The Pen Addict 543/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	543
Title:	Sketchnotes, Revisited
Release Date:	December 14th, 2022
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	Mike Rohde
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 543
Audio File:	Audio Episode 543
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 543
Length:	6767 min <br />1.117 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Brad Dowdy: Hello and welcome to episode 543 of The Pen Addict Podcast. I'm your host, Brad Dowdy, and today I'm joined by someone who is the answer to a Pen Addict trivia question. Who was the first guest to appear on the podcast? That answer is found all the way back in episode number 17, over 10 years ago, as the man who brought sketchnotes into our lives, and that is one, Myke Rohde. How's it going, Myke?

Myke Rohde: Hey, it's going great. I had no idea that trivia was related to me. That's pretty cool.

Brad Dowdy: So, how does it feel, knowing that we last talked on this show, despite talking plenty of times in the interim, that that was actually 10 years ago? Does that register in your head at all?

Sketchnote Handbook 10th Anniversary

Myke Rohde: It kind of does, because I've been forced to deal with it since the sketchnote handbook is 10 years old, as of November 30th. So, I've been thinking about all these, like, man, 10 years ago, that's what was going on? So, it sort of surprises me, and at the same time, is no surprise at all.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, to prepare for this, I actually went back and listened to that episode, which I'm not going to recommend the listeners do, because I sounded terrible. You were awesome. Like, if y'all just want to listen to Myke's side, Myke was great. And I sounded terrible. But I did some prep for that by listening to that. And, you know, we're obviously going to talk about lots of things that have, you know, transpired in the last decade of working on sketchnotes, working your regular job, you know, writing books and all this other stuff that has changed back then. So, we're going to dig into all that. But before we do, we have probably gained one or two listeners since episode 17, probably in the last decade. So, some people actually might not be familiar with sketchnotes. And that's most of what I have when I discuss with you today. And we'll talk about plenty of other things as well. Mm-hmm.

Myke Rohde: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Right.

Myke Rohde: Right. I think that's a really great point to bring out for a couple of reasons. One, if someone is considering this or thinking about maybe trying it, it reduces the pressure because you don't have to show anybody your work. It's just for you. And if it helps you, I always say, if you're doing sketchnoting, does it help you remember? Does it help you stay engaged? Does it help you feel like you're having fun, you know, engaging with the content, whatever that might be? Then it's a win, right? Like, if it doesn't look great or it's imperfect, or you have too much space over there or you spelled that wrong, you spelled that wrong, who cares, right? Because it's a resource for you first and then for others. And that's sort of the way I've always approached it.

Myke Rohde: So, that there are sketchnoters who are paid and paid pretty well for doing this work because it's not easy at that level or for that purpose. Because again, you're trying to think like, what would a reader want to see? You sort of have to put yourself into a reader's shoes, which might be you or might not be you, right? So, it's a little bit different requirement or approach than just doing it personally for yourself. So, I would recommend if you're thinking about trying it out to definitely take this mindset that you're doing experiments, you're doing it for yourself. If it's imperfect, it's okay. That there's a really simple way to draw if you want to add drawings and that the pressure should be low. You're not producing some amazing art piece. You're just augmenting your way of thinking by using visuals, which your brain and your body is designed to handle and do.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah, that's great. So, how long have you been personally sketchnoting before the big capital sketchnoting happened? I know you've been doing this for a very, very long time.

