Have you ever wondered about all the careers out there that you never, ever even knew were there – but had you known about it you would have loved to be involved in that field?
One of those types of careers is Business Visualization.
Until I watched this Ted video of Tom Wujec, and read his bio, I would have thought business visualization was graphs and that sort of thing – which IS a powerful way of communicating information.
But Tom is a Fellow at Autodesk, a company that creates 3D software for use in a variety of industries – architecture, construction, engineering, transportation, the film industry, and product design.
And in this short presentation, he talks about the 3 areas of the brain that are involved in making meaning out of visual presentations – animation, graphics, illustrations, cartoons. He believes that the use of visual presentations can make it easier for teams to come up with really BIG ideas.
To recap, the ventral stream, dorsal stream and limbic system work together to make meaning and allow a more powerful means of communication. This concept isn’t limited to big companies, you can use illustrations and graphics to help with your own big ideas!
You have probably noticed the flood of infographics that you can find on the internet these days – people LOVE them, because they express so much idea in a visual way that makes dry statistics so much easier to comprehend.
I have often thought that having one big wall be a whiteboard (I think you can actually buy wall treatments that act like a whiteboard) would be a great way to capture and grow great ideas!
Tom has written many books, the latest of which is called “IMAGINE DESIGN CREATE: How Designers, Architects, and Engineers Are Changing Our World,” which explores the answers to questions such as:
How does design change our lives for the better?
Is our capacity to produce good design evolving?
How can design open up new areas of human experience and what will they be?
Designers are now able to do so many things, but what should they do?