Doodlers unite Sunni Brown

[Music]

[Applause]

so I just want to tell you my story I

spend a lot of time teaching adults how

to use visual language and doodling in

the workplace and naturally I encounter

a lot of resistance right because it’s

sort of considered to be anti

intellectual and counter to serious

learning but I have a problem with that

belief because I know that doodling has

a profound impact on the way that we can

process information and the way that we

can solve problems so I was curious

about why there was a disconnect between

the way that our society perceives

doodling and the way that the reality is

so I discovered some very interesting

things for example there is no such

thing as a flattering definition of a

doodle in the 17th century a doodle was

a simpleton or a fool as in Yankee

Doodle in the 18th century it became a

verb and it meant to swindle or ridicule

or to make fun of someone in the 19th

century it was a corrupt politician and

today we have what is perhaps our most

offensive definition at least to me

which is the following to doodle

officially means to dawdle to

dilly-dally to monkey around to make

meaningless marks to do something of

little value substance or import and my

personal favorite to do nothing no

wonder people erver is to Dueling at

work doing nothing at work is akin to

masturbating at work it’s totally

inappropriate additionally I’ve heard

horror stories from people whose

teachers scolded them of course for

doodling in classrooms and they have

bosses who scold them for doodling in

the boardroom there is a powerful

cultural norm against doodling in

settings in which we are supposed to

learn something and unfortunately the

press tends to reinforce this norm when

they’re reporting on a doodling scene

you know of an important person at a

confirmation hearing and the like they

typically use words like discovered or

caught or found out as if there’s some

sort of criminal act being committed and

additionally there is a psychological

aversion to doodling Thank You Freud in

the 1930s Freud told us all that you

could analyze people’s psyches based on

their doodles this is

not accurate but it did happen to Tony

Blair at the Davos forum in 2005 when

his doodles were of course discovered

and he was labeled the following things

now it turned out to be Bill Gates’s

doodle and Bill if you’re here nobody

thinks you’re megalomaniacal but that

does contribute right to people not

wanting to share their doodles and here

is the real deal here’s what I believe I

think that our culture is so intensely

focused on verbal information that we’re

almost blinded to the value of doodling

and I’m not comfortable with that and so

because of that belief that I think

needs to be burst I’m here to send us

all hurtling back to the truth and

here’s the truth doodling is an

incredibly powerful tool and it is a

tool that we need to remember and to

relearn so here’s a new definition for

doodling and I hope there’s someone in

here from the Oxford English Dictionary

because I want to talk to you later

here’s the real definition doodling is

really to make spontaneous marks to help

yourself think that is why millions of

people doodle here’s another interesting

truth about the doodle people who doodle

when they’re exposed to verbal

information retain more of that

information than their non doodling

counterparts we think diddling is

something you do when you lose focus but

in reality it is a pre-emptive measure

to stop you from losing focus

additionally it has a profound effect on

creative problem-solving and deep

information processing there are four

ways that learners intake information so

that they can make decisions they are

visual auditory reading and writing and

kinesthetic now in order for us to

really chew on information and do

something with it we have to engage at

least two of those modalities or we have

to engage one of those modalities

coupled with an emotional experience the

incredible contribution of the doodle is

that it engages all four learning

modalities simultaneously with the

possibility of an emotional experience

that is a pretty solid contribution for

a behavior equated with doing nothing

this is so nerdy but this made me cry

when I discovered this so they did

anthropological research into the

unfolding of artistic activity in

children

they found that across space and time

all children exhibit the same evolution

and visual logic as they grow in other

words they have a shared and growing

complexity and visual language that

happens in a predictable order and I

think that is incredible I think that

means doodling is native to us and we

simply are denying ourselves that

instinct and finally a lot of people

aren’t privy to this but the doodle is a

precursor to some of our greatest

cultural assets this is but one this is

Frank Gehry the architects precursor to

the Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi so here’s my

point 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 and I will go

you one further because doodling is so

universally accessible and it is not

intimidating as an art form it can be

leveraged as a portal through which we

move people into higher levels of visual

literacy my friends the doodle has never

been the Nemesis of intellectual thought

in reality it is one of its greatest

allies thank you

[Applause]

you