Last week I attended one of Dan Roam’s workshops on visual thinking. He is a former colleague who left Avenue A | Razorfish to write a book called Back of the Napkin about visual thinking. Since its publication on March 13th, 2008 the book has already climbed to 107 in Amazon’s sales rankings. It’s been featured in Businessweek, Newsweek and Metropolis Magazine. Tom Peters also interviewed Dan for his blog.

So what is Back of the Napkin about? Fundamentally the book is about visualizing ideas - why its important and how to sketch them. Dan guides the readers through a series of frameworks so that they can first think more visually and then sketch their own business ideas too. He emphasizes that visual thinking is not something reserved for the designers of this world. It’s important for everyone to think visually and its possible too. He emphasizes that over half of the sensory neurons in our brains are oriented towards vision. And as Dan sketches on whiteboards and literally on napkins, he shows exactly how anyone can think and draw visually.

The hand drawn doodle as Businessweek described it, has the power to humanize the abstract and simplify the complex. It also lets you add humor to a topic and pull people into the process of solving the problem. A great example, is how in 1967 Texas entrepreneur Rollin King jotted down the name of three cities - San Antonio, Houston and Dallas on a napkin and connected them to form a triangle. He explained to his lawyer, a certain Herb Kelleher that a small airline that offered nonstop flights between these hot spots would have an edge over the large carriers that forced travelers in the region to fly through expensive and time consuming hubs. Southwest Airlines was formed and the rest is history.

How does this matter to work 2.0? Probably for all the wrong reasons. As our business lives get more complex, we’re going to need simpler and more intuitive ways to communicate ideas and solutions. Visual thinking and communication plays an important role here. Unlike most other work 2.0 solutions, its not technology deterministic. Rather it forces us to put the technology to one side. In fact, my visual thinking skills have been hampered by my increased use of technology. It is probably the same for a lot of others who depend on their laptops and blackberrys everyday.

Dan’s book isn’t necessarily for everyone but its key point is important. Visual thinking matters and to borrow a phrase from Jon Husband’s recent post, we mustn’t let our tools shape us too much. It maybe limiting.