Visual thinking is quickly growing in importance as a strategy for attacking difficult business problems. But what’s driving this need and why should you learn about it?

That’s the purpose of this new mind map, which outlines the major drivers behind the growth of visual thinking (the “why”) and codifies the benefits of adopting this type of mindset (please click on the map to view a larger image).

What do you think? What would you add to this mind map? Please share your thoughts!

This mind map was created using iMindMap 5 Ultimate for Windows.

One of the key strategies for innovation and business development today is to look beyond your core business for adjacent markets, technologies or areas of focus where you can expand without severely taxing the resources of your organization. Tools like mind mapping and business diagramming can help you to visualize these adjacencies and to make informed decisions about which opportunities to pursue.

The diagram above depicts the Mind Mapping Software Blog as the center of my content universe. However, I realized several years ago that there’s much going on in the adjoining topics that may also be of value to you, flavors of visual thinking such as business diagramming, infographics and sketching. My core business continues to be focused on mind mapping software. But I have “zoomed out” to include some additional topics within the broader category of visual thinking, which adds a new dimension of value to my blog.

How to apply this idea to your business

Imagine how you could apply this principle of adjacencies to your own business. What is the core part of your business, the part upon which you currently depend for the bulk of your revenue? How could you expand your scope to include related products or markets that your customers also need? How could you provide them with a more comprehensive solution?

Whether you’re a blogger, consultant, accountant or manufacturer, the same principles apply: take off your blinders and look at the “bigger frame” that surrounds your business. What else should he be exploring? As you explore these potential opportunities, you may uncover connections and synergies that you didn’t even realize existed that could add significant value to your business.

The above diagram was created using SmartDraw, but you could just as easily replicate it using any mind mapping software. Simply place your core business as the central topic. If your business has multiple divisions or product lines, create first-level topics for each of them. Then add adjacent areas that may be relevant to each product line or division as child topics.

The reason I created a diagram rather than a mind map is because it enables me to do some clever things to add further meaning and relevance using formatting and color:

• A larger potential market can be depicted by a larger circle.
• Color can be used to designate markets that are most attractive to you. For example, I’ve used green to indicate those that I should begin exploring immediately, yellow for those that may have some future potential and red for those that aren’t a good strategic fit for my blog.
• You could use different topic shapes to designate different types of opportunities.
• You could depict the regions for your core business and adjacent business opportunities as nested rectangles rather than circles.

Use your imagination!

The key is to clearly visualize what your core business is and then thoughtfully – and visually – consider what business you’re REALLY in – the larger context within which you could potentially do business. This could be framed by a broader understanding of your customers’ total needs or perhaps in anticipation of what people may want, even if they don’t know what that is (Apple’s business philosophy).

Good luck exploring YOUR adjacencies!

Mind mapping is only one flavor of visual thinking. Because this blog is heavily focused upon mind mapping software, it’s easy to forget that there are many other ways to represent information and ideas in visual form. So from time to time, I like to remind you of the larger world of which mind mapping is a part.

“Think Visual” was inspired by Apple’s Think Different brand-building campaign, which celebrated creative people and gave them a brand to identify with. I’ve always liked the thinking behind “think different.” It doesn’t say we should think “differently” – which would imply a superficial, incremental change to our usual, well-worn mental pathways. No, when Steve Jobs insisted that Apple’s ad agency use the phrase think DIFFERENT, it was because that captured the kind of lateral thinking he was fond of.

Jobs wanted creative people to imagine big possibilities, to do work that would make a difference – that would “put a dent in the universe.”

Inspired by the whole concept behind “think different” (which I’m reading about in Walter Isaacon’s excellent biography of the late Steve Jobs – I decided to try my hand at designing a logo that would encourage visual thinkers to “Think Visual.” You can see the result above, embedded as the central topic in a mind map that I created using ThinkBuzan’s iMindMap program. I then surrounded it with many popular types of visual thinking. Some may look familiar, because I write about them occasionally.

In the spirit of Think Different, get out there and stretch your visual thinking muscles. Imagine what could be. Don’t be satisfied with the status quo. And don’t be afraid to explore some different varieties of visual thinking. It will broaden your ability envision ideas, solve problems and generate solutions. What you learn in the process will make your mind mapping even stronger. It’s time to do great things, dream big, make a dent in the universe.

