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