Myke Rohde: Yeah, that's another good question. I would say I intentionally started sketchnoting in early 2007. That's when I really, I went out and I did an experiment where I took a small notebook and a pen, a gel pen, to a design conference. I'm a designer by trade. And intentionally went out to see, could I record information at this all-day workshop that I could then refer to later with the intention of doing sketchnotes, what I called sketchnotes. But the funny thing was, as I started digging through things in my archive of stuff from being a design student, I started looking back and I could see definitely in college I was doing sketchnoting. I didn't have a name for it. And even if, I suspect if I look back further in time, I was doing the same stuff even in high school and grade school. I remember I used to make my own newspapers. I made my own comic books. Like, there was so much making going on. And I'm sure that this blend of simple ideas, drawing, and visualization blended together existed, but I didn't really have a name for it. So, interestingly enough, when I talk to people, there's typically one of two responses. One is, oh, I've been doing this like my whole life, but I never knew what to call it. Thank you for giving it a name. Or the second option is, I have never thought about doing this and never seen it before. This is really cool. Thank you for providing a name and giving me permission to do it, right? So, there are a lot of people who were doing this work or doing something like it. And either they might have been scolded by a teacher or they just were doing it and there was no name for it. So, sometimes, you know, the joy of like naming something is that you give definition and shape to it so it can then grow, right? If it's sort of nebulous, it's hard to like go forward and grow it and go in a different direction. So, I'm really honored that I was lucky enough to have come up with a name for it. And then it, not only that, but then it really took off in the community with people using that word and then driving it further than I could have ever imagined.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's funny when you, like you said, going back to look at your notes or someone else realizing that, oh, I kind of did these things before. In the analog communities, the circles that we run in, you find a lot of people have gravitated towards these analog tools because of everything you've said before. It helps them process information or retain information. And someone, you know, maybe in college was sitting there in, you know, chemistry class and was drawing their notes instead of writing their notes because that's the best way that they process information. And then you, you know, kind of, you know, accidentally came up with like this general framework of, hey, you can kind of do this for real. And it's very helpful. And I think that's just a super interesting way to think about like sketchnoting. You might have, someone listening today might have been doing something like this all along, but there's actually ways that, you know, you can focus on it, you know, help focus on it to help you do a little bit better job or to retain information better. Or just have fun, you know, when you're listening to a conference or in a class or something like that. It's great. So when I was listening back to the podcast, you and I used a term or a platform, mentioned it many, many times during this original interview 10 years ago, and that is Flickr. So that must have been how I originally found you back in the day. Flickr still exists as a photo sharing website, but it was very, very popular back when you and I, I probably, we probably started talking probably not long after 2007, 2008, 2009, because that's when I started the pen addict blog. And then I'm finding, hey, this guy doing these cool like art notes, you know, I didn't know at the time what they were called and sharing them on Flickr. So what was it like when you started to share your work digitally, the feedback you were getting? And, you know, what ideas did that give you at the time when you started to get some people noticing this?

Role of Flickr in Sketchnote Development

Myke Rohde: Well, it's interesting. Flickr was a real key tool in, I think, the development and the propagation of sketchnotes in the world for a couple of reasons. Number one is, at the time, that was one of the dominant social media. I mean, Twitter, I think. Came out in 2006, but it was pretty niche at that point, right? It wasn't, didn't have the wide adoption it has now. And Flickr was much more of a sort of, it had some weight to it and people were spending time there and doing stuff. Now, most people were normal.

Brad Dowdy: It was kind of pre-Instagram, pre-Instagram a little bit, maybe too.

