“Where’s Ball?” Some thoughts on the limits of language and developing visual thinking skills.

From April 23 to May 22, I’m posting a hand drawn visual every day on Twitter. I would generally describe myself as someone who can’t draw. That said, I want to develop my visual thinking skills and drawing skills. The only way to get better at something is to practice — and so I’ll just share my practice, no matter how bad I think it might be with the world via the Internet.

This image is my posting from April 24 which you can see on Twitter in its original form here. It’s essentially a visual journal entry showing what I did that day.

Let’s dive into some of the reasons why you might want to explore visual thinking more as well.

We’re too wordy

Trust me that I understand the irony of writing a long form piece about being too wordy. That said, we are entirely too wordy. And, our wordiness can get in the way of meaning. In his excellent book “Blah, Blah, Blah”, author Dan Roam identifies the wordiness components of what he calls the Blah-Blahmeter. My restatement of Roan’s three factors that form the first level of the Blah-Blahmeter are:
1. Is it boring?
2. Is it clear? Remember — clarity requires two parts — knowing your audience and their ability to understand the message combined with your ability to deliver that message.
3. Is it intentionally misleading? Roam uses the example of a speech by Bernie Madoff — of the $21 Billion Dollar Ponzi Investment Scheme. Excellent example of…