XPLANE republishes Visual Language by Bob Horn

I am proud to announce that XPLANE will be republishing Robert Horn's landmark book, Visual Language: Global Communication for the 21st Century, which has been out of print for several years.

Robert Lucas, in a review on Amazon says:

"People seem to either love Bob Horn's book "Visual Language" or they hate it. Look at the reviews here on Amazon! The key questions is: Why such a polarizing? To me it means that Horn has written a paradigm-busting, pathfinding, boundary-crossing, far-out book -- one that removes our blinders from a phenomenon that is happening all around us, namely a new international, auxiliary language that is emerging. No wonder it arouses controversy."

You can read more of the Amazon reviews here.

Here's an interview where Bob talks about the ideas his book, and a pdf file where Bob practices what he preaches -- using visual language to explain visual language -- to Cliff Atkinson, author of Beyond Bullet Points.

Bob is a personal friend and the book is a groundbreaking one. Not only does it explain visual language, it employs visual language on every page. It's a true classic and I am glad we are now able to make it available once again.

Buy it here.

If you are familiar with the book I would love to hear your thoughts on it here.

New technology for smart image resizing

Adobe just hired the co-inventor of this image-resizing technology.

It's fascinating to watch, and it also has interesting implications for content creators.

What do you think? Please share your thoughts.

Infomania: Why we can’t afford to ignore it any longer

Infomania: Why we can’t afford to ignore it any longer: "The combination of e–mail overload and interruptions is widely recognized as a major disrupter of knowledge worker productivity and quality of life, yet few organizations take serious action against it. This paper makes the case that this action should be a high priority, by analyzing the severe impact of the problem in both qualitative and quantitative terms. We attempt to provide sufficient supporting data from the scientific literature and from corporate surveys to enable change agents to make the case and convince their organizations to authorize such action."

Read the paper.

The City Wall - Helsinki

Generalist and specialist approaches

Generalist and specialist approaches, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane.

This is an update to a previous diagram, based on numerous comments and feedback.

More conversation here, here, here and here.

The mind map as a concise visual summary

Click the image for a high-resolution version.

Author, artist and educator John Clapp posted this beautiful mind map on his website. It's a summary of Vision + Art: The Biology of Seeing.

What is especially interesting is that the map represents roughly 60% of the book's content -- on a single page!

See more on John's website.

Free online mind-mapping tool

Click the image above to see a larger version.

Mindomo is a free online mind-mapping tool. I have only spent a little time there but it appears to be full-featured. You can create maps, share them, and search for maps on any topic. Worth a look.

Alignment

Alignment, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane.

Some people think of organizational alignment as "getting people to buy in" with an idea that is already formed. This may be useful sometimes but I don't think it's optimal.

Alignment is the process of synthesizing varied opinions and viewpoints on a subject.

Getting alignment on "why we're doing this is not about getting everyone to see "the right answer" so much as incorporating everyone's viewpoint into a "shared vision" of what that means.

Cultural alignment can mean "same thing" as in, "we are all driving toward the same goals" (true north) or it can mean "same way" as in, "we do things consistently."

A flock of geese does both -- can a modern organization work in the same way without stifling creativity?

What does alignment mean to you? What does it mean in your organization? Please share your thoughts.

What's the best tool for communication?

It depends on what you are trying to do. Click the diagram at left for a larger view.

How to Save the World: "What are the reasons we use faulty judgement, and use the wrong technology for communications?

* Habit: We tend to use the tools we're most familiar, comfortable, and in the habit of using, even when they're not optimal. It takes some practice to train ourselves to think 'what's the best medium to use for this?' before we start or respond to a communication.

* Personality: Some people (e.g. those who are shy about face-to-face meetings) hide behind e-mail even when it's not the right medium. Sometimes it's up to use, the recipients, not to get drawn into time-wasting e-mail threads, and walk down the hall or pick up the phone and talk it through in real time.

* Physical layout: Having people who need a lot of face-to-face contact in offices far apart just to pay homage to the organization chart can obstruct the use of optimal communication technologies.

* Ignorance: If people don't know communication technologies are available, or if they're hard to learn or remember how to use, or too complicated, they won't be used.

* Unavailability: Some organizations refuse to allow IM, blogs, wikis or free collaboration tools or 'free' tools that need to be downloaded to each PC, for security or centralized management reasons. Obviously, if the tools aren't available, less appropriate tools have to be used."

Read more here.

Specialist or generalist?

Specialist or generalist?, originally uploaded by dgray_xplane.

Interesting interface

Musicovery is an interesting interface that lets you browse music by mood and genre, and then listen to it. Imagine integrating something like this with iTunes.

"Kind of like Pandora meets the Visual Thesaurus meets a 70's mood ring." -- Matt Homann.

Thanks Matt!