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This was put up at Thoughts Illustrated by Dave Davison.

Now, Dave knows his stuff when it comes to presentation of ideas, the man has a long established track record, but I have to confess that the meaning of this diagram totally eludes me. Why is the “sweet spot” surrounded by “useless…..boring…..rubbish…..ugly”? What the hell is this supposed to imply? The rest of it has some promise.

Any IO or message experts care to weigh in ?

There have been some thoughtful posts on visual thinking lately which (according to Wikipedia) is the dominant form of thought for 60-70% of the population. I am somewhat skeptical of that unsupported figure because many people report thinking in a combination of words, images and other nonverbal prompts but I can accept that the percentage, whatever it may be precisely, is significant. Here are the posts:

Drs. Eide – Writing for Visual Thinkers , Mind Over Matter: Imagery at Work and in the Classroom

Dr. Von – Importance of Imagery for Memory & Learning

Austin Kleon – VISUAL THINKING FOR WRITERS: NOTES AND SLIDES 

Gerald Grow – The writing problems of visual thinkers

On a related note, a while back, Dave Schuler and I, along with Dave Davison, had some exchanges on “visualcy” that are also worth consideration:

Dave Schuler – “I Can Read a Passage in a Book 20 Times and It Doesn’t Click”, More On Visualcy, The Visual Imagery Society, cognitive reliance on visual media:

ZP – On the Virtues and Vices of “Visualcy”, Visualcy and the Human Terrain

Dave Davison – MuralCasting – Improving ROA (Return on attention) -corrected 2.8.08 , Logic + Emotion: Developing an Experience Strategy in 4 Parts, Too many ripples in the pond?

Visual imagery is exceedingly powerful on a neurocognitive level, even with populations that are highly educated and predisposed to think in words and therefore, lends itself well to disinformation, propaganda, IO, advertising and mundane distraction and wastage of time. “Surfing the web” is a visual activity, albeit one that can involve a good deal of reading but ultimately sites like youtube have a definite advantage in attracting and holding attention. Usually to no productive purpose.

On the other hand, I would like to suggest that visual imagery or thinking in pictures is a critical component of insight. We like to use the term “visionary” to describe a trailblazing genius in some field and it is an apt description. Many an empire or artistic acheivement or intellectual discovery was crystalized as a hazy image that served as a template within which many future problems, known and unknown, could be addressed successfully. Or be refined and extrapolated in a tinkering, tweaking manner by trial and error by individuals or groups over time. Imagery can also be a useful starting point for strategic thinking in the form of brainstorming conceptual outcomes.

Furthermore imagery can be used as a “bridge” to improve the comprehension of difficult concepts and make learning more efficient. Dr. Von explains:

….For readers, 60% of 5th graders report naturally using some imagery during ‘think aloud’ breaks in reading stories. It appears to be a natural reaction, even for children, to try and ‘see’ the scenes that words are trying to convey in order to develop memories of a story that we, ourselves, are not part of in reality. Humans are more visual creatures, as I like to tell my own students, and it is important to remind and also teach students how to visualize physical events and experiences. In fact, in problem solving in physics, I try and teach as an essential part of every single problem to draw a picture and mentally ‘see’ what is happening in the problem. We use a technique that requires making pictures and labeling all forces on the picture, and then use the picture to actually set up the math (for F = ma problems). So science and imagery are naturally connected, just as reading, writing and imagery are connected. Memory improves when visualization and imagery are used for stories or for how physical events play out in reality. The experimental finding that a good majority of the brain used for the physical activity is used in imagery, too, begins to explain why this process works.

This is a great example of using imagery as a tool toward a calculated end rather than having imagery overrule or hijack the rational faculties ( which may be the majority of the time when imagery is involved). We should respect the power of visual imagery in cognition when considering the impact on our own thinking but we should not fail to exploit the opportunities the use of imagery can provide.

Much like Zenpundit himself.

On a serious note, I really enjoyed the presentation of Sliderocket by Dave Davison at Thoughts Illustrated.  Sliderocket would appear to be a huge leap in dynamic presentation quality that should interest anyone who has do public speaking or briefing (Tom, Steve, John, Shlok…).

Signing up for private beta….

Dave Davison at Thoughts Illustrated recently featured the “Powers of 10” video by IBM; by today’s hyperkinetic attention span, it might be considered “long” but the impression it makes is very powerful, particularly on those not well acquainted with physics.  Dave justly called it “9 Minutes of video you will never forget”. Here it is:

One of the themes that I stress with my students, when we are trying to analyze a primary source, is the danger of relying upon one’s own habitual perspective and frame of reference. An important element of a mental perspective is scale and the general tendency of people to visualize new concepts only in terms of the scale in which they go about their daily lives without any comprehension of alternate orders of magnitude leads to serious logical errors. The distortion becomes still worse, when matters of science or economic policy or planning are involved and the person trying to analyze is equally unable to conceive of using different time frames.

Dave Davison of Thoughts Illustrated sent me this multimedia map from Mapping the Edges – very interesting prototype. A format that I could easily see myself using for teaching or presentations if a “Blogger” type platform is developed to speed the creative process.

While I can draw well enough to create something to scan and I could, with some help, do the simple html coding and podcasting, the amount of hours invested in creating such a product would not be worth it to me unless I was running a seminar or workshop and needed something jazzy to help justify my consultancy fee. I want a tool that lets me create something like this in about an hour – then I’d use it.