Drawing an Audience, The Old-Fashioned Way

This was in our local paper, the Eugene Register Guard, “from news service reports:”

When Dan Roam wants to make a point in business meetings, he doesn’t use Excel or give PowerPoint presentations. He uses paper.

In his recently published book, “The Back of the Napkin,” Roam gives tips on how to develop ideas and solve problems with pictures to captivate colleagues, as well as visually capturing those “Aha” moments through sketches.

The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures
by Dan RoamRead more about this book…

“I started to notice in business meetings that when I would draw on a piece of paper or white board, people would pay an extraordinary amount of attention,” said Roam, who owns a managing and consulting firm [sic]. “It would be like bringing magic into the room.”

Roam said even the simplest illustrations — circles, boxes, stick figures — are great tools for developing concepts intuitively. “This is something everyone knows how to do, skills we developed in kindergarten, but nobody told us we could use in business,” he said.

So I like that tip. By the way, if you have a tablet computer, you can have the best of both ways, with a PowerPoint presentation and the ability to draw live sketches as part of the presentation.

Comments

  • João Pereira says:

    Well…Never thought about that before. But indeed he's right. Now I can remember the reaction of my audience when I grab a pencil! Or they're thinking that I want to shoot someone with that pencil??

    And why I never thought about that before?

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