Book Report: The Back of the Napkin, by Dan Roam

Dan Roam describes his visual thinking method as "... forcing ourselves to look at our idea from every point on the SQVID, a fascinating thing happens, with an equally fascinating outcome. We fullly activate both the left ("analytic") and right ("creative") sides of our brain."

He calls his thinking process toolkit, the swiss knife 3-4-5-6:

• 3 for tools: eyes, mind and hands
• 4 for process: look, see, imagine and show
• 5 for focus: SQVID (simple, quality, vision, individual, and delta -- change)
• 6 for framework: Portrait, chart, map, timeline, flowchart, and multiple-variable plots

I believe understanding 3, 4, 5, 6 is easy; but executing 3-4-5-6 is not. The visual thinking codex is a mesh, a matrix. It works best pictorialized:

This thinking matrix is based on Roam's graphics equalizer, which I find extremely useful:

 

I was also pleasantly surprised to find him writing about messaging and email (Page 122 -124) -- using a fake software vendor (SAX Inc) in his MBA crash course (Chapter 8 - 14).  It was inspiring to read about Bain & Company, whose logo derived from the earth's 2 North Poles, differentiating "how we are going to get there" from "we are going to get there". The book actually gets more interesting and inspiring as you read on.

To be honest, I had to make 3 attempts to get myself started on this book. At first, I was frustrated by it's casual monologue style of writing. Then I thought I should just scan the book by studying the pictures... but  that didn't work. Finally I realized that this book should be read "with pictures", and that the writing style is meant to have the author himself explaining his sketches as he draws, just like we would when we are presenting or sketching out your ideas.  So there... hope you enjoy your read too!

I'd like to dedicate this book report to Jon Asbury (my mentor) for introducing me the book, and Miss Yung (my English Literature teacher) for giving me the ability to appreciate.