Digital Roam

Napkin. Unfolded.

This holiday season has officially started at our house: I just received the first box of copies of my new book from Portfolio. Unfolding the Napkin: The Hands-On Method for Solving Complex Problems with Simple Pictures is here. (Well, almost. Although it's available for pre-order at all the online retailers, it won't be shipped until Dec. 29.)

I'm excited about this book. Thanks to you, feedback on The Back of the Napkin came in from around the world over this past year and a half, and the most common theme was a request for more do-it-yourself exercises. I created Unfolding the Napkin around that promise: this is the self-guided "how-to" book that will take us from saying:

"I can't draw"

to saying:

"Look at the picture I drew that will save the world!"

I structured Unfolding the Napkin as a 4-day working session, as if we were sitting together in front of a big whiteboard with pens in hand. Over those four days, we'll walk through all the tools and rules of back of the napkin visual thinking, including:

• the toolkit,
• the SQVID,
• the 6x6 Rule,
• the Visual Codex.

Altogether, we'll work through more than fifty simple exercises, each building on the previous and each building our confidence as excellent visual thinkers.

Here are a few samples from the book.

The introduction:

The "problem identification" exercise:

 

Portrait drawing drills:

 

"Active Looking" data visualization:

 

One of the things about Unfolding the Napkin that I'm most looking forward to is using it as a textbook in my own training conferences, the first of which will be held here in San Francisco this coming March 4-5. (I'll save details on that for another post, but here's a link to learn more and register.)

Whether you can attend a live conference or not, I know this book can help anyone become a great visual thinker. Don't worry if you think you can't draw. You can.

Let Unfolding the Napkin help prove it.

The Men Who Stare at Boats

The Strategic Studies Group is located at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. This group reports directly (and solely) to the Chief of Naval Operations in the Pentagon. The SSG is tasked with coming up with revolutionary ways of thinking about conflict and winning wars.

I was honored to be invited to give a full "back of the napkin" workshop to the senior officers of the SSG. Last week I packed up my tablet PC and whiteboard and headed off to face the bracing December winds of Newport.

Although I'm not at liberty to share what we talked about, I can say that I had an amazing time and left the Naval War College with an extraordinary sense of confidence in the innovative abilities of our political and military leaders. In other words, the people (quite literally) calling the shots are infinitely more open to new ideas, new ways of thinking, and asking tough questions than those of us not in the armed forces are usually lead to believe.

(Aside: Although my father was an Air Force Captain, my uncle a Naval Commander, and my cousin is a career Marine, I never served in the armed forces. I decided early on that I'd rather learn about the world "out there" by wielding a pencil rather than a gun, but that's another story.)

Simming in Sims Hall

From a visual problem-solving perspective, one of the fascinating aspects of the SSG's operations (that I can share) is the floor. Yes, that's right; the floor of Sim's Hall is a historic landmark. Why would a rather somber checkerboard of white and gray stone be of historical significance?

Because it was on that floor that the naval battles of World War II were acted out in advance. "Sims" Hall was named after Admiral William Sims, the commanding officer of the US Navy's European fleet during WWI and who later became a leading advocate of warfare simulation.

When WWII broke out, the floor of the cafeteria in the building bearing Sims' name became a huge oceanic chessboard. As admirals and commanders moved model ships about the floor, strategists and junior officers watched from the gallery above. Here the battles of the Coral Sea, Midway, and the island-hopping campaign were first visualized.

Sims Hall; appropriate name, isn't it?

BLUF

Another insight I learned from the Marines and Naval officers about communicating ideas is the BLUF principle. When presenting to a senior officer, always keep BLUF in mind:

• Bottom
• Line
• Up
• Front

In other words, get to the point immediately. If that is compelling, there will be plenty of time for details later.

Good lesson. Thank you USMC, USN, and USAF.

Mosquito on a napkin. The one that got away.

Last week I came *this* close to buying a 50-year-old airplane. A 1952 de Havilland Chipmunk became available at a very reasonable price (less than the price of a new Toyota, in case you're wondering what "reasonable" means for an airplane) at an airport just north of San Francisco.

Many people asked me why I would even contemplate buying a WWII-era airplane. (Luckily, my understanding wife was not one of them. She saw the plane. She understood.) The answer is simple. Love. 

And the back of a napkin.

The first movie I remember seeing as a kid was Guy Hamilton's now-classic "Battle of Britain". I was five years old, my father was in the United States Air Force, and I lost my heart to airplanes painted with British roundels saving the world. 

While some people claim the Spitfire is the most beautiful airplane ever created, those people are wrong. The most beautiful airplane ever to fly is the de Havilland Mosquito. Conceived on the back of a napkin by designer Geoffrey de Havilland in the late 1930's, the Mosquito became the fastest, most versatile, and safest aircraft in the British arsenal.

The Chipmunk was designed by de Havilland's Canadian division at the end of the war as a trainer. It went on to become the first airplane that tens of thousands of British, Canadian, Australian, Portuguese, and Swedish pilots flew. Looking at the design, you can see it is a direct descendant of the Mosquito. Look at the fuselage and tail on this red one; it's lifted straight from the Mosquito. (BTW, this red Chipmunk is the actual plane in which Prince Charles learned to fly during his time in the RAF.)

In other words, it is beautiful -- sketched on the back-of-the-napkin beautiful, if you get my meaning. And to those who learned to fly in the Chipmunk, that beauty is much more than skin deep; pilots who know it claim the Chipmunk is the sweetest flying airplane ever made.

So how come I said no? Good question. I'm still torturing myself. The next day the plane was gone, purchased by a more dedicated Chipmunk fan from Reno. Now that bird has flown. But I keep my eyes open for the next to fly along.

