Just out is Back of the Napkin, a book that looks at business problem-solving by using visual cues. My review copy is sitting here waiting for me to give it a look. My first impression is that “Back of the Napkin” is a little seat-of-the-pants (that’s certainly true of the event that inspired the book), but reviews like this one on 800CEOread give it a thumbs-up for its argument that
visual thinking through the use of drawing is one of the most powerful tools for solving problems and selling ideas we have available to us. And selling ideas and problem-solving, I think we can all agree, are essential to business success.v
The book promises that even those of us who draw like a second grader can nonetheless use visual images to solve difficult business problems. We shall see. I am all for visual learning, but suspicious of books about the obvious (and who has not scribbled pictures on a napkin or used their own ability to make an x-y axis on a blackboard instead of using PowerPoint?).
In the meantime, The Principled Innovation blog has a podcast with Napkin author Dan Roam.
