Books : The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures
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In association with Amazon.com
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by: Dan Roam
List Price: $24.95Amazon.com's Price: $16.47 You Save: $8.48 (34%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.403
EAN: 9781591841999
ISBN: 1591841992
Label: Portfolio Hardcover
Manufacturer: Portfolio Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: March 13, 2008
Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover
Sales Rank: 223
Studio: Portfolio Hardcover
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
A bold new way to tackle tough business problems—even if you draw like a second grader
When Herb Kelleher was brainstorming about how to beat the traditional hub-and- spoke airlines, he grabbed a bar napkin and a pen. Three dots to represent Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. Three arrows to show direct flights. Problem solved, and the picture made it easy to sell Southwest Airlines to investors and customers.
Used properly, a simple drawing on a humble napkin is more powerful than Excel or PowerPoint. It can help crystallize ideas, think outside the box, and communicate in a way that people simply “get”. In this book Dan Roam argues that everyone is born with a talent for visual thinking, even those who swear they can’t draw.
Drawing on twenty years of visual problem solving combined with the recent discoveries of vision science, this book shows anyone how to clarify a problem or sell an idea by visually breaking it down using a simple set of visual thinking tools – tools that take advantage of everyone’s innate ability to look, see, imagine, and show.
THE BACK OF THE NAPKIN proves that thinking with pictures can help anyone discover and develop new ideas, solve problems in unexpected ways, and dramatically improve their ability to share their insights. This book will help readers literally see the world in a new way.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Where's the Editor
I struggled with this book. It has some great ideas, but it reminds me of the last hour of the film version of The Return of the King or the entire King Kong by Peter Jackson. Where's the editor?
The good and the bad:
1. He gives concrete examples of how to use visual thinking and gives you tools to figure out what to do.
2.It's a 300 pages book talking about visual thinking. Okay. I read it on the Kindle, so I don't know really how big the pictures are. But the point ... Read More
Rating:  - Learn the process of visualizing information for telling your story
I'm not good at drawing, but that doesn't stop me from occasionally using a whiteboard to visually communicate ideas. Communicating ideas isn't about creating a Picasso or a Rembrandt. Stick figures are welcome!
The visual process contains four phases:
* Look: Orient yourself and know which way is up, where you are, and identify.
* See: Explore the five W's (who, what, when, where, and why) plus how many.
* Imagine: No SQUIDS here (it's SQVID (simple, quality, ... Read More
Rating:  - Drawing is better
The premise of the book is that any problem, idea, or presentation can be solved using pictures - hand drawn pictures. Roam argues that everyone is visual, even those who say they aren't. He gives a few frameworks to work from as you prepare to draw out maps, charts, and pictures to present your ideas. I found them very helpful and refreshing. Roam also uses pictures significantly throughout the book which are also helpful.
In addition to Dan Roam saying that hand drawn pictures are more ... Read More
Rating:  - All sizzle, no steak
Dan Roam's "Back of the Napkin" is an important first step in teaching business people how to compose problems visually. However, it's definitely a rookie effort, heavy on sizzle but light on steak.
Roam spends nearly half the book explaining how our minds process information. Okay, fine. Kind of like a book on how to build a house explaining what is a hammer, a saw, a drill. Then Roam proposes some different ways to draw the different ways the brain processes information. Kind of like showing ... Read More
Rating: - A Good Introduction For Data Visualization
Typically I don't buy many books-- we have a good local library, so I buy only those that are 1) very interesting and 2) worth referring to later. This book is both. It is marketed as a book that shows how to develop business presentations by drawing the charts in front of the audience rather than relying on pre-made PowerPoint slides. Anyone, however, who needs to learn how to display data to convince others (data visualization) will find this book useful.
The good: it is an easy and fast read, ... Read More
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