Call it what you want. Visual thinking, visual communications, sketch-noting or whatever. In a word, Craighton Berman is one of the most eloquent champions of this increasingly popular trend of capturing your thoughts visually. We found Craighton at his Sketchnotes blog where he’s teaching us the power of visual medium. In short, sketchnoting is just one form of visual thinking.

“Sketchnoting is not about drawing,” Craighton says. It’s about organizing your thoughts, emphasizing important stuff, showing relationships, and being crisp. Simply drawing circles, or containers, around concepts and creating connecting lines and arrows are a great start. From there, let your sketches reflect your own personality, your interpretations, and your own view of the highlights. Not only are you capturing ideas, but synthesizing as you go.

Beyond sketchnoting, Craighton is an avid fan of using a tablet when giving a presentation. Just the ability to highlight and emphasize key points during a

conversation makes his time with a PowerPoint that much more effective.

Craighton admits that sketchnoting, and all various forms of visual thinking, is a lot easier than it may look. All you really need to do is pick up your pen and capture away.

As a blogger, he also says that writing about sketchnoting is a lot more work than simply sketching it out. “But that’s the point,” he adds, to which we say, “Amen.” So just have a look around.