Review: The Back of the Napkin Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures by Dan Roam
Dan Roam's The Back of the Napkin is a fantastic read. I read the Expanded Edition, which included updates on drawing tools for the iPad, Android, and Windows Surface and found it to be a fascinating read about the importance of using pictures. And not just any pictures... hand-drawn doodles, if you will. Doodles that were created on napkins, whiteboards, pieces of scrap paper.. no advanced technology necessary.
As I started this book, I took the "Which Color is Your Pen?" quiz, and came out with Yellow Pen.
These are the three kinds of visual thinkers. Black Pen people will start drawing immediately, Yellow Pen people will sit back and then add to existing artwork, and Red Pen people are the least comfortable with the use of pictures in a business context.. at first. I found this description of the Yellow Pen to be quite accurate of myself; someone who could probably draw a stick figure and a few circles to add to a picture, but wouldn't be willing to start drawing. As I stand now, I'm probably still a Yellow Pen, in that I won't be the first person to start drawing out ideas on the office whiteboard (if I had access to one), but I do feel more confident in my ability to draw out problems and ideas.
At the end of the book, Roam says this picture can be used to summarize the basic ideas of this book:
It does look a little intimidating, but after reading this book, it begins to make sense, trust me. Here are the basic break-downs:
Visual thinking is learning how to think with our eyes, without the assistance of computer-generated graphs or charts. It doesn't require any technology at all. There are 3 basic built-in visual thinking tools that we have:
-Our eyes (where we look at the world and take in patterns)
-Our mind's eye (where we manipulate those patterns and dissect them)
-Our hand-eye coordination (what we use to get these ideas down on paper)
Roam discussed how many times, people worry too much about how their pictures will look, instead of focusing on how the visual thinking process works, in 4 steps:
1. First, we Look (Collecting and Screening)
2. Then, we See (Selecting and Clumping)
3. Next, we Imagine (Seeing what isn't there)
4. Lastly, we Show (Making it all clear)
These steps aren't necessarily linear (many times, it forms a loop):
Among the many ideas of visual thinking Roam discussed, one prevalent one was the concept of SQVID (Squid).
The 5 S-Q-V-I-D Questions are: Do I Want To Show...
S stands for: Simple vs. Elaborate
Q stands for: Quality vs. Quantity
V stands for: Vision vs. Execution
I stands for: Individual attributes vs. Comparison
D stands for: Delta (or Change) vs. Status Quo
These questions help us to imagine what visual messages we'd like to portray before we start worrying about what to draw.
And lastly, The 6 Ways We See Corresponding Ways We Show:
1. Who/What -> The Objects We See
2. How Many/ How Much -> The Quantities We See
3. Where -> Position in Space
4. When -> Position in Time
5. How -> The Influence and Cause and Effect We See
6. Why -> All Things Come Together
And eventually, you can use them all together, like this:
Holy cow! I know it may not make much sense now, but the use of pictures helped make it a little clearer, right?
Ah-ha! That's the whole point of this book. :) We are all visual thinkers and pictures don't have to be perfectly colored or detailed or works of art. They can be stick figures, arrows, and circles, which is actually better! So, go ahead and draw out that idea you've had lurking in your mind for weeks! Perhaps you'll discover something you never considered.
I thoroughly enjoy this book. It was very business-related, and while I couldn't quite understand certain parts, I got the general message and still found it thought-provoking. This is a book I will definitely have to re-read in the future. I loved the idea that we can all draw and that our drawings can help change the way we think or solve a problem; this idea is something everyone (especially managers, CEOs, etc.) should encourage. The Extended Edition also featured an Appendix C, which contained resources for visual thinkers in the technology-realm. Roam discussed the more technology-based ways of drawing, using tablets laptops and pure tablets. He also recommended which software to use, depending on what is being drawn, which is very helpful for those who might be drawing digitally with others in a virtual meeting.
My Rating: 4.5/5. Get the book here.
*Photos are not mine. All photos from The Back of the Napkin.
