A bold new way to tackle tough business problems—even if you draw like a second grader

When Herb Kelleher was brainstorming about how to beat the traditional hub-and- spoke airlines, he grabbed a bar napkin and a pen. Three dots to represent Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. Three arrows to show direct flights. Problem solved, and the picture made it easy to sell Southwest Airlines to investors and customers.

Used properly, a simple drawing on a humble napkin is more powerful than Excel or PowerPoint. It can help crystallize ideas, think outside the box, and communicate in a way that people simply “get”. In this book Dan Roam argues that everyone is born with a talent for visual thinking, even those who swear they can’t draw.

Drawing on twenty years of visual problem solving combined with the recent discoveries of vision science, this book shows anyone how to clarify a problem or sell an idea by visually breaking it down using a simple set of visual thinking tools – tools that take advantage of everyone’s innate ability to look, see, imagine, and show.

THE BACK OF THE NAPKIN proves 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. This book will help readers literally see the world in a new way.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Drawing is better
Comment: The premise of the book is that any problem, idea, or presentation can be solved using pictures - hand drawn pictures. Roam argues that everyone is visual, even those who say they aren't. He gives a few frameworks to work from as you prepare to draw out maps, charts, and pictures to present your ideas. I found them very helpful and refreshing. Roam also uses pictures significantly throughout the book which are also helpful.

In addition to Dan Roam saying that hand drawn pictures are more powerful than PowerPoint, Stephanie Palmer in her book Good in a Room: How to Sell Yourself (and Your Ideas) and Win Over Any Audience, also argues the same thing. My experience has been that they are both right. It really is much more captivating and easier to remember when I watch people draw out ideas in front of me rather than looking at a pretty computer generated graphic.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: All sizzle, no steak
Comment: Dan Roam's "Back of the Napkin" is an important first step in teaching business people how to compose problems visually. However, it's definitely a rookie effort, heavy on sizzle but light on steak.

Roam spends nearly half the book explaining how our minds process information. Okay, fine. Kind of like a book on how to build a house explaining what is a hammer, a saw, a drill. Then Roam proposes some different ways to draw the different ways the brain processes information. Kind of like showing that a hammer is good for nailing wood together, a saw is good for dividing wood in half, and a drill is good for drywall and screws. The reader cannot wait to see how this will all fit together - "This is going to be good!". Finally, Roam throws out an example of how to pull it all together to solve a problem.

Unfortunately, the example is overly-easy, explores many blind alleys, and finally arrives at a solution that is fundamentally flawed. Roam's case study shows flat sales for a proprietary software company for two years. Roam's analysis shows $78 million in proprietary software will be purchased next year vs. $48 million in open source. The solution - convert their software into open source. Huh? Leave a $78 million industry to a single competitor to compete with two other open-source vendors for a $48 million industry? What kind of solution is that? Will you fire all your developers and hire open source developers? Will you force your existing customers to move to open source too, or just abandon them?

In the end, after many chapters of "wait till you see this" type posturing, Dan Roam never delivers the goods. I don't doubt Roam's sincerity, and hope he will continue to iterate on his models until he comes back with something that actually works.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A Good Introduction For Data Visualization
Comment: Typically I don't buy many books-- we have a good local library, so I buy only those that are 1) very interesting and 2) worth referring to later. This book is both. It is marketed as a book that shows how to develop business presentations by drawing the charts in front of the audience rather than relying on pre-made PowerPoint slides. Anyone, however, who needs to learn how to display data to convince others (data visualization) will find this book useful.

The good: it is an easy and fast read, with little jargon, and with good explanations of the various ways to display data. The chapter, "Frameworks For Showing," alone makes the book worthwhile to purchase. When do you use a timeline, or a flowchart, or a multivariable plot? This chapter explains all.

The bad: the drawings, while clever and creative, are at the lower end of my ability to read the writing. (And I have very good eyes.) A paperback version with the drawings much larger would be very helpful.

Very worthwhile.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: SIMPLE DRAWINGS MAKE SENSE
Comment: This insightful book says that any problem can be solved using a simple drawing. The author warns against saying you cannot draw, because he says anyone can draw the simple stick figure drawings he suggests. Roam reminds us that visual information is much more interesting than verbal information. He explains that simple drawings are the most effective way to solve problems, sell ideas, or communicate information. He believes drawings help people crystallize ideas and think more creatively. The author emphasizes that communicating your ideas effectively is crucial and reminds us that a picture is worth a thousand words.

The book begins with the basics of making drawings, charts, and graphs, then moves on to the author's tools for thinking in pictures. The remaining sections of the book explain how to develop and sell ideas. The section on developing ideas provides suggested models to use to best represent types of situations.

The book presents step-by-step directions on how to clearly present a problem using a set of visual tools - as a series of pictures or a progressively-drawn picture. His basic instructions include: 1) Make the first mark by drawing a circle and label it something like me, them, you, product, company, etc.; 2) Choose a type of picture to best describe the situation from the categories a who/what portrait, a how-much chart, a where map, a when timeline, a how flowchart, or a why multi-variable xy plot; 3) Anthropomorphize your drawing since people relate to people even if they are just stick-figures with faces; 4) Use mental triggers in your drawing to make a point such as making something bigger or smaller to signify power or using the sun to orient an up or down direction; 5) Draw your picture real-time in front of your audience as a progression of your thought process and describe it as you go rather than presenting a finished drawing; 6) As you finish drawing your picture, write in or draw your conclusion. 7) Because a picture is so powerful, it is important to accurately portray the situation even though the drawing may not be artistic.

The book also presents examples of problems that have been solved using the system. The author emphasizes that you should develop your ideas and solutions and make sure the audience is moving along with you and that they are deducing the same conclusions you are presenting. You do this by making a progression of pictures or augmenting your drawing, as you simultaneously describe what you are sketching. The book clearly lays out how to get from the problem to selling the solution. Other inspirational books I also recommend are: THE 3:00 PM SECRET: Live Slim and Strong, Live Your Dreams and The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A Solid Introduction to Illustrating Problems and Solutions
Comment: If you don't have any idea of how pictures can help you see more dimensions of problems and explain your solutions better, this is a good book to get you started. The book's main drawback is that it doesn't discuss how to integrate stories with pictures to make for more compelling communications. You'll have to learn to do that by reading books about storytelling to supplement this one.

I consider myself to be not very good at creating pictures for either solving problems or communicating solutions. I was disappointed that the book wasn't aimed more at helping people like me who understand the principles but have trouble applying those concepts.

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