How many words have been spoken and written regarding health care reform? Maybe a million? Could be 10 million? Have you ever seen a good drawing or graphic on health care health (and you will not find one on Capital Hill - - it is the home of some of the worst graphical representations in history - - just watch a Senate hearing)?
Health care reform illustrates the world of words that we live in - - a culture that relies too heavily on words and eloquent language (I know, I am writing about a culture that promotes people who are verbal experts that are good at describing our problems as narratives or linear lists of facts - - I probably should have drawn this all out).
But sometimes the complicated and the complex are best described as systems - - systems that have parts that interface with each other. Systems, not of words, but systems of lines, and drawings, and graphics - - systems that have two and three dimensions. Systems that engineers understand, maybe not so much in words - - but in lines and connections.
The Back of the Napkin (2008) by Dan Roam should be mandatory reading for every engineer in the United States. If you want people to have the same mental model of a problem or issues - - do you write 300,000 words? The absolute quickest way is to draw it out - - a picture drawing is not childish and should not be given a backseat to verbal agility. Buy a pad of paper and pencil (yes, we still have these) or get an iPad or go to Graph.Jam - - but do something to practice placing your ideas on the back of a napkin.
Roam has health care graphics at:
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