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Blah Blah Blah: What To Do When Words Don't Work Hardcover – Illustrated, November 1, 2011

by Dan Roam (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 173 ratings
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Ever been to so many meetings that you couldn't get your work done? Ever fallen asleep during a bulletpoint presentation? Ever watched the news and ended up knowing less? Welcome to the land of Blah Blah Blah.

The Problem: We talk so much that we don't think very well. Powerful as words are, we fool ourselves when we think our words alone can detect, describe, and defuse the multifaceted problems of today. They can't-and that's bad, because words have become our default thinking tool.

The Solution: This book offers a way out of blah-blah-blah. It's called "Vivid Thinking."

In Dan Roam's first acclaimed book, The Back of the Napkin, he taught readers how to solve problems and sell ideas by drawing simple pictures. Now he proves that Vivid Thinking is even more powerful. This technique combines our verbal and visual minds so that we can think and learn more quickly, teach and inspire our colleagues, and enjoy and share ideas in a whole new way.

The Destination: No more blah-blah-blah. Through Vivid Thinking, we can make the most complicated subjects suddenly crystal clear. Whether trying to understand a Harvard Business School class, or what went down in the Conan versus Leno battle for late-night TV, or what Einstein thought about relativity, Vivid Thinking provides a way to clarify anything.

Through dozens of guided examples, Roam proves that anyone can apply this systematic approach, from leftbrain types who hate to draw to right-brainers who hate to write. This isn't just a book about improving communications, presentations, and ideation; it's about removing the blah-blah- blah from your life for good.

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    368 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Portfolio
  4. Publication date
    November 1, 2011
  5. Dimensions
    8.26 x 1.15 x 8.27 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1591844592
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1591844594
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dan Roam is the author of The Back of the Napkin, which was Fast Company's Best Business Book of the Year and BusinessWeek's Innovation and Design Book of the Year. His consulting clients have included Microsoft, Google, Wal-Mart, Boeing, Lucasfilm, The Gap, the U.S. Navy, and the White House Office of Communications. His health-care analysis was named BusinessWeek's Best Presentation of 2009. He lives in San Francisco.

Visit www.danroam.com

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Portfolio; Illustrated edition (November 1, 2011)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1591844592
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1591844594
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.68 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.26 x 1.15 x 8.27 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 173 ratings

About the author

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Dan Roam

Dan Roam

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Dan Roam is the author of five international bestselling books on business-visualization and communication clarity. "The Back of the Napkin" was named by Fast Company, The London Times, and BusinessWeek as the 'Creativity Book of the Year.'

Dan is a business leader, entrepreneur, creative director, author, painter, and model-builder. His purpose in life is to make complex things clear by drawing them and to help others do the same.

Dan has helped leaders at Google, Microsoft, Allbirds, Boeing, Gap, IBM, the US Navy, and the Obama White House solve complex problems with simple pictures. Dan and his whiteboard have appeared on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, and NPR. Dan's newest book, "The Pop-Up Pitch" will be published by Hachette Public Affairs on Nov. 9.

Dan's "American Health Care on the Back of a Napkin" was voted by Business Week as the world's best presentation of 2009.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
173 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Roboticist
5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding book!
Reviewed in the United States on November 9, 2021
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I've been trying to use visual thinking to clarify my thoughts since the early '70s when I started with a book called "Thinking With a Pencil" (Nelms). I used that book for years, and still have multiple copies in convenient places. Through the years I have also picked up and used various other books that helped me think visually, but NONE of them organized my thinking like this author's previous book, "The Back of the Napkin". THIS BOOK IS EVEN BETTER! While TBOTN have clarify to my ideas (I have compared it to discovering Mendeleyev's periodic table for a number of years), this book has been great tool for increasing my creativity and communication. I strongly recommend all of Dan Roam's books.
3 people found this helpful
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Panzrwagn
5.0 out of 5 stars Required Reading
Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2012
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If you deal in concepts, or complex issues of any type then you know how easy it is to be at either a loss of words, or a surfeit of words. Blah Blah Blah provides a solution for that. Really an extension of his earlier book "The Back Of The Napkin" it provides a visual grammar for effective visual communication both as a sender and as a receiver. For all the simplicity implied, there is really a formal grammar and method here that requiires some study and practice. That's OK, it's worth the small amount of effort required many times over.

I am a technical architect (I do what an building architect does, only instead of bricks and boards, I work in information systems) and so communicating effectively and visually is a large part of my work. And since my clients are distributed across 3 continents, in addition to the verbal language and time issues, most of my communication is done visually through presentations. That makes a work like this indispensible.
One person found this helpful
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BSXX
4.0 out of 5 stars Unique, Useful, but too long
Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2012
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In the battle of "pictures" vs "text", there is no contest. Read any instruction manual explaining the assembly or use of a new product - would you rather read 10 pages of text, or a half page of text with many good illustrations? Most people can understand visuals much easier and faster than text.

The use of diagrams and charts, the visual approach in general, is well known to intelligence analysts, software designers, and creatives of all sorts. However, Roam takes it a step further and gives it a sophistication far beyond anything I have encountered. He turns it into a problem solving tool that many business people will find immediately helpful. I have read a little about the accomplishments of Da Vinci and Einstein and learned that they were both "visual" thinkers, and viewed their subjects accordingly.

My gripe - the book and subject material begin to drag. It just goes too far and too long. What starts out as interesting, fresh and engaging, becomes monotonous.

