I remember the days when I first used mindmapping to sketch ideas, gather requirements just-in-time or plan projects. First, people are surprised and relunctant: they have learnt e.g. that you take note in a digital order, bullet by bullet. So, the adoption rate of mindmapping was not that high in those days. Meanwhile companies like MindJet have sold more than one million licenses of mindmapping software packages.
I must admit that I’ve been a bit powerpoint-overeaten for the first two years with my present company. So, the “Back of the Napkin” hit my attention:
Visual Thinking is an extraordinary powerful way to solve problems, and though it may appear to be something new, the fact is that we already know how to do it.
Dan Roam has published this very useful book on how to make use of the visual thinking skills each of us has. His website outlines the basic toolset, the Google Talk session gives a vivid introduction (see below), and his book shows a lot of real-life examples for your “visual thinking MBA”.
