David Sibbett, in his excellent new book, Visual Meetings: How Graphics, Sticky Notes & Idea Mapping Can Transform Group Productivity, shares a number of tips and strategies for sharing key charts, maps and diagrams with meeting participants.
During the last year or so, a wealth of new books have been published that aim to help business people solve complex problems by thinking them through visually. Which ones are your favorites?
For people the world over, the Gordian Knot represents the difficult, the intractable and often the insolvable problem. Today’s systemic business problems are the modern-day equivalent of the Gordian Knot, and visual thinking is the powerful sword that we can use to cut through complexity and develop innovative solutions to them.
In much the same way that developers have written a significant number of mind mapping apps for the Apple iPhone/iPod Touch platform, similar apps are starting to emerge for the Android smartphone operating system. Here are two of the most popular: Mind Map Memo and Thinking Space. One looks very promising, the other one, not so much.
SmartDraw is a software program that is designed to help the average person to create great-looking diagrams, quickly and easily. But in my last job, I had very few opportunities to use it, so I really didn’t get a chance to use the latest version, SmartDraw 2010, for some real business applications. All that changed in January.
Dan Roam, author of the popular visual thinking book, The Back of the Napkin, has just published a workbook called Unfolding the Napkin: The Hands-On Method for Solving Complex Problems with Simple Pictures.
If you want to engage in a deeper study of the principles, applications and possibilities of visual mapping, here are 8 books that I have personally read and recommend.
Headspace is a visual outliner for the iPhone and iPod Touch that offers some cool 3D effects and the ability to link disparate topics to one another. In this review, we’ll take a look at the most notable features of this visually stunning application, as well as make you aware of several minor shortcomings.
What causes crises in many businesses? Poor communications. How can we improve communications? By sharing information visually.
It should come as no surprise to the readers of this blog that many of history’s greatest thinkers were big believers in visual thinking. A case in point was one of the most prolific inventors and artists in Western civilization, Leonardo da Vinci.
