Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 111
 Napkins are not just for wiping up any more. September 26, 2009
Jack Howe
Dan Roam has opened my eyes and encouraged me to be more adventuresome with this book on problem solving. I have been a clip art sort of guy afraid that my spelling was bad enough, there was no way I would risk my art work as point of ridcule as well. Surprise, being a not so great artist turns out to a great way to communicate with others. Am out of the closet and working on my art work. Turns out napkins are not just for wiping up anymore.
Good techniques, but gets wordy toward the end September 14, 2009
M. Hill (Intraweb)
Great book for anyone dealing in visual design or presentations of ideas.
I really enjoyed the first part of the book, but toward the end I felt like he was rambling on and not really defining the techniques.
Definitely a good read.
 Good book, need more scientific support September 11, 2009
Sebastian Madrigal Olan (VILLAHERMOSA, TABASCO Mexico)
Its is a book that is supported in experience, and it is good. I will like that the author supports with more scientific theory information.
A Picture's Worth 1000 Spreadsheets August 30, 2009
Larry Underwood (Scottsdale, AZ)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Dan Roam's engaging handbook to communicating & selling through simple illustrations on backs of napkins is remarkable in its foundation of common sense. Just go into any book store & skim through the illustrated books; you can tell by the dog-eared pages, those are the ones that are getting the most attention. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.
That still doesn't mean there aren't millions of dry, non-illustrated books out there; there most certainly are. But, I don't necessarily enjoy reading all of them; or digesting the information very well, if I do. People like illustrations; and we like humor. We learn better when we can be visually stimulated and being entertained in the process, is a no-brainer.
I spent over a quarter of a century in the business world, as a sales & marketing guy; I can attest, from personal experience, some of the best deals our company put together were sealed with some simple strategy like Roam discusses in his handy guide. Napkins are certainly not just for wiping away food any more.
They're the modern day replacement for the spreadsheet, assuming you've got a good felt tip pen to get your visualization across. How true; a picture is indeed worth 1000 spreadsheets!
 A fun approach to learning and teaching August 27, 2009
Stephen Jones (Yucca Valley, CA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Have you ever wrestled with a subject that was hard to understand or explain? Maybe it was a concept in school, a project at work, or even a matter of theology. Visual thinking may have been just the tool you needed.
Dan Roam introduces us to visual thinking in this excellent little book. Say goodbye to clumsy PowerPoint slides, complicated spreadsheets, and endless bullet point lists. It's time to return to the good old-fashioned pen and paper or whiteboard. Roam opens with a series of intriguing questions:
"What if there was a way to more quickly look at problems, more intuitively understand them, more confidently address them, and more rapidly convey to others what we've discovered? What if there was a way to make business problem solving more efficient, more effective, and - as much as I hate to say it - perhaps even a bit more fun? There is. It's called visual thinking, and it's what this book is all about: solving problems with pictures (p. 3)."
The author spends the first half of his book introducing several important principles: 3 Basic Visual Thinking Tools: your eyes, your mind's eye, and hand-eye coordination; 4 Steps in the Visual Thinking Process: look, see, imagine, and show; 5 Questions that help open our mind's eye: the SQVID method; and 6 Ways we see and show ideas: who/what, how much, where, when, how, and why.
In the second half of his book, Roam gets practical. He applies all these principles of visualization to an extended case study of a fictitious software development company called SAX Inc. The book bogs down a little at this point, but it's important for him to carry out the whole process from beginning to end.
For me, the most helpful part of the book was the SQVID (pronounced "squid") method. It's an acronym Roam created to show ten different ways of thinking about a subject: Simple vs. Elaborate; Qualitative vs. Quantitative; Vision vs. Execution; Individual vs. Comparison; and Change vs. As Is (The Greek letter Delta is the symbol for Change). Amazingly, by thinking of an idea in these ten different ways, your imagination is stretched and your mind's eye is trained to look in whole new directions. Both the left and right hemisphere of your brain are exercised.
Visual thinking is a vital principle for both learning and teaching, and I can't think of any better place to start learning about the subject than The Back of the Napkin.
Showing reviews 6-10 of 111
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