a meeting and someone's like, actually move this just a little more, just a little more.

Like, no, you know, if you use a tool when we all can actually get our hands in there at the same time, it works a little bit better. So we have used it for some complicated or slightly more complex user journeys through e-blasts.

So if this and this, if this person signs up for this, then they're put into this bucket, then they will get another email. Right.

And at this time, if they say yes to this, they'll get this email and if they say no, they'll get the other email, right? Like setting that up. But that flowchart journey can apply to lots of other things, right?

Other project management or planning, not necessarily just e-blasts.

Another thing that I use Mural for a lot, which is funny, we haven't even talked about it yet, because there's so many things we use Mural for, is actually designing and brainstorming on the fly with clients.

And I should say designing loosely is quote, quote, designing. But we do that internally and externally.

There are definitely times in Middle of Six, I'm not the only one to do this, but I'm very frequently summoned to be like, wait, hold on, let's just pull up a board.

And we can look at it together and we can all see what I'm talking about, or we can all see what Wendy's talking about and work on this together. So pulling up a board and using the simple icons that Mural has and lines to get a rough outline.

So almost like a cartoon set or like very preliminary sketches of things.

Yeah, wire framing.

To do some initial, yeah, some wire framing to just get on the same page. And because we did this internally, I actually had experimented with doing that with clients.

And for those who aren't working in the consultant-client space, I'm sure that you need to do some kind of brainstorming internally as well, right?

And there's something that is kind of nice about having very limited tools because people don't get so hung up in the minutiae and the details of what is this exact color.

Well, it's a circle or it's an oval, but it's not exactly shaped like this, right?

There is a little bit of a 30,000 foot view, kind of like Kyle was saying, where you're like, okay, here is roughly kind of the balance and shape of the thing that I'm thinking about.

So this exercise works really well for branding discussions or for some general website stuff to be like, okay, here is the square and this means it's a picture.

And here is some squiggly lines and it's text, you know, and not getting too into the weeds. So that has worked really well for us to have our clients jump in there so they can play too.

And we can all get in there together and make some decisions and be able to move forward sometimes when we're stuck.

Yeah, that's such a good point that even though the design elements are simple, it's like that's actually beneficial. If it were so specific, you'd spend the whole meeting nudging it over to pixels and trying to make things perfect.

No, no, this is a general idea. It's better than a whiteboard, the scribbling that you can do there, I would say. But still kind of like that level of specificity that you're not like, this isn't locked in.

It all has to be converted in whatever format it will finally end up in. But I think people, it seems like we all make progress. It's just like a big solid step forward when we're using Mural, which is pretty great.

Wendy, I want to know if you feel like it's worth it as part of your, your, our, someone's tech stack.

Do you feel like it's worth it?

I mean, I think so. We started off with many memberships because we didn't realize there were a better way for us to work and not every team. I think you'd have to explore the different subscription levels and ways to use it as a tool.

But we are able to like, it's a pretty minimal cost impact for our team to be able to use. And so that has worked well.

I know it can be death by a thousand subscriptions when it comes to running a business or just kind of realizing what resources you might want. But this, I would say we're getting tons of value out of it.

And even if we needed to have kind of additional licenses, I wouldn't really hesitate because I see how often we're using it. So yeah, I really have no complaints or hesitation with continuing to be able to use it as a resource.

And then to see our clients and for our listers maybe to come into a certain work group, or if you're going to collaborate on an award seminal, and it has people from different offices or departments or whatever it might be, they're going to light up

a little bit and that is worth something. How do you put a dollar on the fact that you've got more out of the people you're talking with? Yeah. It's kind of impossible to quantify.

Well, thank you both for coming on the podcast and sharing your experience with Mural to different styles of working with it.

But I heard a lot of similar things, which is like so great for collaboration, such great, like getting ideas out there, inviting people to engage, and then the real value is like, wow, now we've got these notes.

We can actually access them really easily.

Yeah.

Just like, it's so great. So sorry to do a commercial, but we like to promote the things that make our lives better.

Right. This is not a paid advertisement. We're just sharing a tool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sponsor us. Sponsor us, Mural.

Oh yeah. Give us a call.

It's a genuine appreciation for this tool. And we hope that you can find a way to use it if you're not already using it. And join us for some future podcasts where we talk about all these other wonderful tools we use.

We didn't even mention them, but we have a whole list of things we'd love to share in future episodes. So we'll bring you back. Thanks, Lauren Jane.

Thanks, Kyle.

Thank you.

Thanks. See ya.

The Shortlist is presented by Middle of Six. Our producer is Kyle Davis with digital marketing support by the team at Middle of Six. If you're looking for past episodes or more info, check out our podcast page at middleofsix.com/theshortlist.

You can follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram at Middle of Six. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Until next time, keep on hustling.

The Shortlist is a podcast that explores all things AEC marketing. Hosted by Middle of Six Principal, Wendy Simmons, each episode features members of the MOS team, where we take a deep dive on a wide range of topics related to AEC marketing including: proposal development, strategy, team building, business development, branding, digital marketing, and more. You can listen to our full archive of episodes here.