An interesting article in the Wall street Journal entitled Doodling for Dollars says:
Put down that smartphone; pick up that crayon.
Employees at a range of businesses are being encouraged by their companies to doodle their ideas and draw diagrams to explain complicated concepts to colleagues.
While whiteboards long have been staples in conference rooms, companies such as Facebook Inc. are incorporating whiteboards, chalkboards and writable glass on all sorts of surfaces to spark creativity.
This is something I have noticed too. People are so distracted by technology these days that they need to be drawn into a meeting before they really engage. The most productive meetings I have are ones where there are a small number of people all contributing to a whiteboard. It’s not possible to be a part-time member of that type of meeting, you’re either in, or you are out.
The most popular posts on this site continue to be ones on Rich Pictures which is a form of doodling to communicate a concept. I regularly walk into meetings with sheets of A3 paper in order to draw out what I think I’m hearing, this often takes the form of a mind-map, but is just as likely to be a spider diagram linking together the conversations.
Graham Chastney 