"Drawing is how I think" - Milton Glaser

Whether you think you can draw or not, it's worth watching this short clip of award-wining designer Milton Glaser talking about the importance of drawing as a life skill. (While drawing, of course.)

MILTON GLASER DRAWS & LECTURES from C. Coy on Vimeo.

Select quotes from Milton:

Drawing is how I think.

Accuracy is the least important part of drawing.

Art schools have abandoned drawing in order to make time for all the software they have to teach. We get what we need for our professional life but don't have an instrument for understanding the reality of life.

Napkins in Seattle

I'm up in Seattle today to give the opening keynote at the 2009 Society for Information Management SIMPosium. While preparing, I came across a wonderful back-of-the-napkin story. It turns out that Seattle's most famous landmark, the Space Needle, owes it's origin to a simple sketch drawn by a one-time gas station attendant, seaman, and hat salesman named Edward Carlson.

By 1955, Edward, a Tacoma native and classic "self-made man", had become a successful hotel manager in Seattle. To boost civic pride, he undertook a feasibility study to determine whether Seattle could possibly become the venue for the 1962 World's Fair. While thinking through many ideas, he one day pulled out a napkin and sketched a tall tower capped by a rotating restaurant.

He thought it would make a great centerpiece for the Fair. The state legislature agreed.

Architect John Graham Jr. used Edwards's initial sketch as the conceptual basis for the design that became America's tallest structure west of the Mississippi River. To this day the Space Needle remains one of the greatest examples of "rocket-age" architecture. The tower welcomed its 45 millionth visitor in May, 2007.

And whatever happened to Edward, the guy who drew the first sketch on that napkin?

He became CEO of Westin Hotels Inc. Which is where I happen to be staying. I feel like I'm in good company.

The Health Care Rollercoaster Unplugged

Time for a ride on the health care roller coaster again. Only this time forget about the Senate Finance Committee; we're talking the Big Dipper on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.

Next Thursday, Nov. 12, the Health Improvement Partnership of Santa Cruz County has invited me to share my health care napkins at their gala event.

Join me and Healthy Kids of Santa Cruz County for a rolling ride through the ups and downs of H.R.3200, The Baucus Bill, Nancy Pelosi's new price tag... and of course, solving problems with pictures.

Thursday, Nov. 12, 6:00 - 8:00pm. The Dream Inn at 175 West Cliff Drive on the Santa Cruz Beach, Santa Cruz, CA. Tickets are $25 per person, and all proceeds benefit the Healthy Kids program.

Health care napkins take top honors

I'm excited that the health care napkins I created with Tony Jones have just been announced as the "World's Best Presentation 2009" by Slideshare.net and Business Week.

It tells us a lot about the power of simple pictures that over 100,000 people have viewed the slides. After all, this is a PowerPoint presentation about health care; what in the world could possibly be more boring?

Yet by making it visual, simple and clear, people don't mind taking the time to look it over.

Healthcare Napkins All

View more documents from Dan Roam.

This is the real lesson for all of us who need to present information to others:

There is no such thing as boring knowledge.

There are only boring ways to present it.

The second and third place winners make the same point. Orphanages and kidneys? *...Yawn...*

NOT.

Sheltering Wings

View more presentations from Sarah Cullem.

Feels Bad On The Back

View more documents from mohamad faried.

Scaling the Grand Hyatt SF

On Sept. 23 I'll be talking and drawing at the SF Chapter of the American Marketing Association. I hope to touch on:

• Solving any problem with a picture.
• How anyone can draw.
• The best 2 business pictures ever made. (Einstein drew one of them.)

Reception starts at 6:00pm at the Grand Hyatt, drawing on napkins starts at 7:00. Thanks Mark Evans for setting this up. Hope to see you at the Hyatt, right off Union Square.

Register here.

My Speech to Congress (anticipating Obama)

Just when you thought health care was over... BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! (Now how much would you pay??)

After the success of our first round health care back-of-the-napkins, Dr. Jones and I realized we still had a bit more to say. When we heard that President Obama was going to be speaking to an extraordinary joint session of Congress next week (Wednesday, Sept. 9 at prime time) we took upon ourselves to say it for him.

So here are the index cards we recommend the President take with him when he mounts the stage next week. (Yes, we know he uses a Teleprompter, but we kind of liked the old-school approach. It lends an additional needed air of 'authenticity'.)

You can recite our proposed speech index card-by-index card below (click on each image to enlarge for better readability) or view as a PowerPoint on Slideshare.net.

We'll be watching next week to see if he takes up our talking points. Anyone have a direct line to Jon Favreau?

Health care napkins update: FOX news, Huffington Post, etc.

Two weeks ago, I published here and on slideshare.net a series of "back of the napkin" visual explanations of the health care debate. I created the napkins in order to myself understand the essentials of a public debate which had become more vicious than any in recent memory. I also hoped others might find them a useful baseline description of the issues.

The response has proven to me (again) the staggering power of simple pictures.

Healthcare Napkins All

View more documents from Dan Roam.

Since I posted the slide show, it has been viewed more than 76,000 times, embedded in 265 other blogs, cited on the HuffingtonPost.com and prompted FOX News to ask me to explain on air what the debate is really about.

(On a side note, I find it interesting that FOX was the first network to call. My politics rarely align with those of the pundits appearing on FOX, so it was gratifying that they found the clarity of my napkins more compelling than any political slant. That's something to be especially optimistic about.)

As the government reconvenes in the next weeks, I'm sure health care will remain as contentious an issue as it was before vacation. I plan to create a second set of napkins as the debate heats up again. Watch for them here.