NeedleMine » Visual Thinking http://www.needlemine.com Inbound Marketing, SEO, and AdWords Strategy Thu, 13 May 2010 17:14:39 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 ‘The Back of the Napkin’ by Dan Roam http://www.needlemine.com/2008/10/the-back-of-the-napkin-by-dan-roam/ http://www.needlemine.com/2008/10/the-back-of-the-napkin-by-dan-roam/#comments Wed, 22 Oct 2008 02:02:53 +0000 Thomas Attila Lewis http://www.needlemine.com/?p=35 Finished reading Dan Roam’s visual thinking tome, “The Back of the Napkin”. I really enjoyed his description of the process by which he came to “discover” visual thinking for himself – that he possessed this ability to communicate with others via simple pictures and graphics.

It was a fun enough read and while I understand why the dimensions of the book are to illustrate a literal “back of the napkin”, the format was incredibly annoying for anyone who uses an LED reading light or if you need to stash it in a way that it doesn’t get damaged. The 1×1 dimensions made it an unwieldy book which was a one of its few drawbacks.

To get the book, click on the cover below to get to Roam’s booksite.

Some quick notes:

Step-by-Step: Very Helpful

Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam

Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam

Example case: Not so helpful, felt restricted after a while.

The Visual Thinking Codex chart on page 141 is awesome but doesn’t reproduce well.

The key is in the summary/conclusion, if there’s something to memorize or remember with this book, it’s the following bullet points:

The Visual Thinking Swiss Army Knife:

Our Three Visual Thinking Tools:

  • Our Eyes
  • Our Mind’s Eye
  • Our Hand-Eye Coordination

The Four Steps of Visual Thinking Process:

  • Look
  • See
  • Imagine
  • Show

SQVID – The Five Questions that Open Our Mind’s Eye:

  • Simple vs. Elaborate
  • Qualitative vs. Quantitative
  • Vision vs. Execution
  • Individual vs. Comparison
  • Change (Delta) vs. Status Quo

The Six Ways We See:

  • Who/What
  • How Much
  • Where
  • When
  • How
  • Why
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