"This is probably the first time many of you have been around people just like you - that understand each other. Talk to each other. Welcome home."

 

Best selling author "The Back of the Napkin" - "You are my people." Dan Roam (787 Dreamliner - being built in 22 different countries by people who speak different languages) - How can all the pieces work together? All of the work was done through pictures; a visual language - not text. napkinacademy.com @dan_roam 

 

How do we keep our content from becoming 'Blah, blah, blah' 

"And we all know that the piece of content that we wrote is the most important piece." 

 

What to do when words don't work.

 

"Content development requires agreement, not politics." otherwise it becomes the blah, blah, blah -- politics as an example. Insanity, chaos, rhetoric, none of it makes any sense.

 

VIVID THINKING

 

mnemonics -->

 

Vi = visual

V = verbal

ID = interdependent

 

Visual, verbal, interdependent thinking 

 

"If we want to be memorable, heard and understand and we must be able to draw it and when we put the two together that's when it can make sense verbal + visual"

 

Vivid grammar - Content must be visually clear …. not verbose 

 

Must put those ideas in a way that they are interesting to somebody else.

 

Content has no value if it is not engaging.

 

Words alone are kind ugly, kinda lumpy - no one wants to touch it

 

Compelled to want more -- if we think about it -- these two things (coal and a diamond) are exactly the same thing -- carbon. 

 

Moonwalking with Einstein - how human memory works and how we can improve it. Tips big during time of the Greeks 

 

When we want to make our content vivid, we're going to make it visual -- we are of two minds.

 

The way we remembering things is by locating object in our mind --- memory for visuals 

 

No left analytical -- right more creative 

 

We make stuff up -- left brain, right brain -- but what is true is: Looking at the world as little bits, pixels -- the other half of the brain pulls it all back together. One half of the brain reads the words, the other half reads the paragraphs and pulls it all together and makes meaning out of it.

 

Rabbit != {insert a picture of a rabbit here}

 

"We've made a huge mistake -- we're enamored with out own ability to talk and use words, but we actually don't know what we are saying. We are too comfortable with words."

 

Model out what we want to build -- and not worry about the words 

 

Google images -- pick a picture and try to "similar" option

 

We can process thousands of images in a second, not so with words.

 

Clarify issues of policy -- pictures and connections between things 

 

Pictures, we did all of that without words. We didn't need a word to do it. "I'm not down on words. I also draw out my words." What would that look like if I drew a picture of that. Then draw a caption for it. That get's rid of so much sludge -- and how can pull the two pieces back together.

 

We remembers all of those pictures -- do the image test with the team. Show 30 pictures really fast -- then show all of the pictures next to another set of pictures and have them identify the ones they have seen -- it's amazing what we can recall visually. 

 

We are in the business of coming up with and clarify ideas. Yet we are in a world where we are surrounded by distractions, stressed out -- if we want to turn coal into a diamond -- we can't rush it. Good content takes time. We need to walk around the idea and lock out the other distractions.

 

 

F.O.R.E.S.T.

 

F = form (idea has shape and is not abstract and cloudy. What is the form of a story? TV dinner tray, Bento box) JK Rowling - do the form in a Bento box. Give it form. Bento box matrix. Characters and timeline -- then fill it in. J.R. Tolkein -- first thing we would do is draw a map and draw out that physical place. Ulysses -- James Joyce -- he did not make a map. What the hell was he trying to say?

 

O = Only Essentials  --  Navy acronym = BLUF (Bottom line up front) - Put the bottom line in front. If the person is compelled, they will give you all the time in the world.

 

Google -- first get past the bear then escape from the snake pit -- deliver only the essentials -- Google

 

R = Recognizable -- Ideas that have a visual cognate. If any idea is visual recognizable we are draw to it. I have to read all that? Oh, God, really? Einstein - the Flow of Life in trees. Life is like a tree -- branches and adaptations. Blue Ocean Strategy There is great opportunity out there -- Make sure that the underlying concept is visual recognizable instantly.

 

E = Evolving -- The idea was so good that other people thought that they could add to it and evolve it. No subject matter experts, but people who transition and cary ideas. The more you describe with words the more you constrain the mind of the audience. You must draw. Everything I learned I saw as a picture first. Einsteins pictures Vs. Words  Who has the guts to jump in and change the idea. It took 300 years before anyone actually made a parachute after Leonardo da Vinci designed it. Evolution of a coffee cup lid as an example.  Edwin Land --> Steve Jobs, etc.  Lady Gaga - Chief Creative Officer for the new Polaroid

 

S = Spans differences -- A truly vivd ideas doesn't say I have decide this or that now (eco Vs. power) -- A vivid ideas says why can't I do both? What would we need to do to do both? e.g. The problem with cars is the internal combustion engine. Yin and Yang -- A problem is never just one thing or the other; it is both. 

 

T = Targeted - A vivd audience is one that know who it's audience is -- our content must be targeted to the audience that reads it. What would happen if I targeted this to the audience. Starbucks 50 cents Vs $5 for a targeted offering, previously a commodity.