Blah Blah Blah: What to do when words don't work by Dan Roam

Started: Dec. 18, 2012
Finished: Jan. 28, 2013
Pages: 331

This book has two characters:  the hummingbird and the fox, who we met in the recent past when we read Thinking, Fast and Slow by David Kahneman.  But in that book the quick-thinking, visual, and reactive hummingbird was called "System 1", while the verbose and analytic fox was called "System 2".

Why a hummingbird and a fox?  Because Dan Roam has a different aim than Kahneman.  Roam isn't explaining how brains work.  He simply wants to help us convey our ideas more effectively, and the fact that he switches the non-informative terms   "System 1" and "System 2"to something more immediately graspable is a perfect illustration of the kind of thing that Blah blah blah is trying to teach you to do.

This book was recommended to me by a "Visual Literacy" initiative at work that is intended to encourage us to include more graphical content in our writing.  The book is a perfect tool for that purpose.  It talks a little bit about why doing so is useful, but mostly focuses on describing a variety of heuristics that can help you transform your blah blah blah to combinations of graphics and text that will have a greater impact.

I'm planning to photocopy a few summary pages so that I can keep them handy while others on my team read the book.