Cover image for The back of the napkin : solving problems and selling ideas with pictures
Title:
The back of the napkin : solving problems and selling ideas with pictures
Personal Author:
Publication Information:
England, ENG : Penguin Group, 2008
Physical Description:
xv, 282 p. : ill. ; 21 cm
ISBN:
9781591841999

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30000010221644 HD30.29 R624 2009 Open Access Book Book
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Summary

Summary

When Herb Kelleher was brainstorming about how to beat traditional airlines, he grabbed a bar napkin and a pen. Three dots to represent three cities. Three arrows to show direct flights. Problem solved, and the picture made it easy to sell Southwest Airlines to investors and customers. Consultant Dan Roam shows readers how to harness their innate talent for visual thinking, promising that thinking with pictures can help anyone discover and develop new ideas, solve problems in unexpected ways and dramatically improve their ability to share their insights.


Reviews 1

Publisher's Weekly Review

The premise behind Roam's book is simple: anybody with a pen and a scrap of paper can use visual thinking to work through complex business ideas. Management consultant and lecturer Roam begins with a "watershed moment": asked, at the last minute, to give a talk to top government officials, he sketched a diagram on a napkin. The clarity and power of that image allowed him to communicate directly with his audience. From this starting point, Roam has developed a remarkably comprehensive system of ideas. Everything in the book is broken down into steps, providing the reader with "tools and rules" to facilitate picture making. There are the four steps of visual thinking, the six ways of seeing and the "SQVID"- a clumsy acronym for a "full brain visual work out" designed to focus ideas. Roam occasionally overcomplicates; an extended case study takes up a full third of the book and contains an overload of images that belie the book's central message of simplicity. Nonetheless, for forward-thinking management types, there is enough content in these pages to drive many a brainstorming session. Illus. (Mar 13) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved