One of the methods of SPoR is visual and verbal mapping. We call this method iCue© (https://safetyrisk.net/beginner-intermediate-and-advanced-icue-skills/) and it is being successfully implemented around the globe in many organisations. In our book It Works! A New Approach to Risk and Safety (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/it-works-a-new-approach-to-risk-and-safety-book-for-free-download/)  Brian Darlington and I provide a full case study of a global organisation that dumped zero ideology and embraced SPoR so that safety improves. This story could be told for a host of other case studies of how SPoR works.

One of the valuable aspects of the visual and verbal mapping method using iCue© is that it demonstrates relationships between workplace factors in Workspace, Headspace and Groupspace (WS, HS, GS). iCue mapping is easy to learn, and is open and transparent for anyone in any context and any group size. Once the basics have been learned they can then be developed at intermediate and advanced level.

In Mondi, the iCue method has been rolled out across the globe with all Safety Managers undergoing training to Advanced level. These then become mentors in iCue.

Because iCue is visual and verbal, there are no language barriers across culture and, everyone learns how to map very quickly. An iCue Engagement Board can be done anywhere, in an office, factory or out in a forest. You can see at Figure 1. iCue in a Forest, an operator mapping using pictures placed in the iCue quadrant. But iCue can be done anywhere, on a note pad or mentally in your head.

iCue was developed out of the semiotic and poetic philosophy of SPoR. iCue drives visual thinking, acute listening, framing, experiential learning and re-framing language, priming in questioning and anchoring generated by everyone in the group. It is founded on an existentialist dialectic philosophy that has been clearly articulated throughout SPoR publications (all for free download – https://www.humandymensions.com/shop/).

SPOR ethics and moral philosophy drive the development of iCue but it is only one of the methods of SPoR (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/spor-and-semiotics/).

Once iCue is introduced people quickly realise its value and embrace it with enthusiasm. Then it doesn’t take long till people realise its value and many of the heavy text-based systems of traditional safety disappear. However, in SPoR, we don’t throw all the baby with the bathwater, some typical safety management systems demanded by requirements of regulators are kept as a compromise with the regulation. Whilst some of the traditional tools of safety are retained for compliance, they pale into significance in the face of SPoR methods. It is sad these traditional mythical systems have to be kept, because they don’t work.

In iCue, there is very little interest in performance or the ideology of Technique (Ellul) embedded in it but rather the SPOR focus is on the relational acts of persons and the ethical practice of risk.

Figure 1. iCue in a Forest

In Figure 2. iCue in the Field, you can see an iCue being undertaken at a port facility.

Figure 2. iCue in the Field

In Figure 3. iCue on a Pizza Box, you can see an iCue that was done in a shopping centre. There is no place or situations where you cannot do iCue.

Figure 3. iCue on a Pizza Box

Here’s an iCue interactive toolbox being undertaken at a Sugar terminal in a carport (Figure 4. iCue in Carport).

Figure 4. iCue in Carport

iCue is complemented by a number of SPoR methods explained here: https://www.humandymensions.com/product/spor-and-semiotics/

SPoR methods emerge out of a clear articulated existentialist philosophy and ethic that enables practical, relational and embodied learning, open transparent conversation, effective listening and reflective capture. If you want to kow how iCue can change your safety culture, you can ask here:  admin@spor.com.au

If you want to learn about SPoR methods, you can ask here: admin@spor.com.au