Nevertheless, Roam presents a very powerful problem solving tool that most will find very useful. I highly recommend this book for the fantastic material and understand that the monotony I experienced may not be your experience.

The ideas and content: 5 Stars
The book: 3 Stars
7 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars It changed the way I did my presentations
Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2012
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I have to do presentations to an NGO for many years. The book has certainly changed the way I am doing presentations now. Because I have been a university teacher for many years, my presentations at that NGO tended to be very academic, full of points and arguments as well, when the target audience were totally different. At the NGO meetings, the audience were successful businessmen and professionals with an average age of 50+. Like most audience of that nature, they tended to think of all presentations as so much "blah blah blah" and the minds of virtually half of them would drift off within 5 minutes, a few might even be in slumberland. This book changed my way of presentations.

The first time I tried it, with my own drawings, and they were pretty ugly drawings at that, my presentation captured their attention. For the first time, I felt they were totally engaged in my talk.

The concept as "preached" by the book, that one must be able to draw the ideas one is presenting is absolutely correct. By trying to draw a picture of every idea that one is trying to present, it focusses one's mind and leaves no room for fuzziness in one's mind. I think the effect of that must have been felt by the audience as well - there is no fuzziness or ambiguity that is being conveyed to the audience.

I cannot fail to recommend this book to anyone who has to make presentations regularly. Read it. Follow its advice. You cannot go wrong.

Incidentally, for those of you who own smart phones, an excellent way of practicing your skill at putting down concepts as drawings is to play the game "DrawSome" (Disclaimer: I do not know the developer of that App, and I have no financial interest in that App.) The App is free and it really sharpens your skill at drawing concepts, making you even more ready to follow the instructions of the book "Blah Blah Blah".

This book is really for anyone who has to make presentations.
17 people found this helpful
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Ilya Grigorik
3.0 out of 5 stars Good lessons, but needs less "blah"
Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2012
Verified Purchase
I caught one of Dan Roam's talks in person, where he was talking about his latest book, and the message resonated strongly: too often, we use words to obscure the actual point, often unintentionally so. "Vivid thinking" is an approach to help you distill the idea to its essence by combining the visual and the verbal elements: if you can draw it, you can explain it, and by drawing it you can it explain it much better. The book goes through the process of how you can change your own thinking and communication to reach these goals.

However, after I read the "blah blah blah" reference for the 100th time in the book, the message itself got lost, not to mention the overstretched metaphor of "the fox" and "the hummingbird". The book could have been cut in half and preserved all of its lessons, an ironic property given the subject.
29 people found this helpful
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juan carlos
5.0 out of 5 stars Precio
Reviewed in Mexico on April 11, 2023
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Lo busque en varios lados y aquí lo encontré a buen precio.
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Rich Pollock
5.0 out of 5 stars Don't Go Here .. unless you are prepared to have the whole visual side of your brain put into action!
Reviewed in Canada on January 1, 2017
Verified Purchase
This simple book has more brain changing power than hundreds of books that do .. words .. words .. words. Simple visuals sprinkled with a few words can achieve more impact than can be explained here.

The Author's quote: "He who draws the best pictures wins" .. is an understatement .. he who draws the best pictures [and yes it can be you] .. gains clarity on many levels .. on your topic .. on how to explain it best .. on the finest of details to the broadness of the concept .. clarity of where it has become over complicated .. and how it can be simplified .. clarity that defines great thinking.

If you feel you were born more visually oriented than you have been encouraged to utilize .. then this small but dense book will help you catch up quickly .. that was my experience.
One person found this helpful
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Cliente Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars Genial.
Reviewed in Spain on October 20, 2015
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Si eres de los que se confunden consigo mismos mientras dan explicaciones, este libro es tu bote salvavidas. Perfecto para aprender facilitación gráfica también.
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Laure Merlin
5.0 out of 5 stars Efficace clé
Reviewed in France on March 6, 2014
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Livre remarquable. Facile d'accès au départ, de plus en plus approfondi, riche et développé sans jamais nous perdre.
Utilisable dans de très nombreux domaines, pour enrichir sa réflexion, pour faciliter les relations et la compréhension mutuelles non seulement dans l'entreprise, mais aussi en tant que parent, animateur, coach, formateur, ingénieur, enseignant, chercheur, auteur, créatif de tout bois, journaliste, etc...

Pour les personnes à l'aise avec la parole et l'écrit, mais qui constatent leurs limites et la monté en puissance de l'image, ce livre nous ouvre grand la porte de la pensée et de la communication visuelle. Au lieu d'utiliser maladroitement des images pour illustrer nos propos mûrement travaillés, nous pouvons utiliser toutes les ressources de notre intelligence visuelle pour voir toutes les dimensions d'un problème ou exprimer simplement toute la complexité d'une idée.

Sur le kindle proprement dit, certaines images ne sont pas claires malheureusement, je retourne les voir sur mon mobile, même un smartphone car c'est une question de couleur - c'est ce qui est signalé par la mention 'optimisé pour de plus grands écrans'
One person found this helpful
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Pablo Altmann
5.0 out of 5 stars 1A-Gerne wieder.
Reviewed in Germany on December 27, 2013
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Dan Roam is the Zen Master of using simple visuals combined with compelling verbal narratives to clearly express ideas and make meaningful connections with audiences. A fantastic book for business people or educators alike!”
2 people found this helpful
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