If you’d like to share the Think Visual logo on your blog or website, please feel free to download the image files below. Several styles are provided. All I ask is that you cite the source and link back to this blog. OK?

Please help spread the word about Think Visual. If you do so, please let me know using the contact page on this blog or send me a message on Twitter. Thanks!

What does that mean? We tend to over-rely on words – spoken and written – in our business communications, which tend to overwhelm us and underinform us at the same time.

Evidence of death by detail is all around us:

• CEO speeches that are dominated by corporate-speak – lots of words, but very little meaning.
• PowerPoint decks that bore us to tears with too many bullets, too many words – and presenters who insist on reading off of their slides.
• The endless torrent of business books coming at us that even professional reviewers don’t have time to read any more. To make matters worse, many of these books are content to just put a fresh veneer on existing concepts. Once again, a lot of words, but very little original thinking and information we can actually use.
• Bloated corporate reports that contain too much useless detail and not enough of the information we really need to do our jobs. This is made worse by the fact that many businesspeople are only fair to poor writers. They don’t know what’s important, so they dump in everything.
• Millions of websites, many of which contain information of questionable accuracy – or which represent opinions, not facts. For the average person, it’s actually hard to tell the two apart.
• Companies are awash in ideas, but don’t have a reliable process to separate the handful of potentially valuable ones from the ginormous pile of bad ones.

We have met the enemy – and he is us

According to Roam, we have become unintentional victims of the Information Age:

“None of us set out intending to make good ideas hard to find. Nobody decided up front that the best way to say one thing was to say everything. Nobody began a career believing that the best way to get ahead is by making sure they’re not understood.

“With all of the channels of instant communication available to us, we should understand each other better, not worse. With so much history accessible with the tap of a finger, we should find faster ways to solve problems, not quicker ways to assign blame. When we have a great idea, we should be able to share it more clearly than ever, not find it harder than ever to be heard.”

We don’t need more words. We need more ideas. We need them fast, and we need them to be good – and to know that they’re good, we need them to be clear.”

That last sentence is the manifesto of the book: Clarity comes from well-thought out pictures and images, not words alone. Pictures help us to think, and they help us to communicate more effectively.

Blah, Blah, Blah is all about creating a methodology for thinking things through, and then breaking through the clutter – the “noise” we just described – in order to communicate our ideas impactfully, so we can gain the attention of the people we need to influence.

Despite the odd book title (which, ironically, Roam probably chose because it would get attention), Blah, Blah, Blah looks like another winner from Dan Roam. I’m just starting to dig into this book, which is liberally illustrated with Roam’s simple, clear drawings. If you don’t recognize his name, Roam is the author of the best-selling The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures.

Who is this book for?

If your job involves developing ideas and sharing them with others (I think that describes most of us reading this blog!), then I recommend you invest in this important book.

Linkedin has evolved into a popular platform for forming groups where professionals can ask questions, get answers and discuss topics and issues of mutual interest. In fact, for many topics, they are taking over the role filled by “traditional” bulletin board systems of a decade ago. Not surprisingly, mind mapping and visual thinking are well represented on this professional networking site.

Here are 7 groups that you should be aware of:

Visual Thinking – Excellent forum for general discussion of visual thinking tools, techniques and resources.

VizThink – This is a non-profit organization that was formed several years ago to provide a forum for designers and others to learn about visual thinking and apply it. The group holds instructional webinars on a regular basis.

ConceptDraw Users – This group is focused on applications of CS Odessa’s visual thinking software, which includes ConceptDraw, a vector-based drawing and diagramming application, and ConceptDraw MINDMAP.

Mindmapping – This group bills itself as a place for Q&A related to mind mapping.

BiggerPlate user Group – This group is focused on what is arguably the world’s best online mind map gallery.

MindManager Enthusiasts – This group is a good place to ask questions and get answers about the world’s most popular mind mapping software. There’s some good expertise here.

FreeMind – Free Mind Mapping Software Group – This group focuses on all things related to this very popular open source mind mapping program.

Mind Mapping User Group – The purpose of this group is to help users of mind mapping. Specifically, it aims to highlight applications of visual mapping.

If there are other Linkedin groups that you think are worthy of a mention, please submit them in the comments area below. Thanks!

