TED Community » Sunni Brown

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Visual literacy, storytelling, subatomic reality, how the mind learns, survival strategies for getting through life and the development of higher E.Q.

An idea worth spreading

VISUAL literacy may become as important as literacy in the future. The re-uptake of our native visual abilities is one of the best things we can do in service to learning and solving really messy problems.

Talk to me about

Emotional intelligence, whole-brain learning, perception vs. reality, the definition of sanity and your dog.

People don't know that I'm good at

Because I don't suffer from an overdose of humility, most people know what I'm good at. The only exception: singing.

My TED Story

My company was invited to participate as visual thinkers and graphic facilitators at TED 2009, TEDActive 2011 and TED Global 2011 and I was a speaker at Long Beach in 2011. I and was thrilled to be there, of course, and it was simultaneously the most nerve-wracking experience of all time. A disproportionate amount of our best future is seeded at this incredible conference. Freak OUT!

Comments

• TEDCred score: +103.80 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +2

  A reply on Talk: Sunni Brown: Doodlers, unite!

  Dec 20 2011: Davin, as much as I love a lively conversation, I'm not comfortable with either of your assertions below:
  1. "If your doodling while something else is going on it's NOT POSSIBLE that you're actually paying attention to what's going on."
  2. "People that doodle during a lecture in class are NOT going to be hearing everything the teacher says."
  Both of these assertions are wildly inaccurate and they contribute to exactly what the Doodle Revolution is working against. You can see from the myriad of experiences expressed by people on this blog alone that doodling helps people focus and listen and think better. Learning through auditory instruction is debatably the least effective method of learning, so for many people coupling listening with a tactile and visual component is what makes the distinction between them hearing and absorbing nothing and them hearing and absorbing a notable amount of information. For you, doodling may not be an effective tool but for millions of people it is a tool that has amplified their experience of learning, creating, building insights and getting ah-has. I train people to link listening with doodling specifically BECAUSE OF the powerful cognitive effect it has when they do.
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Sunni Brown: Doodlers, unite!

  Dec 20 2011: Libbey, I love your response and I thank you for taking the time to defend the Doodle. There is so much misinformation about visual language (what it is, where it is appropriate, what it's doing to the learner's mind) that part of my journey in educating people necessarily requires responding to critics like Brubaker. And he's playing an important role in helping me sharpen my case and respond to the resistance that others will also have. I'm so glad you found the content valuable. Please know you'll find a supportive partner in me for anything you and your daughter explore as you uncover what makes her tick as a learner. THIS sister won't write either of you off as flaky, no matter what learning approach you choose.
  Sincerely,
  Sunni
• +3

  A reply on Talk: Sunni Brown: Doodlers, unite!

  Dec 20 2011: Benjamin, thank you for your comment. I'm aware of the critiques for all of the major learning style theories and used the VARK four for shorthand due to the length of my talk. When the book comes out, I'll address all of those things. Regarding your hypothesis about doodling distracting people from learning, there is an inordinate amount of evidence that it, in fact, does the opposite. One of my goals is to train doodlers to track auditory content while doodling. Not ALL learners respond to the deliberate combination of auditory and visual content, but I've taught hundreds of adults and have noticed that this practice of focusing on what they're hearing heightens their absorption, recall and understanding of that information. So the idea that doodling distracts people from learning is one of the myths the Doodle Revolution will overturn. I hope you explore more of that information as you go forth and be fantastic! Best, Sunni
• +3

  A reply on Conversation: Why is visual literacy discouraged in most cultures & WHAT CAN WE DO to change that?

  Oct 31 2011: Thank you, Celeste. I'm motivated by the learners! In the future, I'm looking to train a cadre of visual facilitators and visual thinkers so they can go forth in the world and educate. My current inspired book on that is called The Art of the Changing the Brain.

• A reply on Conversation: Why is visual literacy discouraged in most cultures & WHAT CAN WE DO to change that?

  Oct 31 2011: Ali, I make a distinction between consumption of visual content and production of it. I believe people should be taught to do both. Intelligently consume visual content and intelligently portray it for their own and others' understanding and analysis.
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: Why is visual literacy discouraged in most cultures & WHAT CAN WE DO to change that?

  Oct 31 2011: The fact that it's not KILLS me. Business is operating in a hyper-competitive, global, socially-connected, incredibly complex space and YET here most of us are, trying to talk and inspire people using slides with clip art. I can't tell you how many business ideas are a direct result of sketching. Without them, we wouldn't have the Internet (thank you, Al Gore!), or the telephone, or moving pictures.
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: Why is visual literacy discouraged in most cultures & WHAT CAN WE DO to change that?

  Oct 31 2011: Congratulate yourself for two talented children and then promptly stop comparing your work to them or to anyone else. This skill is for YOU. Don't judge it, don't criticize it. Just follow where it leads you. Mo, you go!
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: Why is visual literacy discouraged in most cultures & WHAT CAN WE DO to change that?

  Oct 31 2011: A visual auto-correct, hilarious! My first concern would be that it would start to homogenize visual representations, which scares me. But regarding a lexicon, I do have my own "graphic vocabulary", pieces of which I use to quickly convey something people are describing in a conversation. I encourage all students of visual literacy to start to develop their own lexicon for the purposes of rapid sketching or prototyping. There are books available for this purpose as well and Google Image search doesn't hurt to see what the collective societal metaphors are.

• A reply on Conversation: Why is visual literacy discouraged in most cultures & WHAT CAN WE DO to change that?

  Oct 31 2011: Also, no. When cities provide a public space for graffiti, it's almost never used. The element of rogue action is removed so it doesn't seem to attract most taggers.
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: Why is visual literacy discouraged in most cultures & WHAT CAN WE DO to change that?

  Oct 31 2011: Okay, knee-jerk reaction: I do not love 95% of graffiti. Having read and watched a lot about it, I think it's most basic form is like peeing in public spaces. Not cool. But is the ACT of creating graffiti helping the tagger? Is that process of visualizing something beneficial to him or her? (Outside of the fumes.) Mostly likely, yes. I just wish taggers also came with a healthy respect for public property and a more evolved sense of content and aesthetics.