A person sees not only with his eyes, but also with his imagination. During the day, we mentally create images and pictures of something dozens of times: work done, necessary purchases, and you never know what else... and we don’t consider it anything special. And in vain! In fact, visual thinking is the most effective way to solve many problems and tasks. Are we coming up with images? drawing pictures? we solve problems.
Images and drawings allow you to visually reflect complex concepts, combine and summarize information, they are useful for clarifying and resolving any issues - from business situations and political turmoil, to technical difficulties, conflicts and even personal problems.
In this book you will learn about:4 steps of visual thinking;5 key questions needed to clearly describe ideas;6 ways to present ideas to other people.
Chapter 1. A fundamentally new look at business
What kind of business problem do you think can be drawn? Global and large-scale or small, private? Political, technical or emotional? Is it about money, processes or people? By depicting it, will you reveal to the world something out of the everyday events of your company or, on the contrary, something from the realm of abstract concepts? Do you think you know this problem very well? Or maybe she is a complete stranger to you?
I bet you could come up with a business problem that meets literally every one of the criteria above. I, for example, could, because when I ran companies in San Francisco, Moscow, Zurich and New York, I had to solve a wide range of problems. And I have seen my colleagues, bosses, subordinates and clients do this many times. In other words, the fact remains that the foundation of any business is the art of problem solving.
How about a way to think about a problem more quickly, understand its causes more intuitively, approach it more confidently, and communicate what you discover more quickly and effectively? What would you say if you knew there was a more efficient and effective way to solve business problems and—though I hate to say it—perhaps sometimes a more enjoyable and even fun approach to solving them? But it really exists and is called visual thinking, and the book you are holding in your hands is dedicated to it - solving problems by creating visual images of them.
So, remember.
Visual thinking means taking advantage of a person's natural ability to see - not only through the eyes, but also mentally, allowing one to discover ideas that would otherwise go unnoticed; quickly and intuitively develop them, and then convey them to other people in such a way that others quickly understand and accept them - that is, popularize them.
So, welcome to the world of visual thinking - I challenge you to take a fresh look at your business.
"I'm a bad artist"
My words may sound a little self-confident, but there is truth in them. In fact, in my experience (for a variety of reasons that we will discuss later in this book), people who claim to be completely incapable of drawing tend to create the most profound, insightful images. So if you doubt your artistic abilities, please don't put this book down. Try a small test first. If you can draw a square, a circle, an arrow and the simplest, sketchiest person, then my book will be useful to you.
Four Lessons in Visual Thinking
Now let's see how this book is organized. It is divided into four parts: the introduction, which you are reading now, and three sections devoted to discovering ideas, developing them, and popularizing them. You will learn to do all this only thanks to your eyes, imagination, hands, pen or pencil and a piece of paper (a slate board or flipchart will do).
In Part I, we will determine exactly what problems we are talking about (any kind), what kind of pictures we are talking about (very primitive and simple) and who is capable of doing what we are talking about (each of us). Then we'll discuss why anyone can do this task, even though everyone's visual thinking abilities may vary. We'll even go through a quick checklist of characteristics that will help us better understand what type of visual thinker we are. Finally, we'll talk about whether the visual thinking process is really that simple, and by the end of the book, you'll know every step of the process.
In Part II, we'll explore the foundations of effective visual thinking, learn how to learn to look better, see more clearly, and use our imagination skillfully, and then explore the essential tools of visual thinking: SQVID (which forces our brains to visualize whether we want to or not ), the “6 x 6” rule (thanks to which we can create a “map” of what we see and what we would like to see) and the visualization code (this is, in fact, a cheat sheet that allows you to start creating any picture that you want only a person can imagine).
In Part III, we'll take a page from a typical MBA program and discuss a business case study step-by-step, only we'll draw on it, draw a lot. And by the time we finish this discussion, we'll have six tried-and-tested basic templates for visualizing problems as they're solved, and a great way to save your struggling business.
And finally, in the last, IV, part of the book, we will combine all the knowledge we have acquired and use it to create a kind of “sales presentation” of our business, and for this we will not need a computer, software, a projector, or color slides. All you need for success is ourselves, our clients, a board and many, many different ideas.
