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  Southwest saw a clear trend emerging in passenger surveys: The part of the airline experience that customers hated most was the chaos at the gate. Knowing they needed a long-term fix, Southwest representatives started looking differently at gate waiting areas—and, before long, saw a solution. Recognizing that people’s stress is minimized when they can both see and hear what’s going on, Southwest decided to make boarding a visual process.

  In 2008, Southwest Airlines made the boarding process auditory and visual. It’s already quick boarding speeded up by 30 percent.

  Southwest made the waiting area visual, using tall numbered signs arrayed in order, to physically show boarding positions. Passengers could now confidently see these prominent indicators and know where and when to line up rather than anxiously wait for scratchy announcements. By visually finding their own boarding zone in the open space of the waiting lounge rather than jamming up by the Jetway, the passengers themselves took what was already the airline industry’s fastest boarding process and sped it up by more than 30 percent.

  All Vivid Ideas Start with Words and a Picture

  There are many lessons to be learned from this example: Listening to customers is a good idea; it helps to look at exis

  ting problems in new ways; and nobody likes to be at the back of the line when they don’t know what’s going on. But we get the most important idea more quickly than reciting all that: Adding a visual element to a verbal process makes the process work better.

  From now on, whether thinking, leading, teaching, or selling, we will say we really know an idea when we can both talk about it and draw it—and we’ll know that other people really “get” our ideas when they both hear it and see it.

  With that core in mind, let’s do the same thing with ideas about business, education, finance, science, and communications. In other words, let’s see what else is in this forest—we might be surprised by what we find in here.

  CHAPTER 7

  F Is for Form: Vivid Ideas Have Shape

  oo many ideas are like big fluffy clouds of words. We hear the sounds and know they’re telling us something, but then poof, they’re gone, only to be replaced by another big fluffy cloud. With little for our mind to grab on to, many ideas float past, never to be heard from again.

  Question: Of all those clouds, which one are we going to remember?

  Answer: We remember the cloud that has form.

  Ideas are fluffy clouds. Those we remember are those that have form.

  Ideas that we remember are those that both our verbal mind and our visual mind can hold on to. Vivid Ideas are never vague or fluffy; the ideas we recall are always the ideas that have the most distinctive form.

  Form: The First Tree in Our Forest

  As we make our way around the Vivid FOREST, our first stop will be at F, which stands for “form.” The first key to making our idea vivid is to find the idea’s tangible form.

  Form is the shape we give something to make it viscerally “graspable.” Giving form to an idea takes it from the abstract to the concrete. Our fox’s way of giving form to an idea is to put it into words. Our hummingbird’s way to give form to an idea is to create an image.

  Giving form to a vague notion is the single most important step we take in making our ideas vivid. The earth itself is a great example.

  Our first stop is F for “form.”

  Giving Form to the Earth

  Throughout the Middle Ages, the scholars of Europe had little idea of what the world looked like beyond their own horizon. But through the exploits of adventurers and the retelling of stories from ancient cultures, some essentials were known. It was known, for example, that the world was composed of three landmasses: Europe, Africa, and Asia. It was known that the sun oriēns (rises) above Asia in the east and occidēns (falls) beyond Europe in the west. It was known that Jerusalem, the holiest of all places, was somewhere in the Asian part. It was also known that Jerusalem was far away and, worst of all, was under constant threat from people of many exotic shapes and colors.

  To a well-educated European of the time, the concept of “the Orient” made sense: It was east, it was where the sun rose, and it needed to be saved. The trouble was, nobody really knew where it was. To save the Holy Land would require that vast numbers of people and vast sums of money find their way there. Something more than a vague concept was needed: What was needed was a shape that people could see. More than anything else, the medieval world needed form.

  o Aace="Ch aparral Pro">Thus was conjured the “T-O Map,” the medieval map of the world. The name T-O comes from the map’s form: a letter T drawn within a letter O.

  The medieval map of the whole earth was composed of a letter T drawn inside a letter O.

  The T divided the O into three lands: Asia, Europe, and Africa. The largest land, Asia, sat on the top of the map, since that is where the sun rose (and, not coincidentally, was also the location of the eternally contested Holy Land). Europe and Africa occupied the bottom of the map, since that is where the sun set. Jerusalem sat at the intersection of the T.

  As the land over which the sun rose, Asia sat as the top of the map. As the lands beyond which the sun set, Europe and Africa sat at the bottom. Jerusalem was located at the intersection of the T.

  This map did its job. It gave form to the previously vague idea of a single earth that could be navigated. In fact, the simple T-O Map did such a great job that it became the European map of the earth from about a.d. 1000 to 1500. The form of the T-O Map was so simple and its influence so great that whenever a medieval monarch or scholar wanted to demonstrate his grasp of the world, he would inevitably pick up a T-O globe.32

  In paintings from the Middle Ages, whenever we see a monarch or scholar holding something, it is usually a T-O globe—clearly emphasizing his grasp of the world.

