Being voracious doodler, I have always been self-conscious in the board room.  I am always fearful that I might be viewed as not paying attention to the task at hand as I scrawl images on my legal pad. No matter how I try to keep my red Flair pen at bay, it always gets the best of me. (See the picture below from a JC Thomas Marketing Communications internal meeting where we were developing radio concepts for an NC-based restaurant company.)

 

After watching this presentation from a TED conference by Sunni Brown I feel ashamed no more. Ms. Brown helps companies visualize complex ideas through the use of “infographics” and story-boarding.  In her presentation Ms. Brown validates all the positive aspects doodling has in helping with thought retention. She goes on to explain how doodling is an incredibly powerful tool and has a profound effect on how we solve problems. It has been shown that people who doodle, while being exposed to verbal information, have 29% greater retention of that information than their non-doodling counterparts.“We think doodling is something that you do when you lose focus, but in reality it is a preemptive measure to stop you from losing focus.”  I think she sums it up here beautifully. “My friends, the doodle has never been the nemesis of intellectual thought…It is one of its greatest allies.” I couldn’t agree more.

Jim Thomas is an Enterprise Account Executive for Kronos, the world-wide leader in HCM solutions.  Jim helps retail, hospitality and entertainment companies improve performance and communication at every level of their workforce with Kronos Task Management solutions resulting in a better customer experience.