Digital Roam

Mixing it up in Vegas

For the second year in a row, Microsoft asked me to come give a talk at their MIX "web user experience" conference in Las Vegas. This time, rather than talk about solving problems with pictures on the back of a napkin, I expanded the canvas.

I titled this session "The Way of the Whiteboard: Persuading with Pictures". As the title indicates, I wanted to open up our visual thinking on a bigger page, the better to help us use simple pictures to sell our ideas.

Click image to view clip.

The session was tremendously fun to deliver and was well received. I'm also really pleased how well the AV team captured both my words and the pictures I draw. You can watch it in its entirety here:
http://mschannel9.vo.msecnd.net/o9/mix/09/wmv-hq/c16f.wmv

After Twitter, where next?

I just returned from SXSW in Austin where I had a chance to participate in a panel about visual thinking with Lee LeFever, Sunni Brown, Dave Gray, and Tom Crawford. We had a huge crowd in the room, and there was a lot of Twittering going on, most of which you can read here.

Seeing all those fingers flying and tweets popping up got me thinking. In a few short years we've gone from individual website content authors writing thousands of words of text for big websites to lots of friends writing thousand of tiny notes to each other.

Seen visually, the progression looks like this Teeter-Totter diagram...

There is a clear trend here towards fewer words delivered with increased frequency. Given that each new web technology remains hip for a shorter time than the previous, we should pretty soon see Twitter's replacement in the form of a one-word blip that is constantly updated by everyone alive.

Let's call it -- whatever "it" is -- BLIPPER.

Stella 3.0

The single most beautiful car of all time will be on display at NY's Grand Central Terminal from March 24 - April 6. Even if it means taking the 4/5/6 at rush hour, we must go see it.

Among auto styling aficionados, the early '70's-era BMW 3.0CS is considered one of the true classic car designs. A long low profile, acres of blue-tinted glass with no apparent structural support (the lack of a 'B-pillar' is mimicked in coupes to this day), the shark-nose with an endless row of headlights; now this is a CAR.

Now imagine making a racing version: replace the heavy steel doors and hood with light-weight aluminum, yank out every ounce of unneeded stuff, bolt on body-hugging spoilers, dams, and fenders to make it look like the Bat Mobile.

Now ask abstract artist Frank Stella to paint it any way he wants. You end up with 1976's 'Art Car' BMW 3.0CSL. Black line drawing on the white canvas of the car. Sublime. See you at Grand Central.

What does this have to do with visual thinking?

Everything. For ten years from 1971 to 1981 (from age seven to age seventeen) I knew I was going to be an auto designer when I grew up. I was going to attend the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena then go on to become the next Raymond Loewy.

Things worked out differently. At age 17 I spent a year living as an exchange student with a Thai family in a rice field longhouse two hours north of Bangkok, Thailand. I learned there were more important things than cars, and instead studied biology and painting. But I never lost that love of cars, especially that BMW.

In fact, when I moved to California a few years ago, the first thing I did was buy one.

Thank you eBay.

The details:
BMW Art Car Exhibition
Dates: March 24 – April 6, 2009
Location: Vanderbilt Hall, Grand Central Terminal
Park Avenue at 42nd Street
New York, NY

Learning from Japanese school children (amazing)

A truly wonderful book has just hit the stands: Ken Watanabe's Problem Solving 101. If you like The Back of the Napkin's approach to looking at the world, you owe it to yourself to get this book.

I don't know Ken, but I was introduced to his book through my own publisher, who sent me a review copy a few months back. The moment that I looked at it, I felt I had found a kindred spirit. Ken is a former McKinsey consultant who decided to take a consultant's holistic problem-solving approach and apply it to the Japanese education system.

Apparently, there has been a lot of discussion in Japan these last few years that much of that nation's economic stagnation can be blamed on a school system that relies almost entirely on rote memorization. Rather than learning "how" to think, many in Japan thought their kids were only being taught "what" to think. The result is poorly developed innovation and critical thinking skills.

So Ken wrote Problem Solving 101 as an inspiring way to show kids the fun of solving problems. What no one expected was that the book would so appeal to grown-ups in business that it would instantly become a business bestseller in Japan. After 350,000 copies sold in Japanese in the first months, the book was picked up by Portfolio in the US. And now we have a great new resource.

It's always potentially questionable to so enthusiastically promote something from one's own company. In this case I'm willing to take the risk. This is a book we should all read.

The Credit Crisis explained, part 2

Jonathan Jarvis' wonderful animation of the credit crisis is the best explanation I've seen yet.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Aside from being a darn good animation, this clip illustrates the key elements to an effective visual explanation:

• Clear signposting of who, what, how much, and where
• When accounted for through a fluid storyline that takes us from a simple set-up through increasingly complex concepts
• How revealed through an effortless deduction of what is being built before us
• A well written and clear simultaneous verbal narration

Looking at the comments on Jonathan's original posting tells us that not only do we now "get" what's going on, we see it clearly enough to point out possible errors and omissions. And that is a good thing: we can only make intelligent criticism when we understand what we've seen. It takes courage to be this clear.

Commonwealth Club show and tell

I had the extraordinary opportunity to talk about solving problems with pictures at the Commonwealth Club of California last week. We had a full house and I'm torn about the fact that the Club had to turn people away; of course it's wonderful sign to be "oversubscribed', but it's equally hard to know there were people who didn't get to see the pictures.

Thanks to both the Commonwealth Club and Fora.tv, you can watch the entire presentation here:

If the clip doesn't play, you can watch it here:
http://fora.tv/2009/02/24/Dan_Roam_The_Back_of_the_Napkin