“Marks and meaning is a work in progress; an evolving exploration of visual language, visual thinking and visual work practices by the founder and Chairman of XPLANE, the visual thinking company. An unfinished work, it’s a hybrid: part sketchbook, part textbook, part workbook, and continuously updated by the author, based on feedback and conversations with readers. This is version zero: the first version available to the public.”

“If you think you smell something at work, there’s probably good reason — Bull has become the official language of business. Every day, we get bombarded by an endless stream of filtered, jargon-filled corporate speak, all of which makes it harder to get heard, harder to be authentic, and definitely harder to have fun. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The team that brought you the Clio Award-winning Bullfighter software is back with an entertaining, bare-knuckled guide to talking straight. Grab your cape and sharpen your sword. It’s time to fight the bull!” (Thanks Magda!)

“After my first day at Brainstorm in Half Moon Bay I have this comment to make. Great business leaders such as Michael Dell and Jeff Bezos, people whose companies reach hundreds of millions of consumers and whose revenues are in the tens of billions, are not necessarily great communicators. While bloggers who reach millions and whose ad revenues are in the single digit millions, people like Robert Scoble, Kara Swisher and Om Malik, are phenomenal, entertaining, insightful communicators. Dell´s and Bezos´sessions were hard to endure, while the bloggers where tremendous fun.”

“When we read Y Combinator applications there are always ideas we’re hoping to see. In the past we’ve never said publicly what they are. If we say we’re looking for x, we’ll get applications proposing x, certainly. But then it actually becomes harder to judge them: is this group proposing x because they were already thinking about it, or because they know that’s what we want to hear?

We don’t like to sit on these ideas, though, because we really want people to work on them. So we’re trying something new: we’re going to list some of the ideas we’ve been waiting to see, but only describe them in general terms. It may be that recipes for ideas are the most useful form anyway, because imaginative people will take them in directions we didn’t anticipate. “

XPLANE founder Dave Gray is giving a couple workshops in London this month. You can get more info at his blog, Communication Nation.

London is calling my name again.

Next week I’ll be in London for two events, July 9th and 10th.

On July 9th, from 4pm-9pm, I will be leading a workshop called Thinking visually to tackle business challenges: A creative and innovative approach to problem solving.

Statistical surveys have shown that design and visualisation have a verifiable impact on business performance. Visual articulation is important when solving a problem that involves strategic goals and initiatives. At its core, it helps bridge the problem or opportunity with the solution. That is why helping decision makers to think and express themselves visually gives organisations a competitive edge in the marketplace.

Joining me will be a couple of XPLANE clients, who will share case studies of how they employed visual thinking in their organisations…

On July 10th I will be leading an interactive session and discussion at VizThink London. That event goes from 5:30-9:00pm.

“If you have ever looked back at the previous day / week / month and realized that you didn’t get as much done as you wanted to then you might want to look at your productivity and make some improvements. Making better use of your time can help grow your business, make you happier, give you more income, and allow for more time to yourself and your family. The following list represents the top 50 blogs on productivity from around the Internet. Reading through them will help give you the tools to make your life and business more productive and allow you to reap the benefits. Enjoy!”

Congrat to XPLANE founder Dave Gray for making the list!

“Authorities need a search warrant to get at a computer in your home, and reasonable suspicion that you’re up to no good to search your laptop in other places (like if you’re surfing bomb-making sites while using WiFi at a coffee shop).

But the rules change when you’re crossing the border back into the United States. And that has raised concerns from business travelers, privacy advocates and some lawmakers about the vulnerability of the huge amounts of information people carry on their laptops and other digital devices.”

Check out this new XPLANATiON that XPLANE put together:

“Barack Obama is the first major candidate to decline participation in the public financing system for presidential campaigns. He’s found a more effective way to raise money — by leveraging the power of the American people through online Social Networks.”

This work is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

“Many have asked me about my Keynote (it is not PowerPoint) presentation style. I honestly don’t have much to say about it, as I’ve not thought it through. But Chris Tunnell, a researcher on the SNO neutrino physics experiment has, and he sent me his thoughts about how and why (and whether) the style works based on his own experience using it for physics presentations. Read about it in the extended entry.”

“There’s a lot of activity around Adaptive Path these days. With the impending release of our book Subject to Change, our upcoming events rapidly selling out, our growing presence in Austin, and our expanding range of interesting projects for clients around the world — there’s more going on here than ever.

Right now, all three of us (Peter, Jesse, and Bryan) work as a team to keep Adaptive Path growing culturally, creatively, and financially. But with all the opportunities opening up for the company, we’ve decided the time is right to add a new perspective to the mix. That’s why we’re announcing today that we’re on the lookout for a CEO to add to our executive team.”

“I’m in the middle of preparing my presentation for Highland Fling and I find myself wondering if there’s a logo somewhere I can use on my first slide to tell the world that my presentation does not contain any bullet points.

I Google it. I find nothing. So I make one.

So I present to you the super-duper official No Bullet Points campaign/logo/badge.”

“Creating an action plan to champion the synergies of goal-oriented murdering tactics while front pocketing customer-centric policies to take you offline by EOD.”

One company’s approach to doing business in a healthy and environmentally sound way.

“Let me get this straight: The company will side with petulant, unreasonable, angry, demanding customers instead of with me, its loyal employee? And this is meant to lead to better customer service?”

“Are you a visual thinker? Do you want to hone your visual thinking skills? Do you want to learn from some of the best in our industry? Then the Visual Thinking Workshop is for you! VizThink is offering a series of one-day workshops all around the United States. These workshops will help you improve your visual thinking skills. The first workshop series will be run by Dave Gray and Karl Gude.

Apparently separated at birth, together they will show you how to visualize your ideas so you can think and communicate with greater clarity and effectiveness. Working individually and in small teams, you will learn and practice visualization techniques that have been successfully used to improve innovation and accelerate change at some of the world’s leading companies. After completing this workshop you will have a toolkit for thinking and presentation effectiveness — your presentations of complex information and strategies will never be the same.”