  This simple form, composed of nothing more than the letters T and O, so clearly established the shape of the planet that it inspired countless new adventurers in their search for treasure. It was while looking at the T-O Map that Christopher Columbus got the notion that he could reach Asia by sailing downward instead of walking upward.33 It was quite a mental leap, but as we look at a T-O Map today, we can see exactly what he was thinking.

  How Do We Find the Form of Our Idea?

  We know today that the earth is far more complicated than that, but the lesson still holds: When the form of an idea can be expressed clearly, the idea itself becomes clear. So how do we use Vivid Thinking to help us give our idea form? How can we come up with a T-O map of our own thoughts?

  Simple: We remember Rule No. 1, “When Ren But instead of saying just one word, we’re going to say many. And instead of drawing dozens of pictures to match those words, we’re going to use the Vivid Grammar Graph to show us which one picture to draw. That picture will be the one that gives our idea its clearest form,34 and it will become the foundation for all the other words and pictures to follow.

  Rapid Review of the Grammar Graph

  As we follow along the “form” picture selection process, we’re going to refer frequently back to the Grammar Graph. Rather than flip back and forth, let’s first create a portable version of the Grammar Graph to take with us as we go. Here it is: a simplified version of the complete Grammar Graph showing the six elemental pictures and their hierarchical relationships.

  Our portable Vivid Grammar Graph: We’ll take this with us for the rest of this section.

  Tricking Our Fox and Hummingbird into Finding “Form”

  All Vivid Ideas have form. It doesn’t matter what the idea is about—it could be the analysis of a complex financial transaction, an assessment of the market forces at work on a business, the process of systems dynamics, or an overview of our quarterly staff meeting—when we can find its fundamental form, the idea becomes thinkable. So how do we think up this form? Luckily, there is a simple set of six quick tricks that help us identify and vividly nail down any idea’s essential form.

  These Six Vivid Quick Tricks3
5

  help us find the form of an idea by forcing our fox and our hummingbird onto the same path whenever a new idea comes calling. Since both think the path is a one-way street—our fox is listening for the words and our hummingbird is looking for the images—we need to trick them into working together. The six tricks fool our fox and hummingbird into thinking they’re the one in charge, when in fact they’re bouncing their unique insights off each other. It’s this active back-and-forth that propels an idea from a vague cloud into a distinct form. Jump-starting this back-and-forth bounce is where our six tricks come into play.

  Both our fox and our hummingbird think that expressing an idea is a one-way street. We’ve got to trick them into helping each other find the form of the idea.

  What these six quick tricks will do is help us quickly convert the words that our fox hears into an image that our hummingbird can see. In other words, we’re going to flop Rule No. 1 for a minute: Instead of saying “When we s Ront Aen we s ay a word, we should draw a picture,” we’re going to say, “When we hear a word, we should see a picture.”

  We start these tricks with our verbal fox for two reasons: First, in our world of blah-blah-blah, we’ve become so accustomed to ideas being expressed through words that it requires less trickery to get our fox engaged. He’s already used to being hammered with words.

  Our hummingbird is another story. Although back in Chapter 5 we gave her a grammar of her own, she’s never had a formal structure before—so at first we have to trick her into using it. By letting our fox take the lead, we can casually guide our hummingbird to the Grammar Graph and let her think the whole thing is her idea—and then, as we’ll see, once she’s got the first image going, we’ll have no trouble keeping her engaged.

  Listening for the Verbal-Visual Triggers

  All six Vivid Quick Tricks begin by identifying verbal-visual “trigger” phrases. This means that when a new idea first presents itself, we just listen. If it’s someone else’s idea, we listen carefully to their words.36

  If it’s our own idea, we listen carefully to our own fox. Through this careful listening, what we’re hoping to hear is one of a handful of key verbal-visual “trigger” phrases. These trigger phrases (we’ll itemize them in a moment) are specific word combinations that give us an inkling of the essential form of the emerging idea.

  Through careful listening, our fox picks up a verbal “trigger” phrase.

  Trigger phrases are specific verbal hints hidden within the blah-blah-blah, solid crystals of meaning buried within those clouds of words. Depending on the intent of the speaker (or our fox), these triggers may be stated clearly or buried deep. Either way, the beauty of these triggers is that if we listen carefully, they always come through—whether the speaker (or our fox) wants them to or not.

  That’s because a trigger phrase is simply the verbal expression of the underlying shape of an idea. It’s the verbal clarification of the who and what, the how much, the where, the when, the how, and the why. When we listen for trigger phrases, all we’re listening for is the building blocks of the idea, stripped of all other blah-blah-blah.

