Blah Blah Blah Read online

  ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

  The Back of the Napkin (Expanded Edition):

  Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures

  Unfolding the Napkin:

  The Hands-On Method for Solving Complex Problems with Simple Pictures

  BLAH

  BLAH

  BLAH

  What to Do When Words Don’t Work

  DAN ROAM

  Portfolio / Penguin

  PORTFOLIO / PENGUIN

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in 2011 by Portfolio / Penguin,

  a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Copyright © Dan Roam, 2011

  All rights reserved

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

  Roam, Dan.

  Blah blah blah : what to do when words don’t work / Dan Roam.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-1-10155-870-6

  1. Thought and thinking—Art. 2. Visual communication. 3. Communication. I. Title.

  BF441.R58 2011

  153.4—dc23 2011021787

  Designed by Daniel Lagin

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  For Sophie and Celeste.

  Watching you learn illuminates the world for me.

  For Kay M. Roam.

  Fly, Mom—fly!

  CONTENTS

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  INTRODUCTION: Half of What We Think About Thinking Is Wrong

  t="1em" width="0">PART 1: The Blah-Blahmeter

  1 Exploring the Land of Blah-Blah-Blah

  2 Advanced Blah-Blahmeter Use

  PART 2: If I Draw, Am I Dumb? An Introduction to Vivid Thinking

  3 Two Minds Are Better Than One

  4 Together Again: The Fox and the Hummingbird

  5 The Grammar of Vivid Thinking

  PART 3: The Forest and the Trees: The Seven Essentials of a Vivid Idea

  6 The Vivid F-O-R-E-S-T: The Six Essentials of Vivid Ideas

  7 F Is for Form: Vivid Ideas Have Shape

  8 O Is for Only the Essentials: Vivid Ideas Fit in a Nutshell

  9 R Is for Recognizable: Vivid Ideas Look Familiar

  10 E Is for Evolving: Vivid Ideas Are Complete—but Not Done

  11 S Is for Span Differences: Vivid Ideas Include Their Opposite

  12 T Is for Targeted: Vivid Ideas Matter to Me

  filepos=0000601423 >PART 4: Conclusion

  13 Bye-Bye, Blah-Blah-Blah

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  APPENDIXES

  Appendix A: How We Lost Half Our Mind

  Appendix B: Connections Back to The Back of the Napkin

  Appendix C: The Complete Vivid Checklist

  NOTES

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  (CAST OF CHARACTERS)

  In Order of Appearance

  PART 1

  Me

  Author searching for a better way to think about complex things

  John Hersey

  WWII journalist and lover of words

  You

  Hello! It’s a pleasure to have you along

  Ted Geisel

  World’s bestselling author you’ve never heard of

  My Former Boss

  Entrepreneur; sales genuius but no operational skills

  General Petraeus

  Commanding General of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, 2010

  Jon Stewart

  TV personality; can’t recall how many sides a “pentagon” has

  Barack Obama

  44th President of the United States of America

  Terry Gross

  Radio personality; struggles to recall what she read yesterday

  VitaminWater

  A Coca-Cola product of uncertain character

  27"r

  Chuck Townsend

  CEO of Condé Nast; sends confusing memos

  Captain Chesley Sullenberger

  “Sully”; pilot’s pilot and hero of the Hudson

  Mr. X

  Department of Defense “Super User”; overwhelmed with information

  Bernie Madoff

  Wall Street charlatan, former high-flyer now in jail

  Miss Brown

  My second grade teacher; likes ducks

  PART 2

  Albert Einstein

  Twentieth century’s greatest mind; known by his nanny as “Stupid”

  6cc">A Fox

  Clever, witty, linear, and a little smug: our verbal mind

  Oog and Aag

  Missing links; early hominids with expanding minds

  A Hummingbird

  Quick, exuberant, spatial, and a little flighty: our visual mind

  Richard Feynman

  Nuclear physicist; believed anyone could learn anything

  Anonymous User

  Mobile phone user, lost and in need of directions

  Michael Porter

  Harvard professor; most influential business teacher ever

  Your Grammar Teacher

  Yikes! Yes: She’s back . . .

  PART 3

  Airline Ticket Agent

  Trying to get you on your plane on time; harried and frustrated

  Abraham Maslow

  Doctor of Psychology; enjoys hierarchies

  Medieval Scholar

  Trying to grasp the true shape of the earth

  Renée Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim

  INSEAD business professors; Blue Ocean explorers

  A PC and a Mac

  Two computers masquerading as a couple geeks (or vice-versa?)

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Fifteenth-century visionary; inventor of the parachute

  The Rich and the Poor

  Two groups trying to avoid taxes

  Edwin Land

  Father of Polaroid; America’s 2nd
-greatest inventor

  Leno and Conan

  Late-night comedians; both funny but neither laughing

  Will Wright

  Creator of “The Sims”; games mastermind

  Niall Ferguson

  Economic historian; believes in long-term trends

  Lady Gaga

  The latest pop sensation; wears sunglasses

  The Medicis and the Rothschilds

  Big moneymen making the world go around

  Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning

  v> border Serial entrepreneurs; inventors of Tesla electric car

  Donella Meadows

  MIT scientist; leading light in “systems thinking”

  Dmitri Mendeleyev

  Russian mad scientist; creator of world’s most influential chart

  Tatsu Takeuchi

  Virginia Tech assistant professor; a relativity genius

  Michael Burry

  Financial visionary; foresaw global economic crunch

  Navy Officer

  Teacher of naval history; expert in no-BS explanations

  Genrich Altshuller

  Soviet scientist and gulag survivor; sees invisible patterns

  Pat O’Dea

  CEO of Peet’s Coffee and Teas; making coffee better

  A Cloud

  A once vague idea made distinct and memorable

  INTRODUCTION

  Half of What We Think About Thinking Is Wrong

  e think that thinking means stringing words together in a meaningful way. We think that talking is the best way to share an idea. We think that speaking well is the cornerstone of intelligence. We’re only half right.

