The Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam: Book Cover

    The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures by Dan Roam

    BUY IT NEW

    • $26.95 List price
    • $21.56 Online price(Save 20%)
    • $19.40 Member price
    • Join Now
      • skip to cart
    • Add To List uiAction=GetAllLists&page=List&pageType=list&ean=9781591841999&productCode=BK&maxCount=100&threshold=3

    Usually ships within 24 hours

    Delivery Time and Shipping Rates

    BUY IT USED

    5 used from $15.85

    Used Copies Available from our Authorized Sellers.

    FIND & RESERVE AN IN-STORE COPY

    Enter a zip code

    (Hardcover)

    Reader Rating: (4 ratings)

    Detailed Rating: "Clarity" See All

    • Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
    • Pub. Date: March 2008
    • ISBN-13: 9781591841999
    • Sales Rank: 10,625
    • 288pp
     
    • Overview
    • Editorial Reviews
    • Customer Reviews
    • Full Product Details

    Synopsis

    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.

    Publishers Weekly

    The premise behind Roam's book is simple: anybody with a pen and a scrap of paper can use visual thinking to work through complex business ideas. Management consultant and lecturer Roam begins with a "watershed moment": asked, at the last minute, to give a talk to top government officials, he sketched a diagram on a napkin. The clarity and power of that image allowed him to communicate directly with his audience. From this starting point, Roam has developed a remarkably comprehensive system of ideas. Everything in the book is broken down into steps, providing the reader with "tools and rules" to facilitate picture making. There are the four steps of visual thinking, the six ways of seeing and the "SQVID"- a clumsy acronym for a "full brain visual work out" designed to focus ideas. Roam occasionally overcomplicates; an extended case study takes up a full third of the book and contains an overload of images that belie the book's central message of simplicity. Nonetheless, for forward-thinking management types, there is enough content in these pages to drive many a brainstorming session. Illus. (Mar 13)

    Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

    More Reviews and Recommendations

    Biography

    Dan Roam is the founder and president of Digital Roam Inc., a management-consulting firm that helps business executives solve complex problems through visual thinking. He has brought his unique approach to clients such as General Electric, Wal-Mart, Wells Fargo Bank, the U.S. Navy, HBO, News Corporation, and Sun Microsystems, among many others. He lectures around the country for clients and at business conferences.

    Customer Reviews

    Tobishouseby Anonymous

    Reader Rating:
    See Detailed Ratings

    March 23, 2009: I watched Dan Roam's Google Talk and was impressed enough to by the book. I have already put it to use in my presentations, steering away from Power Point and going to the white board. Very well organized and written. It was a quick read.

    I Also Recommend: Presentation Zen, Made to Stick.

    The Back of the Napkin ? An Entrepreneurial Ideaby Shallie_Bey

    Reader Rating:
    See Detailed Ratings

    October 16, 2008: When Dan Roam wrote The Back of the Napkin, he probably never thought he was writing a book for entrepreneurs. But that is exactly what he did. The book is about discovering ideas, developing ideas, and selling ideas. That is the essence of entrepreneurship. That is the way to develop entrepreneurial ideas and the foundation of the entrepreneurial mindset.


    I was recently involved in a training program for entrepreneurs. It was a course that used this visual thinking process to design Internet marketing programs. I was super impressed with how clear they made the process for participants. When I learned they had developed the course using concepts from The Back of the Napkin, I immediately went looking for the book.

    Over the years, I?ve had numerous discussions with friends on how to develop an entrepreneurial mindset and how to evaluate and implement entrepreneurial ideas. Much to my surprise, I find The Back of the Napkin to be a perfect place to begin that process.

    A key goal of the book, as Dan Roam expresses it in the book, is to help people think of visual thinking as being like a Swiss Army knife that you can carry with you anywhere to tackle problems as they come to you. This concept will be revolutionary as it becomes more visible to entrepreneurs.

    A new focus is developing on encouraging entrepreneurship. Global Entrepreneurship Week is one example of a first time world-wide effort to encourage young people to embrace entrepreneurship as a tool to solve the challenges of the world. The Back of the Napkin equips people, young and old, to take up that challenge.


    More Customer Reviews