One of the points that interested me in the “Back of the Napkin” book by Dan Roam is identifying your “Pen Type”. Dan purports that there are three distinct types of people when it comes to working/designing/laying out thoughts visually: Black Pen, Yellow Pen, and Red Pen people.
Black Pen People
Black Pen-ers are eager to start throwing ideas out on the table visually and they are firm believers in the power of images to help solve and address problems. They also find visual metaphors and analogies to be helpful in communicating their ideas - and also to help sort through ideas in the brainstorming process.
Yellow Pen People
Yellow Pen-ers (aka Highlighters) are especially skilled at identifying the important or interesting aspects that the Black Pen-ers have drawn. These people tend to be more verbal and less graphical - interspersing drawings with lots of description.
Red Pen People
Red Pen-ers are the quiestest and often take the back seat when initial sketching/graphical representation takes place. However, they are essential in pointing out modifications to a visual representation that hone the concept. They’re known to hold the most detailed grasp of the problem at hand and can often be found redrafting images and making them even better!
Two important concepts that I’ve derived from this:
1. Having all “black pen-ers” in a room might not be the best solution. Like we’ve seen in our in class experiences, pull together unique and diverse groups - oftentimes groups that operate somewhat differently but can compensate for the skills where others may lack.
2. All of us have visual thinking capabilities and each grouping (black, yellow or red) plays a key role in analyzing a problem and brainstorming solutions.
So now — what pen color are you?! This quiz was provided in the book to help give us a better sense of where we might sit on the curve:
…………………………………………………………..
Select the single best answer for each statement below. Add up the values of the numbers next to your answer and follow the details once you finish all questions.
I’m in a brainstorming session in a conference room that has a big whiteboard. I want to:
- Go to the board, pick up a pen, and start drawing circles and boxes.
- Try to decipher whatever is already written on the board.
- Go to the board and start writing categorized lists.
- Add a little clarification to what’s already up there, to make it clearer.
- “Forget the whiteboard. Come on here people, we’ve got work to do!”
- I hate brainstorming sessions
Someone hands me a complex, multipage spreadsheet table printout. I first:
- Glaze over, put it down, and hope it will go away
- Flip through the pages letting my eye wander across all those numbers to see if something interesting - anything - pops up.
- Read across the top of the columns or down each row in order, looking to identify the categories
- Select a row and column at random and follow them to the data cell, then look for similar (or different) data results in other cells
- Look for the largest or smallest values I can find, then trace them back to identify their categories
- Flip back and forth between sheets and zero in on the important patters that I saw right away
Somone hands me a pen and asks me to sketch out a particular idea. I:
- Ask for more pens, preferably in at least three colors
- Just start sketching and see what emerges
- Say, “I can’t draw but …” and then make a horrible stick figure
- Start by writing a few words, then putting boxes around them
- Put the pen on the table and start talking
- Say, “No thanks. I can’t draw” and leave it at that
On my way home from a big conference, I run into a colleague at the airport bar, and he or she asks me to explain more precisely what my company does. I:
- Grab a napkin and ask the bartender for a pen
- Pick up three packs of Sweet’N Low, lay them on the bar, and say, “OK, this is me …”
- Pull up a page from my PowerPoint - a really good page - and start describing it
- Explain that “there are three things we do …”
- Buy another round because we’re going to be talking for awhile
- Say it’s too complicated to explain well, but ask him/her the same question
I see a bumper sticker on a car that reads VISUALIZE WORLD PEACE. I:
- Try to imagine what peace must look like
- Imagine John Lennon’s glasses
- Repeat those words to myself, kind of rolling them around: “World Peace”
- Image what this tells me about the owner of the car
- Think “whirled peas”
- Roll my eyes and murmur, “Damned Californians”
If I were an astronaut floating in space, the first thing I would do is:
- Take a deep breath, relax, and take in the whole view
- Try to spot my house … or at least my continent
- Start describing what I saw
- Wish I had my camera
- Close my eyes
- Find a way to get back to the spacecraft
Now add up your total score and divide it by 6. Here’s how to rate yourself:
1 - 2.5 ~ Black Pen (Hand me the pen!)
2.6 - 4.5 ~ Yellow Pen (I can’t draw, but …)
4.6 - 6.0 ~ Red Pen (I’m not visual!)
I would highly recommend the “Back of the Napkin” for anyone who wants a quick, interesting, entertaining and valuable read!
The Napkin Sketch, an article featured in the April 2008 Fast Company, discusses the corporate world’s growing acceptance of visual thinking and discusses Dan Roam’s similarly named book (which we’re already quite familiar with.) Check it out.
