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Authors: David A Owens
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more novel version of this product than our competitors offerâ or âUnless we come up with something truly radical, we have no chance to compete with the gorillas in this marketâ? Were you even clear in your own mind about which of these you were trying to say?
Get Out the Crayons
Drawing and other visual techniques can open up a wide range of expressive possibilities. Many of us, though, believe we simply canât draw and donât have either the talent or the time to learn how. But the goal here isnât to become a master artist. There are many forms of visual communication that we already know or that are easy to pick up.
If you ever get a chance to peek inside the notebook that most designers and architects use to record their personal thoughts and problem-solving records, chances are you wonât see Michelangelo-like productions suitable for framing. Youâll see stick figures and crooked lines along with bad perspective and all sorts of other errors you might make yourself. The difference is that designers and architects arenât embarrassed by these âflawsâ; they know they were âjust thinkingâ when they made those sketches. Their focus was on visually articulating an idea just well enough to be able to play with it, test it, combine it with other ideas, and share it with others. In fact, the more time we spend making really good drawings of an idea, the more likely we are to become attached to that particular expression of the concept, and the less willing weâll be to let it go.
The book Rapid Viz , by Kurt Hanks and Larry Belliston (2006), offers a concise lesson in creating the kind of quick, lean, throwaway âthought experimentâ sketches that Iâm advocating. Their method involves developing a personalized vocabulary consisting of the visual symbols you are likely to use the most. After a little practice, youâll be able to effortlessly do sketches that include persons, chairs, products, arrows, lettering, and other symbols that help get your idea across. There are also a number of programs available online and as packaged software that offer ways of drawing and mapping relationships among ideas using a computer. Although your new drawing abilities will seem impressive to some, what will be even more impressive is your improved ability to articulate your ideas.
Sell Your Ideas
Many would-be innovators make an assumption that causes them no end of frustration as it torpedoes their efforts and leads straight to rejection of their ideas. The assumption is that their task is done when they have come up with an innovation they are sure will work, and that the people around them are somehow obligated to accept it as soon as it is presented to them. The reality is that the work of innovation isnât done until youâve sold the idea to others.
By selling, I donât mean making a âhard sell.â Consider that at one time you needed to be sold on the idea, too. When you first came up with it, it might have been well down the list of possibilities you were considering. But eventually it grew on you, and you came to see its advantages over other solutions. Now take a step back and look at the idea from the perspective of other people. If you can articulate the idea in a way that makes its merits clear, others can sell themselves on it, too.
Sweat the Presentation
Edward Tufte, rock-star statistician and author of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information , put it best: âPower corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.â In his article âPowerPoint Is Evil,â he rightly argues that âslidewareâ tools like PowerPoint have a peculiar built-in logic that tends to favor making slides easy to produce, rather than making them communicate better (Tufte, 2003). For example, think about the last time you put together a slideware presentation and found yourself editing sentences to get them short enough to fit a
Get Out the Crayons
Drawing and other visual techniques can open up a wide range of expressive possibilities. Many of us, though, believe we simply canât draw and donât have either the talent or the time to learn how. But the goal here isnât to become a master artist. There are many forms of visual communication that we already know or that are easy to pick up.
If you ever get a chance to peek inside the notebook that most designers and architects use to record their personal thoughts and problem-solving records, chances are you wonât see Michelangelo-like productions suitable for framing. Youâll see stick figures and crooked lines along with bad perspective and all sorts of other errors you might make yourself. The difference is that designers and architects arenât embarrassed by these âflawsâ; they know they were âjust thinkingâ when they made those sketches. Their focus was on visually articulating an idea just well enough to be able to play with it, test it, combine it with other ideas, and share it with others. In fact, the more time we spend making really good drawings of an idea, the more likely we are to become attached to that particular expression of the concept, and the less willing weâll be to let it go.
The book Rapid Viz , by Kurt Hanks and Larry Belliston (2006), offers a concise lesson in creating the kind of quick, lean, throwaway âthought experimentâ sketches that Iâm advocating. Their method involves developing a personalized vocabulary consisting of the visual symbols you are likely to use the most. After a little practice, youâll be able to effortlessly do sketches that include persons, chairs, products, arrows, lettering, and other symbols that help get your idea across. There are also a number of programs available online and as packaged software that offer ways of drawing and mapping relationships among ideas using a computer. Although your new drawing abilities will seem impressive to some, what will be even more impressive is your improved ability to articulate your ideas.
Sell Your Ideas
Many would-be innovators make an assumption that causes them no end of frustration as it torpedoes their efforts and leads straight to rejection of their ideas. The assumption is that their task is done when they have come up with an innovation they are sure will work, and that the people around them are somehow obligated to accept it as soon as it is presented to them. The reality is that the work of innovation isnât done until youâve sold the idea to others.
By selling, I donât mean making a âhard sell.â Consider that at one time you needed to be sold on the idea, too. When you first came up with it, it might have been well down the list of possibilities you were considering. But eventually it grew on you, and you came to see its advantages over other solutions. Now take a step back and look at the idea from the perspective of other people. If you can articulate the idea in a way that makes its merits clear, others can sell themselves on it, too.
Sweat the Presentation
Edward Tufte, rock-star statistician and author of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information , put it best: âPower corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.â In his article âPowerPoint Is Evil,â he rightly argues that âslidewareâ tools like PowerPoint have a peculiar built-in logic that tends to favor making slides easy to produce, rather than making them communicate better (Tufte, 2003). For example, think about the last time you put together a slideware presentation and found yourself editing sentences to get them short enough to fit a
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