As someone with deep roots in both areas – writing and visual thinking – and a keen interest in 21st century communication strategies, I highly recommend this book. The forward of Writing for Visual Thinkers explains its purpose with great clarity:

“Writing for Visual Thinkers presents ideas and methods that can help visual thinkers become better writers. It covers topics such as 21st century literacy, the workings of the brain and its connection to creativity, and how to use writing in more pragmatic ways… The goal of this book is to explore the potential of written communication asa way to better understand the process of visual communication.”

The structure of the book

Writing for Visual Thinkers is divided into 6 chapters:

• The writer’s toolbox
• Thinking in words and pictures
• Verbal and visual connections
• Narrative structures: Verbal and visual working together
• Writing and editing in the 21st century
• Writing in practice

The book’s well-designed layout makes it easy to skim and consume in small chunks, ideal for today’s time-challenged writers and designers. Or you can sit down and consume the entire book in a few hours. In any case, this book is a resource that you’ll want to keep handy at your desk, because you’ll refer to it on a regular basis as you seek to grow your visual thinking and writing skills. Each concept in the book is, not surprisingly, well illustrated with images, drawings and diagrams. In short, it’s a very visually appealing and interesting book. Kudos to the author and designer, who obviously worked closely together to make the medium strongly support the message.

The writer’s toolbox

Inspired by great thinkers like Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein, who filled numerous sketchbooks with drawings and writings, Marks covers a wide breadth of lateral thinking tools and techniques in chapter 1, including mind mapping, concept mapping, brainwriting, key word lists, reflective writing and sketchbooks. She explains, clearly and concisely what each technique is and how to make it a part of your repertoire. She also suggests some exercises to practice each technique.

The importance of visual literacy

Chapter 3, which delves into the topic of visual literacy, is also quite interesting. Visual literacy, as defined by Marks, “refers to an understanding of how to create and use imagery, as well as an awareness of how a particular image delivers a message.” If you’ve been reading this blog or my reports for any length of time, then you know I’m a big believer in making careful use of images, icons and symbols in mind maps. They must have a near-universal appeal, often drawing upon shared cultural interpretations of what certain images and symbols mean, to ensure that others understand what you’re trying to communicate when they view your visual maps.

This is perhaps one of the most important chapters in this book, because it addresses some of the ways in which reading and writing have evolved in the early 21st century. “The bottom line is that traditional notions of reading and writing have changed, and this has opened up new opportunities for artists and designers to think about reading, writing and publishing in our visual culture,” she explains.

In this chapter, Marks also covers the importance of critical thinking – reading material not just for its surface knowledge and value, but for its deeper, underlying meanings and implications – capturing both the macro and micro ideas contained within it is how the author describes this process. As you would expect, Marks is a big believer in visually annotating what you read – writing notes in the margins of a printed article, for example, or using a tool like Diigo to capture online articles of interest and annotate them with highlights and sticky notes. Lots of great ideas here!

Narrative structures for effective storytelling

As social media continues to evolve and grow in importance as a communication channel for influencing our target audiences, storytelling is becoming more important. Chapter 4 digs into narrative structures, which are essential to creating persuasive, engaging stories that move our customers to take desirable action.

In addition to containing a wealth of ideas and techniques that you can use to improve both your writing and visual thinking skills, the book comes with a CD that contains an e-book version of Writing for Visual Thinkers plus a variety of templates, examples and other supplemental resources that you may find valuable.

Conclusion

There’s no question in Marks’ mind, or mine while reading this book, that strengthening your visual and written skills can have a huge payoff. Everyone is starved for attention today. That means for your message to punch through the clutter, it has to have almost a visceral appeal – using powerful imagery – and then deliver the goods through concise, engaging storytelling.

For anyone who wants to be a more persuasive visual thinker or communicator, Writing for Visual Thinkers is an essential guidebook. I highly recommend it!

Step 1: Looking

The first step in the process is looking. What is the situation you are looking at and what are some ways in which it can be represented visually? At this stage you are defining the problem and establishing a frame around it. In other words, what is and what is not the problem? Record your thoughts as they occur to you but don’t give too much consideration to structure at this point in time.

Step 2: See

The second step in the process is when you look at what you have recorded in your visual map and start to make sense out of it. The three most important questions you can ask yourself at this stage are:

• What patterns do I see in the information I have recorded?
• What is missing?
• What stands out?

