Planning: The Condensed Version

Several years ago, I recall reading some good advice about advertising concepts: Try making the point first with a billboard idea. A billboard forces you to economize your thought process and to really focus on the essence of the idea. A recent Fast Company article highlights a book with the same type of advice for planning and problem-solving: Put it on a napkin first.

I’ve seen a lot of great ideas start on a napkin. Of course, I’ve seen a lot of bad ideas start on a napkin, too...but usually those are on bar napkins. In an age where vast quantities of information and data are readily available, it is refreshing to see an idea expressed in a simple visual format. It’s probably also the reason two of my favorite blogs are indexed and gapingvoid. Indexed represents visual thoughts on index cards, and gapingvoid is expressed as cartoons on the back of business cards.