Myke Rohde: Exactly. That's a good way to describe it. You know, it was like, I was sort of using it in an abnormal way, I guess, that they intended, right? Because typically, it was people with photography, beautiful photography that was going up there. Here I am, like, putting up, like, sketchnotes and or samples of logo designs or, you know, like, I really sort of went in a different direction. But I think the reason why Flickr was so important, number one, is that first workshop that I went to in Chicago to test sketchnoting to do my first experiment. My intention was, when I got done, was, well, I should just post this on Flickr and see what kind of reaction. I think you could even sort of, like, at someone. I don't think it was called that. You could note, like, the speakers could be identified, right? Yeah, right. To the images. So, I did that. And what was really interesting was those, the people that attended the conference really enjoyed it because it was a way to capture the day they spent with me in that same room to understand these design concepts. But what really kind of blew me away was there were people that were not at the event. They were, like, in other continents, right? They were saying, these notes are really great. I'm learning something from them. And maybe, you know, if it comes to my area, I might attend it, right? So, it's like, wow, like, this is having a much broader impact than, you know, what we first talked about for me first and then for others. Even though I'd really intended it for myself, there was an application where other people could draw value from it and make use of it and be inspired by it. It's like, wow, this is really cool. I should probably keep experimenting with this. So, that was one of the aspects. The second thing I'll say about Flickr was they were super early into the Creative Commons. If you don't know what Creative Commons is, that's Larry Lessig was this attorney. They had this idea, like, why couldn't we, like, set predetermined usage rights that you could apply to your work so that if somebody wanted to, say, use your image in a blog post or something, they could just follow the pattern that Creative Commons set up for what their usage was, you know, give you credit, and then they would never have to email you or anything. It was all built into the system. So, that was an experiment I did, too. Like, hey, let's try this Creative Commons and make it available. And I think it really helped to get the early sketchnotes, particularly at South by Southwest when I did that, onto people's blogs at the time. And then people started noticing it, right? It made it easy and frictionless to take images you liked and integrate them into your blog posts, which everybody knows, like, blog posts with images are way more, you know, people read them and check them out. So, it was a huge benefit on both sides. So, I think those two things were really critical. Critical thing that Flickr, you know, played a part in it. And it's partly why I'm still there today. I have so much stuff up there. It's just easier to keep it than to get rid of it. It's so, I'm really happy with, you know, what it provides to me.

Brad Dowdy: And it's an interesting thought I had while you were talking about, you know, people listening to your conference or watching your videos and sharing their work that the internet really helped, you know, over the last couple of decades to allow us to attend class in our own home, right? Or pick up a conference in our own home or watch a video in our own home or join a meeting with a bunch of other people in our own home. And, therefore, I can sit at my desk, get out my tools, in this case, you know, like a notebook and a pen to sketchnote while I'm doing this. And, hey, I can go show Myke, hey, look at the sketchnotes I created for this. Where in the past, when you were first starting it, you know, in college, you're in class and, you know, you have to physically be there to get that information. You know, the classes aren't necessarily, you know, available online. So, yeah, I think that's a, I don't know, that was just a real interesting side thought I had there that this last 20 years of the internet has really allowed for us analog tool lovers to use our tools in different ways like sketchnoting. Yeah. So, did you realize it was kind of a big thing? Like, was there a turning point when you thought, oh, there's way more people paying attention to this? Was there any one thing? Like, did you get, like you talked about South by Southwest, was it, you know, did they reach out and have you come down and sketchnote, you know, X, Y, and Z conference or, you know, meeting or presentation? Or was there some kind of turning point where you're like, oh, let's do a little bit more with sketchnoting?