As you discern patterns, regroup map topics to join related items together. Don’t be afraid of experimenting; if a topic looks out of place where you moved it, use your program’s undo feature to move it back, or drag it to a different location.

As you group related items together, you may see holes in your mind map – sections where you need to add details in order to make your map more complete. Fortunately, that’s one of the key advantages of mind maps: They help us to develop a clearer and more complete picture and to fill in the blanks.

As you refine the content and structure of our mind map, you should also be developing a sense of what’s most important – what stands out. Now is the time to use your mind mapping program’s formatting tools to add visual emphasis to those key areas. You can do this by adding a boundary to a key topic and its subtopics. You can also use topic shapes, color and typography to differentiate these key elements of your mind map.

Step 3: Imagine

Where step 2, see, asks us to take a pragmatic look at the information we’ve gathered, step 3, imagine, requires us to step back and take a higher-level view of our mind map. For example, one of the key questions Roam recommends you ask yourself is, “How can I manipulate these patterns?” This implies that we’re viewing our mind map from such a high mental level that we can now see how individual patterns relate to each other. This, in turn, may help us to see other gaps in our information that need to be filled. It also begs the question, “Do I have enough information?” Do I need to conduct more research? Do I need to talk to subject matter experts to learn more?

Perhaps there are even some holes that you identified in step 2 where the information needed to fill it wasn’t readily available. Now is the time to gather it and put it into the proper places in our mind map.

By the end of step 3, you should have a complete mind map.

Step 4: Show

In this final step, you share your findings with others, and explain and what you think they mean – two different but related types of information that should be clearly differentiated from each other using color and/or font styles. One of the questions Roam asks (“This is what I expected… or not?”) implies that when you began your research, you began with a hypothesis. Your findings either validated it or not.

Not only do you use your visual map to communicate information to others in stage 4, Roam implies that you should also use it to open up a dialogue with them – “Are you seeing the same thing that I’m seeing?” This suggests that visual thinking can be a tool for helping to build shared understanding and consensus. I had never thought about a mind map in that context before, but it does make a lot of sense!

Conclusion

I think there’s a strong parallel between the simple process that Roam shared in Unfolding The Napkin and the iterative process of creating an effective mind map. Keep in mind the look, see, imagine and show process the next time you create a mind map, and I think you’ll end up with a better result!

In the book, Sibbett shares a number of ways of sharing these visual outputs with others in print and digitally. While he is talking mainly about hand-drawn charts, diagrams and visual maps, these strategies also apply to mind maps used to capture the ideas and decisions from meetings:

In print

• Simple photocopies of key charts and diagrams
• Full color digital prints that capture the diagrams in a larger-sized format, such as 11 x 17 inches
• Annotated reports, in which you add titles and captions to charts to create a chronology of the meeting
• Picture books, in which you add images and explanatory text to the charts to tell the full story of the meeting

Online sharing

• Photograph the key charts, diagrams and maps generated during the meeting, process them to reduce their size and resolution to reduce their file sizes and then e-mail them to the meeting participants as JPG images. Sibbett says this is fast and easy way to communicate a quick post-meeting summary to all of the meeting participants.
• Combine key charts and diagrams in a PDF document
• Insert JPG images of key charts and diagrams into a PowerPoint presentation, add captions to them and share them with meeting participants via e-mail
• Post images in an online site that everyone can access; be sure to create smaller and larger versions of each chart, so participants can view thumbnail images of each diagram, but also click on them to view a larger, higher-resolution version
• Upload large files to a secure file sharing website (such as box.net) and then provide meeting participants with its URL and user names and passwords where they can download them.
• Reference key charts and diagrams in web meetings – in other words, share the results of the meeting via web conference, and display the visual outputs of the meeting on screen

Other tips for sharing visual materials

• Format your charts and diagrams so that they can be divided into easily readable sections. Don’t overwhelm them with a massive mind map in which the outermost topics are formatted in 5 point type that is barely readable without a magnifying glass!
• If you’re sharing your meeting output online, be sure to leverage the ability to link your meeting participants and others with additional resources. For example, you can format regions of images with “hot spots” so that when someone clicks on them, their web browser opens a specific web page. This enables people to view a high-level presentation of your meeting’s output, while others who want more detail can easily “drill down” into supporting documents and resources. Smart! Another option, enabled by newer types of graphic software, is to embed “popovers” that display ancillary information if you mouse over a specific region of your diagram.

