Concise Learning Blog

Meeting with Dan Roam

That’s a picture of my napkin after meeting Dan, the author of the bestselling books The Back of the Napkin and Blah Blah Blah.

At the short session where we met, he talked about the importance of visual thinking (see his video: The Fox and the Hummingbird) and how to help facilitate communication between our verbal and visual minds (aka vivid thinking = visual (vi) + verbal (v) + interdependent (id)).

Here are 3 points that resonated with me:

1. By translating words to diagrams, we facilitate better understanding and new ideas. To help do this, use the FOREST technique (Form, Only the Essentials, Recognizable, Evolving, Span Differences, Targeted).

2. Solutions become apparent when we map our problems by connecting isolate concepts into a whole picture. As Dan said, “Whoever best describes the problem is the one most likely to solve it.”

3. Visual thinking is simple (everyone can do it) but not easy (something new you have to learn and experiment with). The important thing is to get started.

If you haven’t yet, check out Dan’s books to learn more about visual thinking.