Myke Rohde: Yeah, there definitely was. It was right around 2008, 2009, I would say. So, the first test that I did was early 2007 and I experimented kind of locally with events. I did one for the people over at 37 Signals, did a conference in that. They put it on their blog and that made it really attractive for a new audience, which were mostly developers or designers. And then kept on working it. And then early in 2008, I decided, okay, I didn't need to really test this thing out. I need to go to South by Southwest Interactive, spend a week and like, see, can I survive a week? Like, would my hand or my brain fry out first? And as it turned out, my brain fried out first because it was just so much good information. And so, I did that experimentation and posted it. That was where Flickr really came in handy with, you know, Creative Commons and people being able to put images with their blog posts about their experience. Twitter was starting to come into that. And I think the turning point for me was, number one, next year in 2009, South by Southwest said, hey, we want to hire you to come and do this work at the event. We'll basically pay you in a badge and then you spend a week, you know, like capturing whatever you think is important and we'll help promote it. So, that was huge. But then the other part that I think made me realize like, holy cow, this is way bigger than I thought it was, was when I started seeing people I didn't even know doing sketchnoting and posting it. And there was sort of this, you know, there's this moment where I was like, okay, this is my thing. These people are doing my thing. Like, I was sort of excited and kind of like, wait a minute, they're like taking my thing, right? Like, there's that human thing where you think, oh, man, that's my thing. Someone else has got my thing. I don't know if I like that feeling. And I sort of checked myself and I said, now, wait a minute. You know, I'm a big believer in Seth Godin's Idea Virus, which is a book that came out right around the turn of the 2000s, where he had this contention that if you have a really good idea, there's no way you're going to stop it from proceeding. Like, it's going to find a way to be alive. And if you have a bad idea, it's going to die. And no matter how much money you pour into it, it's just not going to go. Like, people will not adopt it just because you put a lot of money in it. So, I remembered that and I thought, you know what? There's a real opportunity to think about this from a community perspective in that it's actually great that people are doing it and I don't know who they are. That means that it has legs that I couldn't have predicted. And that means that people see value in it without me having to explain it. They are doing it on their own without prodding. Like, and they're excited to share and they're getting positive feedback, which then encourages them to do more of it. I made a decision at that point. It was less about me and more about we, like all of us getting a benefit. Because ultimately, it was a problem that I faced. Like, I was taking notes in a different way where I felt like I had to write everything. It was a burden. I hated taking notes. I didn't look at them. Like, it was all negative stuff. And having discovered sketchnoting was like a huge breakthrough for my understanding and the way that I approached information. So, I thought, if I'm helping other people feel the same way, like that's a huge win. I should totally back them and be behind them. So, from that point on, I've definitely focused on the community. And then anybody who's teaching it, people that write books, like anybody who's in the community that's doing this work, I'm behind them. Because ultimately, there's a ton of people who don't use this concept and have all these visual skills that they're not making use of. And our job is to activate those skills in people who don't use them, right? So, that's a huge, big goal to get behind that, you know, it's easy to support anybody doing work in the space because the ultimate goal is larger than any of us and probably will last longer than our lifetimes, which is kind of a cool thing to be part of.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's really cool to see and to hear about. So, all right, since you talk about teaching a lot, I want you to help our listeners, you know, get into their first sketchnotes if they haven't done all of that. So, we're going to get into that in one second. We're going to first take our first little break today and hear from one of our lovely sponsors and the other Myke on this podcast, who you might hear in these ad breaks throughout this episode, Mr. Myke Hurley.

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Practical Tips for Starting Sketchnoting

Brad Dowdy: All right, let's talk actual sketchnoting here. Someone wants to go and consider, you know, sketchnoting this meeting they're going to or this conference trip that they're going on. Can you give us kind of like the top level tips that you teach when you're talking about sketchnoting to someone for the first time?

Myke Rohde: Sure can. I would love to. So there's two things that I would say immediately if you want to do. Number one is experimental mindset. Think of yourself as a scientist running an experiment. And if the experiment goes crazy and haywire, you've just learned something and you can apply it on your next experiment. If it fails, you know, you don't say, oh, experiment failed. Can't do sketchnoting ever again. Like that's not, that's just not the way it works. It's iterative. It's experimental. And you give yourself the freedom to like see what happens. That's kind of fun, right? So that would be the first mindset thing I would say. The second thing I would say is focus on really simple drawing. And I've got a free video on YouTube and I'll give you the show note link to it. That you can watch.

Brad Dowdy: It's like links in the show notes for everyone to go grab.

