Pass the napkins
“People look like they‘re working when they‘re sitting
at a computer typing, people don‘t look like they‘re working when
they‘re reading a magazine or sitting around talking. It does look like
working when you‘re sketching, but that‘s not always a highly valued
skill. Mark Mentzer, a drawing teacher at Carnegie Mellon, once said to
me, “I‘m going to teach a class called ‘Drawing on the Back of a
Napkin,‘” which I thought was brilliant because everybody today has
ideas that they‘re trying to communicate that are generally complex.
Everybody goes to the white board in a meeting or is drawing on a scrap
of paper trying to communicate his idea. It‘s important for people to
feel that it‘s okay to just be able to draw something quickly to
communicate and not be judged on the quality of the drawing. We need to
foster the ability to connect the mind to the hand so that one can
communicate effectively. I think those are extraordinarily valuable
skills.”
Petafloptimism 