February 25, 2008
"doodling for profits"
There's a great little article on the Businessweek website about the power of doodling in the corporate world. Steve Clayton, The Blue Monster and myself all get a wee mention.
In the fall of 2006, a group of senior European executives at Microsoft entered a meeting expecting to see a PowerPoint presentation. Instead, Steve Clayton—then the chief technology officer for Microsoft's U.K. Partner Group—showed them a hand-drawn image of an impish blue creature bearing gnarled fangs and sporting the provocative caption "Microsoft: Change the world or go home." After a few initial gasps, recalls Clayton, the attendees engaged in a lively discussion around the current direction of the company and the brand. "People liked the way it changed the angle of conversation," Clayton says.Rock on.
Posted by hugh macleod at February 25, 2008 8:10 PM | TrackBack
I have always been a huge fan of seeing things differently and using unusual means to 'change the conversation.' I find your ideas refreshing and inspiring. Great example!
I've just seen your tweet on this story.
We have a creative thinking toolkit at work and one of the things that we find works really well is getting people to draw a problem. I think this works partly because it makes people think about the problem from a different angle. I also think that it is because most people stop drawing when they leave school, and the idea of having to draw scares them a little. It means that they have to describe the problem constrained by what they can draw.
We borrowed ideas from Tony Buzan's Mind Mapping and De Bono's PO. Cheers. Toby.
Posted by: Toby Moores at February 25, 2008 11:20 PMI'm very glad of your doodle... it's part of the reason why I'm really happy to have joined Microsoft.
Hope to catch you @ MIX....
I like that you are getting to do what you love by drawing cartoons with Microsoft. In the past I loved Microsoft products, so much so that I got my MCSE and used the products for years. I still do use some actually (Windows XP). I've been thinking of going Mac or Linux though lately after Vista coming out. The deal of me switching was sealed today when I let an action pack expire and got a rather rude letter from Microsoft demanding that I destroy all software they ever sent me. I didn't mind that they said this, it's just that they were rude. They didn't ask for feedback on why I let it expire. They didn't start a conversation about it. They didn't seem to care at all to save the business and a person that had promoted their products in the past. I do truly hope that you can get the idea across to Microsoft on creating conversations because at this point I don't think they get it at all.
Posted by: Misty Olen at February 26, 2008 4:04 AMI'm all in favour of doodling. I just use Twitter to do it now.
Posted by: Paul Caplan at February 26, 2008 4:38 PMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQVWDoqbN48
Life At Microsoft - The Truth Revealed
Guest Staring - The Blue Monster
=)
Posted by: pac at February 26, 2008 6:21 PMSocial object meets performance art.
Posted by: John at February 27, 2008 3:08 PMDear Mr MacLeod,
Beaver Hateman has stolen all my paintings,and replaced them with a a nasty doodle of me.
Is it my spirit of entrepreneurship that he hates?
Terlingua Ghost Town sounds very like Badfort - a ramshackle blot on the landscape.
Yours Faithfully
Uncle
http://talesfromhomeward.blogspot.com/
Hi Everyone,
I have been doodling for years and come up with these:www.theimaginationpictures.com
The imagination pictures are made up from thousands of small hand drawn doodles,because they are placed in a certain way your imagination will 'find' hundreds of other pictures.
Mike
I wondering, how much computer savvy is required for one to make an attempt to twitter in an effort to communicate with you?
Posted by: Reginald at March 4, 2008 7:50 PMqmkfei klwt ztxila vkqeryfn twohyvcg odygisl nmhe
Posted by: wpmolqgrh xdjhbvuyn at March 7, 2008 11:00 AM