A Few Takeaways From A Recent Read

Sunni Brown's book The Doodle Revolution: Unlock the Power to Think Differently has been on the ol' reading list for some time. With the weather turning colder and the fireplace getting fired up, we sat down with her cleverly written well-designed book to go deeper into her premise that drawing helps ante up the good parts of your brain.

The book is fun and guides you along like a gentle pencil stroke to paper, encouraging you to meander along and rev up an old habit that has waned in the digital age. It turns out that it's good for business: Doodling helps you to remember details and process information as you take it in.

There are different types of doodlers such as the font doodler who draws words as they hear them or the nature/landscape doodler who draws pretty flowers and outdoorsy things.

While the book is full of various ideas and exercises, what we thought was worth sharing is a section on optimizing meetings. Brown tells us that a study of visual language conducted by the Wharton School indicated that meetings using visual language are shortened by 24 percent! Most people would vote for shorter more effective meetings, right?

So how do you do that?

Brown suggests doodling ideas as a group because:

1. It amplifies interaction when everyone has to literally "get on the same page."
2. It requires the use of creative, strategic and tactical thinking all at once
3. It's easier to display complexities visually and allows you to come to a decision or conclusion faster
4. It ensures that the ideas expressed have a "face" and a place to live
5. It captures the content, so you dramatically reduce repetitive conversations on the same subject
6. The visuality supports retention and recall and establishes a shared memory 

We're down with that. Now please excuse us as we sharpen our pencils, and get inspired to write another post like 3 Business Lessons to Live By.