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

It's a cute book with a heart. Its novelty is eschewing computer-generated graphs in favor of good old fashioned stick figures. At one point, this nostalgia goes too far: the multivariate plot of the accounting software landscape needs visualization software. In fact, often. The book's case study unwittingly makes the anti-case for pictures; for several business challenges, a simple picture belies a situation that, in real life, would demand a deeper analysis.

Does the book give "a new, better way to solve problems and sell ideas?" Nope, sad to say. Few usable takeways. Instead, a painstaking parsing of the *very* familiar. The anchor is the journalistic six ways of seeing: who and what, where, why, when, how, and how much. I did enjoy being reminded, but still felt empty at the end.

There are a couple of highlights, including the discussion of simple versus elaborate (i.e., the opposite of simple is not complex). As the author says, "the real goal of visual thinking is to make the complex understandable by making it visible, not by making it simple." Then he proves the point with a story about Jeff Hawkins, who uses two versions of a diagram to show how the brain works, a simple and a complex. He typically shows both versions of the brain to both newbie and scientific audiences, but what's cool is that the order of presentation matters, depending on the audience!

The case study at the end, to pull everything together, falls flat. If client problem were addressed this way, precious time would be wasted, er, doodling. It looks fun, don't get me wrong. Each challenge is reflexively met with the question, what picture can we draw? This turns out to be its own kind of error. With most examples, the case tends to either (i) over-reach in almost comical proportions; e.g., using a single bubble chart to set an entire strategy or (ii) pictorally trite; e.g., building an org chart is unnecessary graphical overkill to remind ourselves that we sell to different buyers within the client.

Perversely, then, the case study, by insisting that every step (even the obvious) be met with a picture, manages to undermine the valid premise of the book. It proves: not all problems should be, or need to be, met with pictures. The book does not succeed because it really never gets much beyond a "see Jane run" sort of metaphor; it never uses pictures for an adult challenge. It is much nearer to an introductory tutorial on basic chart types than insight into information design. One irony of the book is that it is filled with Tufte's chartjunk: visual elements that do not add information.

Two stars because (i) the degree of difficulty is really high (solving problems with pictures is a big hairy audacious goal, a goal with solutions far beyond this book) and (ii) one star feels impolite to the fun vibe of the happy face stick people.

Being a visual learner, this was preaching to the choir with little new to offer. A few good points. Not enough to purchase an entire book on. Although, if visual expression and explanation style is not your forte, it is a book that could be useful.
Ergo, the rating of 3 falls between. A higher rank if you are new or relatively inexperienced. A lower rank if you are regular utilizers of visual mapping.

OK, I'll admit it. I use the white board a lot. I thought this book would be a quick hit group of hints to make my life/verbiage/ideas more simple and clear. I found the book full of lists, like I'm going to be doing some free flowing idea presenting at a whiteboard and still remember some arcane 12 point list. I'd actually would have given it a 1 star rating, but I know there are some people this would be good for, someone possibly who isn't already jumping out of there chair and fighting for the whiteboard. If this describes you, my suggestion is skip this book.

Debo reconocer que lo revisé en 3 horas (rápido) pues no quiero atarme a una metodología precisa de cómo transmitir mis ideas con esquemas y dibujos. Prefiero crear la mía para mis necesidades. Sin embargo le diría al autor que no intente dar tantos ánimos a quienes dudan de su capacidad de dibujar. ¡Ellos no comprarán su libro en primer lugar! Le apostaría que quienes compran su libro lo hacen por que sienten que sí pueden. No pierda el tiempo y para una siguiente edición (¡¡por favor siga en esta nueva línea de comunicación!!)incluya más ejemplos que son iluminadores y más motivadores que las palabras.
A mi me será útil en mis clases con universitarios (aunque se ríen de los intentos de dibujo de su profesor, lo que no es malo del todo)y para presentar proyectos a personas más creativas, más sentimentales y menos conservadores que los habituales gerentes de empresa.
Vale la pena. Es novedoso y agradable de revisar, pero puede ser muy mejorado.
Gracias DAN ROAM por atreverse.

Business diagrams are too often complex, difficult to understand and even harder to explain. The Back of the Napkin contains instruction and useful examples of how to get your message across simply and effectively.

As a Business Process and Management Reporting Consultant, I have been recommending this book this year to the business modelers that I train. Business people love to "show their stuff" by displaying complicated process models and business diagrams, sometimes spending as long as an hour explaining what it means.

BIG MISTAKE!!! If you can't get people to understand your model or picture in the first glance or two, your point will lose impact and you could miss getting your message across.

Almost every page contains simple diagrams to bring each and every point across to the reader. I would have given this book 5 stars, except the author tried to create a methodology and acronym SQVID that missed the mark by being too complex. Also, the "how to" example could have been better - and given the author an opportunity to really showcase his methodology's effectiveness.

Read this book - and after you finish, read "Make it Stick." These two books together will help you become more effective with business communications.