  For example, one trigger phrase is hearing a person (the “subject” of the idea) being named: “There is this guy named Big John, and he blah-blah-blah . . .” There we have it: This idea is initially37 about somebody named Big John. Another trigger phrase is hearing a big number stated: “Did you know that there are almost seven billion people on the planet and blah-blah-blah . . .” The R we A” The re we have it: This idea is initially about a big number.

  Introducing the Six Vivid Quick Tricks

  The Six Vivid Quick Tricks are the intersection of these verbal triggers and the pictures contained on the Grammar Graph. Normally, when we listen to an idea, our fox hears a trigger and makes a (verbal) mental note, then listens for the next words. The trick in Vivid Thinking is to get our fox to immediately hand off that trigger to our hummingbird so she can refer to the Grammar Graph and determine which picture best gives the idea visual form.

  The trick in Vivid Thinking is that our fox then hands off the “trigger phrase” to our hummingbird, who in turn refers to the Grammar Graph and knows which corresponding picture to draw.

  As we recall, our Grammar Graph contains six pictures. And that’s why there are Six Vivid Quick Tricks: one verbal trigger for each essential picture. Here they are.

  The Six Vivid Quick Tricks are the intersection of the verbal triggers and the six elemental pictures of the Grammar Graph. In other words, if you hear this, you should draw that—and presto: Your idea has instant visual form.

  The Six Once More, This Time in Detail

  That’s it: The key to giving any idea a memorable form is to listen for the verbal triggers, map them to the corresponding picture, then draw that picture. Presto: instant visual form. Will this first drawing be perfect? No. Will it contain every important aspect of the idea? No. Will it serve as a powerful starting point for further exploration of the idea? Absolutely, positively, and without exception, yes.

  Here are the Six Vivid Quick Tricks, accompanied by a range of popular business, entertainment, finance, and science ideas—none of which are anywhere near as “formed” as their words might have fooled us into believing.

  Vivid Quick Trick No. 1: Hear a Name = Draw a Portrait

  What is in a name? As far as our fox is concerned, everything. As for our hummingbird, nothing.38

  Names mean everything to our fox. And nothing to our hummingbird.

  A name is our verb R Aur verb al mind’s shorthand for a person, place, or thing, a cognitively efficient label applied by our fox so that we don’t have to keep a full description in mind all the time. As a verbal stand-in, a name is a wonderful thing. But to give vivid form to a name, to think about what it really is and what it really looks like, demands our hummingbird’s participation as well.

  That’s why our first quick trick says, “When we hear a name (whether a person, an object, or a concept), we draw a portrait.” Giving the name form by drawing a picture makes the name sharper, more defined, more distinct, and much more memorable.

  Which means more to us? This:

  ARACHNIDA LATRODECTUS

  Or this?

  Shifting the thing we have in mind from a name to a picture (and vice versa) changes the way we think about it. This is true when we hear one name and want to know more about what makes that character unique. It is equally true when we hear two names and want to know what makes them distinct.

  For example, let’s look at one of the most loved (and despised) advertising campaigns in recent memory.

  Imagine that we run a successful computer business. Our company has a great name—but also a great frustration: Although we make wonderful products, our market share has played second fiddle to a larger competitor for decades. It’s doubly frustrating because, in spite of our competitor’s financial success, we consider them unworthy in every other respect.

  We believe that many customers would be happier switching to our computer brand—if only they knew us by more than just our name. As a name, we have everything going for us: We know that we make a better product than our competitor; we know that we have a more fiercely dedicated customer base than they do; and above all, we know we’re much cooler than they will ever be. But we need more.

  Question: What do we do? How can we get people who know us only by name to switch?

  Answer: We draw portraits, of course. Two of them: an uncool portrait of him versus a cool portrait of us.

  How to distinguish between two similar things separated mostly by a name? Apple knew: Draw a portrait.

  Our portrait of “PC”: boring, plain, befuddled R Afuddled , confusing, prone to error, uncool.

  Our portrait of “Mac”: confident, at ease, simple, clear, lucky, cool (if not outright smug).

  The message from Apple Computer’s39 initial 2006 “Get a Mac” ad campaign is unspoken but vivid: Who would you rather be? By the time the campaign ended four year
s later, sixty-seven ads had run, humoring, irritating, inspiring, and infuriating more geeks than any marketing campaign in history. Apple didn’t care whether the reaction was good or bad; they just wanted their caricatures to get a reaction—and they did. By giving vivid form to a couple of names, the portraits worked, and Apple had a winner.

  That’s a profile: a stick-figure caricature that boils the essentials of one person (or group40) into the simplest of images. There’s an underlying cognitive reason images resonate so powerfully in our minds: Whereas a name relies on memory to evoke associations, a portrait makes a visceral, real-time connection between an object and its most distinctive attributes. For a word to evoke a reaction, we have to already know and then recall the meaning of the word. For an image to evoke a reaction, we don’t have to remember anything. It’s all right there in front of us.