A 1:04:18 MP3 recording of XPLANE founder and CEO Dave Gray’s presentation at MeshForum: “A poorly communicated concept is a missed opportunity. Visual thinking is a mode of thinking to assist with communication, like a calculator assists with math. It serves as a tool to communicate fairly difficult concepts.”

I’m in the midst of doing some rearranging category-wise. I killed the long-inactive “3d” and “Censorship” categories and moved those posts into other relevant areas. Will probably make some more adjustments over the next few weeks.

The interactive crew at XPLANE has whipped up a great redesign of XPLANE.com (this would be version 5.0) and soon xBlog and bBlog will have a fresh look too. Please pardon our dust. Look for posting to be back to normal next week.

Things will slow down here for a week or two as we do some backend and hosting maintenance on xBlog — not to mention taking a break for the holidays. See y’all in 2007! (The link goes to del.icio.us.) Happy holidays!

Once again, as I do every year, I forgot to note xBlog’s anniversary. This year we mark approximately 2,555 days of visual thinking linking. That’s seven years and 5600+ posts. xBlog went public 11 Nov 1999 and I’ve been posting here on a near-daily basis since then. Whew. The link goes to a circa-2000 xBlog page on Archive.org. Anyway — Happy Thanksgiving, America!

A Flickr set of XPLANE founder Dave Gray’s sketches tagged with “stlux” — visual notes from the 2006 St Louis User Experience conference.

Reminder: “We have an opening for a Senior Information Designer at XPLANE. If you’re qualified and interested I encourage you to apply. Here’s some more information on the opening: XPLANE is a global leader in visual communication and we are looking a Senior Information Designer to join our creative team. You will work with top managers from Fortune 500 companies around the world to creatively visualize complex processes and technologies. Qualified candidates will demonstrate skills in visual communication, process mapping, creative direction, people management and business technology. We will also be looking for strong organizational and interpersonal skills.” Click link for more info over at founder Dave Gray’s blog.

XPLANE founder and CEO Dave Gray will be giving a visual thinking workshop in Toronto on September 8: “The title of the workshop will be ‘The Power of Pictonics: Using Visualizations to Tell Your Technology Story.’ I am really looking forward to this. There will be plenty of hands-on exercises to help you hone your visual thinking and storytelling skills. You’ll also learn some of the ’secret sauce’ that goes into making visual explanations. This will be a pretty special event, to be held in the beautiful and hi-tech MaRS convergence and innovation center in the downtown Discovery District. It also happens to coincide with the Toronto film festival, one of the best film festivals in North America in my opinion. So if you’ve been meaning to visit Toronto you couldn’t pick a better time.”

“A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a pictogram is worth so much more… A good BoND [Back of the Napkin Diagram] can also assist with employee recruitment, team alignment, sales and technology build outs. The vocal [Rick] Segal comments, that ‘As the prospective client, employee, or VC engages, both parties can use the drawing as a central reference point. It’s a very useful tool that is often overlooked in favour of mountains of text laden painful power point slides.’ In fact, BoNDs can be used throughout the business, according to the Grandfather of business visualizations, Dave Gray, Founder and CEO of XPLANE (the business visualization company behind the powerful BoNDs you see in Business 2.0 magazine).”

Looking forward to seeing you in 2006, the 7th calendar year of xBlog’s link-filled life (whoa). Be safe. The link goes to a Flash game called “Someone keeps stealing my letters,” just for fun.

We’re taking a short break here at xBlog to spend time with family and friends. Happy holidays, everyone! See you in a few days.

It was back on November 7, and I totally forgot about it. Sorry xBlog! We’ve been sitting here at our Mac for six years now, posting all the smart, useful, interesting visual communication links we find (and other stuff, too). So far that’s added up to well over 5,000 posts since that chilly day in 1999 when we let xBlog out of its development den. It’s been a lot of fun. We hope you still enjoy stopping by after all this time.

We’re going to take a short break to do some backend upgrades and watch post-season Cardinals baseball. We’ll be back shortly. In the meantime, check out XPLANE CEO Dave Gray’s weblog, COMMUNICATION NATION.

XPLANE is a communications design firm that specializes in making complex business issues easier to understand. Our information design is recognized around the world and we are looking for smart, creative and passionate people to join our team.

We are currently looking to fill two positions.

Production Manager
You’ll help to manage and grow the production side of our creative department. Ideal candidate will have at least five years experience in print design and digital imagery. We want someone who is highly skilled in the following programs: Adobe Illustrator, Microsoft Powerpoint, Excel, and Word. CSS, HTML and Flash ability would be a plus. We want people who can handle anything.

Concept Developer
You’ll work with high-level business executives to help shape the look and feel of their visual communications. We’re looking for highly creative designers who take just as much satisfaction in problem-solving and storytelling as they do in the final aesthetic. Our creatives take an active part in client contact and you will have many opportunities for travel both in the U.S. and Europe.

We offer full benefits along with a salary that is commensurate with AIGA guidelines. Must be willing to relocate.

Please submit resume AND a few of your best samples to the email linked above. No phone calls please.

New weblog by XPLANE founder Dave Gray: “Communication is one of the most important skills anyone can have, in business and in life. As individuals and as a species, I believe we will be both happier and more productive if we can improve our ability to communicate. This blog is dedicated to that effort.”