Building Business Value | Corporate Management Strategies

Stick Figures and Epiphanies

I just got a new hammer and now everything looks like a nail!

Has this ever happened to you?  You made a discovery and you can't wait to share it with everyone you know!  My discovery was Dan Roam and Epipheo Studios.

I've had extended conversations with two friends over the last few weeks on the challenges we all face in communicating complex concepts.  How can we solve problems and sell the ideas we have if we can't even set up the problem.  By the time you've given your elevator pitch, half the people in the elevator have fallen asleep and the other half voluntarily jumped to their death!

Enter Dan Roam and Epipheo Studios.  Dan Roam wrote "The Back of the Napkin" in 2008 and it's one of those books that was on my shelf for a year before I cracked it.  But I'm so happy I finally broke the seal.

Roam makes a very compelling case for the use of simple pictures for solving problems or selling an idea.  He even cleared up the healthcare debate for me.  In the last week alone, I've used his constructs in three different meetings to get my point across.

Epipheo Studios, on the other hand, are storytellers.  They believe the best thing you can do for your brand, idea, or business is to educate and enlighten.  When people see the world the way you see it, then your brand will come alive.  The idea is that if you create a great story in a new media, it will go viral.  It will become an epiphany!

I've lived by the mantra during most of my business life that "if you don't go home sick and tired of communicating, you haven't done it enough."  That's still true ... but at least now you have two more tools in your toolkit.