Some of you may have already heard or read about the book “Back of the Napkin” by Dan Roam. We all know, that even without any particular skill or talent, we can visualise our thinking with pen and paper, or napkin for the sake of it. Still, Dan applies some nice and interesting concept about this type of visualisation, e.g. how you can use visualisation to actually generate an idea rather than painting up the concept of an idea you already had.

The below video featuring Dan Roam talking about some concepts of his book is actually quite nice since he uses rather simplistic examples to help you understand his concept. Well spend 5 minutes!

I do like visual thinking since it automatically forces you to reduce complexity and focus on the essential parts. However, looking at the “coffee chain strategy”-napkin example that Dan uses, I need to admit that I would not even use a napkin to illustrate something so simple. I assume that it was the early structure for the company’s strategy, but not the strategy itself. Not that I’d suggest that a strategy needs to be more complex - no, it needs to be more unique.