The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. –Marcel Proust
This post should not be written.
It should be depicted. A video. A slideshow. Sketches on a cocktail napkin. Charades. Anything other than letters, words and sentences. Why? Because, according to the nearly 400 people who gathered at the first annual VizThink conference in San Francisco, we comprehend better, learn faster and communicate more effectively when we do so visually. Writing about a visual thinking conference is like singing a P&L statement, or designing an integrated circuit using mosaic tiles. It’s not the right medium for the message.
But, having no immediate access to a camera and lacking the drawing skills to make even a stick figure look like a stick, words must suffice. Or, here’s an idea. Stop reading right now and visit www.vizthink.com. The website, wiki and blog have plenty of visuals. Lots of color. Even some video.
The timing of VizThink, a first-of-its-kind conference for visual communication specialists that launched in January, is non-coincidental. It didn’t just happen because a bunch of visualistas wanted it to happen. It had to happen. Its rationale is so obvious it almost sounds silly when spoken out loud: to promote a global community of visual thinkers.
Posted by Robert L. Lindstrom at 8:33 PM .