Sunday, August 31, 2008

The Back of the Napkin, by Dan Roam

The notion of this book is to explain how to use simple pictures to solve problems and communicate ideas.

It is a compelling idea, especially because so many business presentations are a boring collection of bullet points (text). A problem exacerbated by poor presentation technique in which the speaker reads the text to the audience. Yawn.

So beyond the use of images as a problem solving technique, I was interested in the use of images as a showing / explaining / selling technique. The book covers both topics well.

But it isn't simple. Or at least not easy. The SQVID notion, for example, is clear: if you want to show a topic, consider if its visualization should be Simple (vs elaborate), Quality (vs quantity), Vision (vs execution), Individual (vs comparative), and Change (vs as-is).

Bottom line: some great ideas for brainstorming, approaching complex problem solving and presenting things. But I will have to have this book at my side as a guide to walk through the techniques for at least the first few times I do this. And I'm not sure that, under the pressure of deadlines, I'll have the fortitude to look at the guidance instead of just pushing forward, seat of pants, to a delivery.

We'll see.