What’s Hot.
Interesting concepts; new approach to presenting; excuse to draw like a kindergartener
What’s Not.
Readability
The bottom line.
Roam’s book presents a convincing argument for visual thinking and gives readers an opportunity to explore a new type of presentation.
Dan Roam believes that “any problem can be solved with a picture. And that anybody can draw it.” After reading his book, The Back of the Napkin, you’ll most likely be convinced of this argument too. A management consultant and lecturer, Roam advocates using visual thinking to work through complex business ideas. Visual thinking, he says, allows you to clarify your own thoughts and present them in a way that lets audiences easily understand exactly what you’re thinking
Some of you might say, “But I’m not a visual person!” Sorry, but Roam says you’re wrong. He argues that as long as you have functioning eyeballs, you can think and present visually.
Some of you might say, “But I can’t draw!” Sorry again, but Roam believes that simple hand-drawn pictures clarify or solve problems better than slides full of bullet points and fancy images. The most complex picture you need to be able to draw, he says, is a smiley face. Roam’s book won’t actually teach you how to draw, but you probably have bigger problems if you can’t even draw a smiley face.
Roam dedicates one section of his book to a theory he calls “SQVID.” SQVID is a mnemonic device that allows you to remember five “focusing questions” that will help you decide which image will best present your concept to the audience. Is the idea you’re trying to get across (S) simple or elaborate, (Q) qualitative or quantitative, (V) vision or execution, (I) individual or comparison or (D) change (delta) or status quo?
After tackling the SQVID of your problem, you can follow Roam’s <6><6> (six by six) theory to decide which basic picture type will best represent your idea. Roam uses portraits to distinguish one thing from another, charts to illustrate the concept of “how much” and maps to answer the question, “Where?” He uses timelines to present the concept of “when,” flowcharts to show audiences how things are done and multi-variable plots to answer the question, “Why?”
Although Roam is very convincing in his argument supporting visual thinking and representation, my feeling is that audiences will take time to warm up to this new style of presenting. If you are a strong presenter, you will likely convince your audience quickly that your drawings are legitimate. Weaker presenters, however, might feel uncomfortable drawing smiley faces all over a dry erase board in front of the company’s CEO.
As you probably deduced from my review, Roam’s concepts are fairly difficult to describe in words. The Back of the Napkin includes a boatload of graphics, which is helpful, but can make reading the book challenging because readers might find themselves jumping too often between text and graphics. As an added bonus, though, The Back of the Napkin, although intended as a business book, doubles as a perfect coffee table book because, well, it looks like a cocktail napkin. Just don’t let your guests mistake it for a coaster.
