Blah Blah Blah
What to do when words don't work
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- £13.99
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- £13.99
Publisher Description
By bestselling business author Dan Roam, his new book on improving communications, presentations and ideation.
Description
Ever been to so many meetings that you couldn’t get your work done? Ever fallen asleep during a bullet-point presentation? Ever watched the news and ended up knowing less? Welcome to the land of Blah, Blah, Blah, in which talk and words prevent us from thinking.
As powerful as words are, we fool ourselves when we think our words alone can detect, describe and defuse the multifaceted problems of today. This book offers a way out of Blah, Blah, Blah. It’s called “Vivid Thinking”, which combines our verbal and visual minds so that we can think and learn more quickly, teach and inspire our colleagues, and enjoy and share ideas in a new and more effective way. Through Vivid Thinking, we can make the most complicated subjects suddenly crystal clear – something which is proving increasingly valuable in this complex world of ours.
About the author
Dan Roam is the author of the international bestselling The Back of the Napkin (Marshall Cavendish). He is a sought-after consultant and speaker on the topic of visual thinking and problem-solving.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
We all hate corporate-speak and impenetrable, needlessly complex language but Roam's (Back of the Napkin) ire is at an altogether different level. He rails against the iniquities of "blah-blah-blah" the hopped-up pompous language that leads to complexity (which kills our ability to think), misunderstanding (which kills our ability to lead), and boredom (which kills our ability to care). The solution, he proposes, is learning with images rather than words, which we do as children and are then dissuaded from ever doing again, with the exception of standouts such as the Periodic Table of the Elements, the world's greatest organization chart. Through a series of charming line drawings starring a fox representing the linear, verbal mind and a hummingbird representing the synthesizing, visual mind, Roam presents his theories on how to present ideas and arguments such that they can be readily understood which unfortunately, boils down to the rule to "use images instead of words" and not much else. It's tough to miss the irony of a book decrying the unnecessary complication of language spinning out a single idea through dozens of unnecessary illustrative examples.