Visual Thinking - Dan Roem (download)
And finally, we suggest you watch an interesting video
a way of creatively solving problematic problems in terms of figurative modeling. The basis of visual thinking is visual-effective and visual-figurative thinking, where by assimilating objective-practical and sensory-practical actions to the properties of objects, external perceptual actions are formed. Subsequently, these actions are reduced and internalized. In its developed form, this type of thinking is characteristic of successful architects and designers.
THINKING IS VISUAL
a way of creatively solving problematic problems in terms of figurative modeling. The basis of visual thinking is visual-effective thinking and visual-figurative thinking, where by assimilating actions of objective-practical and sensory-practical properties of objects, external perceptual actions are formed. Subsequently, these actions are reduced and internalized. In its developed form, this type of thinking is characteristic of successful architects and designers.
THINKING IS VISUAL
English visual thinking).
1. A method for solving intellectual problems based on internal visual images (preface, imagination). Described, for example, in the work of A. R. Luria “A Little Book about Big Memory” (1968).
2. A type of creative thinking, the product of which is the generation of new images, the creation of new visual forms that carry a certain semantic load and make the meaning visible. These images are distinguished by their autonomy in relation to the objects of reflection. M.v. continues and completes the process of generalized reflection of the essential features of objects, which was begun by visual-effective and visual-figurative thinking. The initial foundations of this reflection are contained in the objective content of external perceptual and identification actions and in the assimilation of objective-practical and sensory-practical actions to the properties of objects. The resulting part of this process of reflection (M.v.) includes a form of internal vicarious perceptual actions that makes it possible to transform the selected objective content into a dynamic system of functions of objects or their parts.
If at lower levels of reflection (in visual-active and visual-figurative thinking) vicarious perceptual actions are used to actualize and transform the known - memory images during recognition and subject-conceptual images when forming a conceptual model, then at the level of mathematical thought. these actions are aimed at determining the unknown - the structure of functional connections and relationships of real or ideal objects. Thanks to the manipulative ability of the visual system, interactions between elements of a conceptual model can be created and transformed, the structure of internal connections and the general dynamics of functional relationships of elements combined into an integral system can be reproduced.
Generalization by means of vicarious perceptual actions can be carried out on a broad basis. With their help, the boundaries of stable functional interaction of elements are identified, the subordination of the functions of elements, the direction, intensity and general dynamics of functional changes are established. In the light of such reflection, elements are characterized not by objective properties, but by procedural features of changes in their states. By establishing a connection between elements of a procedural type, the actual “natural” process of functioning of reflected objects is reproduced according to their own natural laws. At the same time, the functions of the elements acquire an “operational meaning”, from which principles for carrying out adequate practical actions with objects in real conditions can be extracted. Determining the most significant and specific functions of elements and stable functional connections also changes the nature of manipulative actions. They shift from orientation and exploration to more directed and selective execution. There is a kind of functional specialization of manipulative actions, similar to that which can be traced in genetic development, when the formed “images of things” and “images of connections between things” turn into “images of actions” with them. M.v. manifests itself to the greatest extent in the work of architects, directors, designers, sculptors and other representatives of creative activities; it also manifests itself in the diagnosis and control of the state of complex systems, especially when removing them from abnormal operating modes and emergency conditions, when making strategic decisions, and in the scientific development of theoretical schemes and concepts. (V. M. Gordon.)
Good afternoon, my dear friends! We have noted more than once that our thoughts today become reality tomorrow. As we think, so we live. But do we know how to think effectively, does this process give us pleasure, and how high-quality a result does it give us? And even if you have no problems in this regard, there is no limit to the development of intelligence. Today I propose to talk about the most effective way of thinking and its application.
This is how the pages of the book Business Model Generation, written by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, look unusual. The book is intended for developers of business models for creating new companies or adapting existing ones to changing conditions. But today we are not interested in the content of the book, but in how it is executed. To describe business models, it is not the complex language of consulting that is used, but diagrams and illustrations. In the above illustrations, in such a still unusual way, all the information is laid out on the shelves, allowing you to understand:
- who is your client;
- available channels of communication with him;
- material base;
- partners, etc. The entire business ecosystem.
