Dan Roam – Back of the Napkin

• Role : Communication, Innovation, Strategic Planning
• Website : https://executiveforum.net/courses/the-back-of-the-napkin-a-tool-for-communication-and-innovation/
• Experience : Dan Roam holds two degrees from the University of California, Santa Cruz: one in Fine Art and one in Biology. This combination began Roam’s cross-disciplinary approach to problem solving. Roam is the founder of Digital Roam, Inc., and the author of The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures.
• Specialist in : Dan has helped leaders at Microsoft, eBay, Google, Wal-Mart, Boeing, Lucas Film, Gap, Intel, Cisco, IBM, Kraft, Stanford University, Carnegie-Mellon, The MIT Sloan School of Management, the US Navy, and the United States Senate solve complex problems through visual thinking. Dan and his whiteboard have appeared on CBS, CNN, MSNBC, ABC News, Fox News, and NPR. His visual explanation of American health care was selected by BusinessWeek as “The World’s Best Presentation of 2009.” This inspired the White House Office of Communications to invite Dan in for discussions on visual problem solving.

Have you ever had difficulty explaining complicated concepts or selling someone on your new ideas? Most of us find ourselves in these situations and, sometimes, words are simply not enough to communicate our ideas clearly. Whether or not you are a visual thinker, and regardless of your artistic talent or training, you can use pictures to illustrate your ideas and communicate more effectively. Consultant to Microsoft, Google, Wal-Mart, and eBay, among others, Dan Roam recommends napkins as critical communication tools that surpass both PowerPoint and Excel in their utility to you as a creative thinker and communicator. You can not only show others what you think, but also clarify your own ideas and come up with more out-of-the-box solutions in the process. Roam demonstrates step-by-step how anyone can use simple pictures to describe complex concepts, solve fuzzy problems, and sell others on breakthrough ideas.