Isn’t this a lot of work? Yes, but it’s a worthwhile investment in the future effectiveness of the team: “It does take time to do all this, but having the material in visual form is part of what supports productivity and group memory over time,” Sibbett acknowledges.

Help people understand the context

One critical point that really resonated with me is this: The charts and diagrams you’re sharing mean a lot to the people who participated, because they can look at these visuals and understand the meaning and context behind them. However, if you plan to share the visual output of your meeting with others who were not in your meeting, they lack this context.

To overcome this challenge, Sibbett offers a very clever solution: Produce a report in which diagrams and their text explanations are formatted on facing pages. “That way you get the best of both text-based and graphic representations,” he explains.

I think this is a simply brilliant solution to a very common problem.

If you’re wondering what the world looks like beyond mind mapping, Sibbett’s book is an excellent guide to visual thinking techniques. Why not pick up a copy of Visual Meetings today?

• The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures by Dan Roam
• Unfolding the Napkin: The Hands-On Method for Solving Complex Problems with Simple Pictures by Dan Roam
• Visual Meetings: How Graphics, Sticky Notes and Idea Mapping Can Transform Group Productivity by David Sibbett
• Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers and Changemakers by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanuto
• Mind Maps for Business: Revolutionize Your Business Thinking & Practice by Tony Buzan and Chris Griffiths
• resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences by Nancy Duarte (new – I have this book on order from Amazon.com)

What are your favorite books on the topic of visual mapping for business? Why do you like them? Please share your thoughts in the comments area below. Thanks!

(The illustration above right is featured on Sunni Brown’s blog and is representative of visual thinking)

According to Greek mythology,  the huge, ball-like Turkish knot with no ends exposed was impossible to untie. An oracle had predicted that the first person to do so would become the ruler of all Asia. Thousands of people had tried, without success, to unlock its complex riddles. Alexander of Macedonia, son of King Philip II of Macedon, solved this puzzle simply and very creatively – by cutting it in half with his sword, exposing its ends and making it possible to untie. Alexander the Great went on to conquer all of Asia, just as the oracle predicted.

According to David Sibbett, author of Visual Meetings: How Graphics, Sticky Notes & Idea Mapping Can Transform Group Productivity, many businesses today face challenges of Gordian proportions:

“Responding to the complexity and scale of changes in the economy and the environment is starting to outstrip our capabilities. Running our organizations lean, with slim or no travel budgets, and less and less time for real dialogue and engagement is challenging the quality of communications.”

I have believed for some time, based upon my extensive reading and business experience, that many businesses have solved most of the simple problems – in effect, the low-hanging fruit. What’s left are the complex, systemic challenges, which are even harder to solve because of the downsized, time- and resource-starved environments in which we work today.

Confusion in groups is caused by inadequate and conflicting mental models, Sibbett explains. In other words, people can’t even agree on what the problem is. This is a major problem, because these models govern how work gets done, how teams collaborate, how to make decisions, how to organize and how to learn.

In addition, we tend to fall into the habit of rutted thinking, which limits what we’re able to see and interpret. We tend to look at information the same way all the time. To make matters worse, we bring deeply embedded points of view to our work that we may not  even be aware of, which act like blinders on a horse – limiting our view to what’s right in front of us.

“The way you view something directly impacts how much insight and information you obtain and how smart you can be,” Sibbett explains.

Making the case for visual thinking in groups

Visual thinking in groups exposes these differing mental models, helps them to reach consensus, to see the underlying patterns in the information they’re working with and to generate new insights and solutions faster. Examples of visual thinking tools include process diagrams, roadmaps, journey charts, graphic recording, mind mapping 4-quadrant grids, visual collages, affinity charts, fishbone diagrams and much more.

“Without these tools, groups are very handicapped in thinking about anything that is very complex… I am convinced from my own experience that it is impossible to do what is called ‘systems thinking’ without visualization… If you want to think about how things connect and are related you will have to make some sort of display.”

Like Alexander the Great, we have the opportunity to use these tools to think about problems more creatively, build consensus and understanding, restore vision at a time when it is sorely lacking and leverage new opportunities for innovation and future growth. Visual Meetings is a practical field guide to this Brave New World of knot-busting tools. David Sibbett’s book is highly recommended!