Visual thinking uses our innate ability to see both with our eyes and with our internal, mental vision. The areas of its application are very diverse: business, training, personal growth.
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(Article 4. How to develop your child's mind)
Every moment a child feels the world: recognizes faces, distinguishes thousands of shades of color, hundreds of nuances of taste, feels touch and hears many sounds. The child does all this without effort, because a normal baby does not need outside help to see, hear, feel and sense. However, if you do not develop, for example, visual thinking, then the child’s mind will get used to not bothering and the gaze will slide, without lingering on the details, without examining and without thinking about what he sees. If you do not develop spatial thinking, your ability to navigate and recognize the location of objects in space will suffer.
is not only the ability to see, but also the ability to reproduce what is seen and learn something from it. The left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for the development of speech, and the right for visual and spatial thinking. As a rule, in preschool institutions and at school, more attention is paid to the development of the left hemisphere, and much less attention is paid to the development of the right hemisphere. Parents can teach their child not just to look, but also to see, developing his visual and spatial thinking.
Developing a child’s visual and spatial thinking means helping him understand space and see more than what appears to his eyes. Seeing in images. The development of visual thinking is facilitated by drawing, coloring, looking at objects and maps, making models, and finding differences in “identical” pictures.
Multi-colored and bright toys, colorful pictures on the walls of the nursery develop the baby’s visual thinking in early childhood. By describing the colors and shapes of toys, telling what is drawn in the picture, you help the child not just look, but see.
Kids really like to approach the drawing process creatively, for example, draw with their fingers, and not with special objects (pencil, brush, felt-tip pen).
Try this game:
Draw as many objects as possible based on a square or any other geometric shape;
Draw with eyes closed;
Draw an arbitrary “scrawl” and then make something intelligible out of it;
Come up with and draw your own flag, favorite animal, desired toy, etc.
Older children can start copying a picture, photograph, or illustration they like;
Draw a random line on the sheet and ask your child to draw and color a random pattern on this basis.
Making collages from cut out pictures is very helpful in developing visual thinking. Both you and your child will get a lot of pleasure from this activity and communication with each other. Collages can be made on specific topics, such as Transport, Nature, Flowers, Animals, Professions...
Play the 10 pictures game. To do this, you need to cut out 10 pictures, put numbers from 1 to 10 on the back of each picture. Show the picture and its number. Then hide the pictures and name a number. The child must remember what is drawn in the picture under this number. If there are several players, then the one who named more pictures with the correct numbers wins.
Game Find the carrot. Place several carrots in a bag (potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc.). Having pulled out one carrot, carefully examine it with your child. Then put the carrots back into the bag. Let the child find this particular carrot among others. Ask him why he thinks this is the same carrot you were looking at.
Game What has changed? Take a close look at the room. Then the child comes out, you change something in the environment. The child who enters must find the change. Swap places with your child.
Game Guess what it is. The presenter describes the object without naming it or showing it. You need to guess from the description what kind of object it is.
Try playing with your imagination. You tell or read a fairy tale to your child. He sits with his eyes closed and imagines in his mind's eye what you are telling him about. Ask him to describe what he “saw” and what it looked like in detail. This exercise not only develops visual thinking, but also contributes to the development of creative imagination and fantasy.
To develop spatial thinking, you can play:
Game "Labyrinth". Place some chairs. The child’s task is to walk between the chairs, under the chairs, around them, etc. and get to the designated point. In this case, the adult must speak out loud the child’s spatial actions.
Game "Hot and Cold". Hide an object in the room. Use instruction words to lead the child to this object. Instruction words: step right, two steps forward, three left, etc.
Game "Space behind your back". You need to perform some actions behind your back: tie a shoelace, fasten buttons, feel and recognize objects...
We all see with our eyes, but our brain processes the incoming information. And without the participation of the brain, the eyes will be useless. Teach your child not just to look, but to see. This will be very useful to him in life.
What is musical thinking and how to develop it is the topic of the next article.