  This book is about three things: blah, blah, and blah—three little words that are killing our ability to think, learn, work, and lead.

  Blah-blah-blah is complexity, which kills our ability to think. This book introduces an easier way to think about complicated things.

  Blah-blah-blah is misunderstanding, which kills our ability to lead. This book presents a simple way to better understand our ideas before, during, and after we share them with other people.

  Blah-blah-blah is boredom, which kills our ability to care. This book lays out a way to make learning about complex ideas infinitely more engaging—and infinitely more fun. (Don’t tell anyone about that last part; they’ll think we’re not serious.)

  This book is about how to stop blah-blah-blah before it stops us.

  This Book and Its Tools

  This book is laid out in three parts. The first part introduces the three blahs.

  The second part introduces an antidote to blah-blah-blah. It’s called “Vivid thinking.”

  The third part presents a map that gets us from one to the other.

  Each of the three parts introduces a tool. First is the blah-blahmeter, a device that helps us detect incoming blah-blah-blah before it hits. The second tool is Vivid Grammar, a simple set of guidelines that show us how to avoid blah-blah-blah by engaging both our verbal and visual minds. The third tool is the Vivid FOREST, a map that shows us an easy-to-follow path to make sure our own ideas are vibrant, clear, and memorable.

  Let’s Meet Our Contestants

  Blah, blah, and blah are the overuse, misuse, and abuse of language—anything we say that interferes with our ability to convey ideas. Blah-blah-blah isn’t just about being boring (although boring is often part of it), nor is blah-blah-blah about being intentionally misleading (although misleading is also often part of it). What blah-blah-blah really means is that we’ve become so enamored of our words that we’ve fooled ourselves into believing we understand things better than we actually do.

  When words don’t work, thinking doesn’t work. Wonderful as words are, they cannot alone detect, describe, and defuse the multifaceted problems of today. That’s bad, because words have become our default thinking tool. Even worse, for most of us words are our only thinking tool.

  We need a new tool.

  Sliding into the Land of Blah-Blah-Blah

  Many years ago, I worked at a small consulting company. Our boss was a brilliant salesman but an operational disaster, a combination that ensured we always had more work than we could handle. Being busy was an advantage: Since we never had enough time, we constantly improvised—and in looking for quicker ways to solve old problems, we were surrounded by new ideas. While our days were long, we always went home feeling good about everything we’d gotten done.

  After a few successful years, our company got big. New management came in, and before long all we did was go to meetings. Here’s the new company vision and values. Here’s our new synergy-leveraging go-to-market strategy. Here’s our new customer-centric restructuring plan. Blah-blah-blah. Those days were also long, but they weren’t satisfying. The more we talked, the fewer problems we solved. Before long, ideas stopped showing up, and our once respected little company became a permanent fixture in the land of blah-blah-blah.

  I quit.

  There’s No Place Like Home

  But I couldn’t get away. None of us can.

  In today’s learning and working world, blah-blah-blah has become our home. Ever been to three meetings back to back? Welcome to blah-blah-blah. Ever left a me Lver lefeeting more confused than when you entered? Ever watched two hours of cable news and knew that you knew less about the world? Ever stifled another yawn during another conference-room bullet-point bonanza? You get the picture.

  At least we’re not alone.

  We Know Too Much

  Blah-blah-blah comes in a sliding scale, from too much information to too little information to negative information.

  On the too-much-information side, blah-blah-blah overwhelms our capacity for recall: So much knowledge comes in that we’ve got no choice but to let most of it flow right back out. Case in point: Late last year, two of broadcast media’s most well-read celebrities met on a New York stage to talk books—and ended up commiserating about how little of what they read they could remember.

  Jon Stewart, host of the comedy news program The Daily Show, sat down with National Public Radio’s interviewing legend Terry Gross to discuss Stewart’s new book. Not long into the interview, Gross asked Stewart if he actually read all the books he reviewed. Stewart jokingly said yes—he always made a point of reading both the front and back covers. Then, momentarily serious, he continued:

  Stewart: Some weeks we have four books, and they can be big ones, you know: historical nonfiction. But I read pretty quickly, and I try and read as much of the books as I possibly can and I have a pretty good ability to get through it, retaining a good deal of its information . . .

  Then he paused for effect:

  . . . for a four- to-six-hour period. And then it disappears from my brain for the rest of my life.

  Gross: Do I know that feeling. I so know that feeling.

  Stewart: I take it in and suddenly I’m an expert on the construction of the Pentagon . . . and then by eight o’clock that night I’m like, Really? I didn’t know there was a building with five sides!

  The scariest part of this exchange is that these are the smart people. If Jon Stewart and Terry Gross can’t keep pace with everything they read, what hope is there for the rest of us?

  We Know Nothing

  Blah-blah-blah means sometimes we may be surrounded by lots of words but they contain no meaning.

  Condé Nast, publisher of the world’s most prestigious collection of magazines (Vogue, Glamour, Vanity Fair, Golf Digest, Wired, The New Yorker, etc.), should know that: The company publishes millions of words every month that subscribers can’t wait to read. Yet a recent e-mail sent by the CEO to all employees took five hundred words to say . . . well, nothing.

  In his companywide note of Tuesday, October 5, 2010, Condé Nast CEO Chuck Townsend sought to clarify the thinking behind a number of changes the company was making in response to the Internet. His language was so full of corporate-speak that not even his employees could understand what he was telling them.