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Subscribe to RSSVan Gogh would be proud. Companies across the country are trying to inspire employees to find their inner artist, or at least their inner doodler.
It’s doodle mania at companies such as Facebook and Zappos, as employers search for ways to transform complex business issues and concepts into easy-to-digest drawings, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article.
“Firms are holding training sessions to teach employees the basics of what's known as visual note taking,” the story explained. “Others, like vacation-rental company HomeAway Inc. and retailer Zappos, are hiring graphic recorders, consultants who sketch what is discussed at meetings and conferences, cartoon-style, to keep employees engaged.”
Is this just the latest dotcom gimmick?
The Journal article cites a study that was published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology saying doodlers are able to retain more information than their nondoodling counterparts. But maybe it’s just because doodlers aren’t as busy as their coworkers who don’t have time to doodle.
The idea of bringing the doodle into the workplace has been gaining traction since doodling guru Sunni Brown’s Ted Talk on the benefits of workplace doodling last year. “Doodling has a profound impact on the way that we can process information and the way that we can solve problems,” she said during the speech.
Brown, who's the author of the forthcoming book “The Doodle Revolution," teaches people on how to use doodling in the workplace.
Here’s an excerpt of her speech:
“Under no circumstances should doodling be eradicated from a classroom or a boardroom or even the war room. On the contrary, doodling should be leveraged in precisely those situations where information density is very high and the need for processing that information is very high.”
It’s safe to say the doodling business strategy will probably be relegated to profitable web-based firms that have enough workers and time on their hands to draw up a storm while they're brainstorming. Most employers who have cut their workforces to the bone during the tough economy will be hard-pressed to send their limited staff to workplace easels.
“In my opinion, this has limited use,” said Cassi Fields, an organizational psychologist and owner of business training and assessment company Fields Consulting Group. “At the end of the day, if you have to make a serious presentation and have to have serious output in most situations you’re not going to present a doodle.”
And Fields is concerned about employees potentially doodling inappropriate images or doodling a coworker or manager in an inappropriate way. "This could become the next inappropriate thing on Facebook," she quipped.
Indeed, art is in the eye of the beholder.
That said, it’s never a bad thing to bring more creativity and art into the world, and employers have to be rewarded for thinking outside of the box on this one. But the question is, if a worker ends up cutting off his or her ear, can they collect workers’ comp?
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Okay, this isn't doodling. It's Powerpointing on paper.
Exactly. Doodling is drawing nonsense, instead of paying attention, to entertain yourself in a boring meeting.
LOL! I do that all the time. You should see the margins of my notepad; you'd understand how boring some of my meetings are. :0)
I believe other studies have shown that those who doodle in the margins actually retain more contect from a meeting than those who take excessive notes....but it could all come down to how each person's brain functions.
Danno, that is precisely it. I have been an artist my entire life, drawing in school, drawing in job classes or meetings, or even during a one on one talk with an individual and I retain the majority of what I hear because part of my brain is listening to the events or lessons being explained and my lower conscience is either taking the words and expressing a picture with the words I hear or simply multitasking. I have always done well on written tests, reviews of classwork, and quick quizzes after drawing, but I could see how it might be possible to lost in your doodle or use it to"sit and draw penises".
Every person's brain is different. Learn in a manner that is best for you. Listen with your eyes and see with your ears.
Sometimes some jobs just require you to go thru lists of tasks, no creativity necessary. Get paid and go home. Not everyone is working like a freelance writer that needs to write the next dumb stuff they hear a whiff off and try to make it sound like it's a new breakthrough. Pity them.
Yes. The employees will sigh and suffer through, until management gets fascinated by the next gimmick and forgets all about this one.
Ain't that the truth!
They should be concentrating more on getting more back to pen & ink by encouraging people to do actual doodling on paper.
Awesome, how about we get back to 1970's crap like "Up With People" and "est!"? Maybe install some barrelwood hot tubs at work so people can brainstorm over a chardonnay in the nude? Friggin' New Agers.
"Graphite Based Personal Communications Medium"
... wish I had time to doodle .... my boss just wants blood and sweat and then more blood and sweat, maybe a few tears ....
I thinks Fields is displaying an old-school mentality of resistance to change. I doodle notes all the time and feel I have a stronger grasp of concepts compared to most.
You don't present a doodle, you turn it into an inforgraphic. The infographic is a professional and enhanced version of a doodle.
Also, with the rise in popularity on infographics, it shows that people prefer information presented visually.
Every business tool can be abused to some degree. How many people abuse email by sending inappropriate content? Does that mean we take email out of the business environment?
I think companies can benefit from having their employees trained in doodling.
I have noticed that I am much more focused and that I retain much more information when I'm doing some kind of doodling ... scribbling notes in Cyrillic, copying down poems I've memorized, seeing how many rings I can do in a spiral without touching the sides ... these activities are completely unrelated to the meetings but the fact that they require some focus actually let's me focus closer on what's happening around me. If I'm not doing these things then my mind is much more likely to wander and I'll lose interest.
My only fear is that my coworkers think my doodling means I'm not paying attention when, in fact, I'm happening myself pay closer attention.
No; because another one (or two) has been invented even as this article was being published.
What a joke! I dare not take my fingers off the keyboard for one second at work, or I may not make the dreaded Quota! Employees are Revenue-Generating Machines, not people--why would our bosses want to waste 'finger time' being Creative?? come on.
I was paid to turn my bosses' ideas into doodles, but my bosses didn't have many ideas, so they fired me in retaliation!
A powerful new tool to create visual storyboards (for those that are bad at doodling) - www.storyboardthat.com
I have been retired for 16 years, and reflected back to my business career of 40 years, and remembered that I doodled all the time. watching TV, board meetings, lectures, ect.
The one thing that always appeared on my yearly evaluations, was that I was an exceptionally good llistener and never had to ask someone to repeat the instructions or screwedup on an assignment. It was even brought up by our CEO at my retirement Party. I still doodle a lot and I'm 76 years old.
Sometimes, in website or logo presentations, I'll show my "doodles" or previous penciled drawings to show the process (and to subtly demonstrate the work is original), along with the completed drawing. Sometimes, the client likes a previous version of the drawing, and it helps the client visualize some of his/her own feedback in modifying the final. This is a legitimate use of doodles.
Me? I can't walk into a meeting or lecture without a piece of paper & pen. It always starts as notes-- but evolves in an out of brainless doodle patterns mixed with notes. If my pen isn't moving, I'm not listening.