Filed under: visual language

The power of Visual thinking

I read Dan Roam's "The back of the napkin" some time ago. The book shows, how thinking with pictures helps you to discover and develop new ideas, solve problems in different ways, and dramatically improve your ability to share new insights with other people.

I am really fascinated by Dan's concepts on visual thinking and the other day I found two videos, where he uses his techniques in presentations. I think they are excellent examples of the power of visual communications and well worth watching.

1. The history of visual thinking
Dan Roam gives a complete overview of the history and definition of visual thinking, and a bonus of the history of the human species in 5 minutes.

2. The Bonus Battle (Or: How to make the world mad at you without really trying.)
This presentation shows, why the US government is mad at the banks and will levy a $120 billion fee on Wall Street to recoup money lost in the initial $700 billion bailout.


What is information?

We all exchange "Information" every day through e-mail, meetings, telephone conversations, presentations or other forms of communications. Though, we rarely discuss what information really is – the term itself is often used incorrectly. This is a short video by MAYA Design about what information really is. Another great example of how "visual language" can help to explain abstract concepts.