Myke Rohde: It's like 20 minutes long and the drawing part's even shorter. It's like five, six minutes. So you can get a feel for what drawing with this approach that I teach is five basic shapes, circle, triangle, square, line and dot. And you kind of put them together like Legos. So it reduces drawing to this, hey, we're capturing ideas. We're not worrying about it being perfect. It takes all the baggage away from artwork and just makes it idea capture. So that would be the second thing. I guess that there'd be a third thing. And I would say if you're new to it, don't feel like you have to go draw everything and it's got to be beautiful and perfect. Like, and, you know, comparative to someone who's been doing it like me for years and years. Like that's not a fair way to put yourself in a position. It would be better to simply do this. And I say, if you're taking notes, let's say analog notes now, this is a pen addict podcast, right? So you've got a notebook, your favorite pen, and you just write notes. So what I would say is the very first step is on your page to just designate a column on the right side. And that's for drawing. On the left side, you continue to write your notes. You can do bullet points or whatever you do, right? And you write that information in and then you've got a column on the right. And when something comes to your mind, because you're going to go into it with an experimental mindset, and something comes in your mind and says, oh, that image is in my mind, or I see something on the PowerPoint up on the screen, or I observe something in my environment, that then you have the freedom now to draw some little tidbit really quickly using those five basic elements in that column. And then when you fill up the column, you're done. And then, you know, if you want to flip to the next page, you can do so. But basically, it's sort of this really simple toe-in-the-water way to experiment, where you just have this dedicated column for drawings. And the cool thing is you can do them while you're taking notes if it occurs to. Or if you get done with the notes, and let's say you've only filled half that right-hand column, which is maybe, I'd say maybe a quarter of the page on the right side. Let's say you've got empty space at the bottom. You could just reflect on your notes, go back and read through your notes, reflect on them. And then, oh, that's an interesting idea. Then fill it in and just fill up the space with images. So that would be a really great way to enter into sketchnoting and sort of do that for a while. And then the goal would be is to slowly integrate the images into your text so they sort of work together. But that can be a longer-term experiment, right? You start first with this designated space. And then as you get comfortable with that, you say, okay, I feel pretty comfortable. This is working for me. Maybe you stay that way forever. I don't know. That would be a fine sketchnote. But maybe then you say, okay, I'm going to now integrate a drawing. I'm just going to leave space in my written notes and then assume that I'll put a drawing there and then come back and fill it in. That could be level two. And then level three could be like really embracing it and sort of trying some new things. But that's for later on when you feel more comfortable. So I would say, you know, take it gradually. It's an iterative process. It's experimental. So if it goes haywire, like laugh about it. And then, you know, just like a good improv person, you'd sort of roll with it. And that would be what I would recommend for somebody listening.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think the experimentation aspect is key, right? You just want to start, kind of figure out what works for you. Like one of the recurring themes I always talk about when we talk about planning or journaling is the, I call it the hashtag Bujo look, right? People get intimidated by the Instagram bullet journaling spreads, which I just call the hashtag Bujo. And that is not what this is about at all, right? You need to open up the planner, you know, write down the dates or the things you need to do today. And that's as good as it needs to look, right? You're not creating a hashtag Bujo spread, right? So don't be intimidated by the end result of the professionals who've been doing this for a decade, right? You have to get started, like Myke's saying, you know, write down your notes on the left side, draw yourself, you know, a column on the right side to maybe start adding in some little diagrams and notes. And then those things start working more and more towards each other. And then you get there and have fun doing it. And yeah, I think that's great. So one of the things that I overthink, and it's probably a question you get a lot because, you know, I would be sitting here thinking, okay, well, I'm going to sketchnote this webinar that I'm going to go watch, you know, about blogging or whatever. And how can I pay attention to what this person is saying while also taking notes? Oh, and then thinking about doing a little bit of sketchnoting as well to kind of like visualize, like, is there a way to like, get the essence? Is that the idea is trying to get the essence of whatever you're trying to sketchnote down on the page as opposed to getting everything? Because I think that can be a little bit intimidating as well.

Myke Rohde: Yeah, this is definitely a learned skill that takes time to build. So again, give yourself grace when you begin. I would say the thing I always talk about is listening is much more of the secret weapon of sketchnoting than drawing is. Like I think in sketchnoting, drawing is actually secondary in my view. Really good listening, active listening and trying to determine like what, so where is this person going with these ideas? Like they're obviously adding things up and they're stacking these ideas on each other. You're heading for a conclusion of some kind or a huge overall point, right? Like, can I determine what that is and listen? So that would be the first thing is approach it with a listening mindset. One of the challenges you might be identifying is this feeling like I have to write everything down. That's kind of, that was the problem I was trying to get away from because what I did is I literally tried to write everything down and it was terrible, right? It was bad. So the whole point was how can I like stop, stop my hand from moving, do a lot more mental processing and understanding the concepts and then start seeing like, what is the general idea that this person is talking about? Can I summarize that in a sentence? Can I summarize that in a paragraph? Maybe they're, you know, revealing it a bit at a time. So it's sort of adding up. But so that would be the first thing. The second thing I would say is going back to, remember we talked about, maybe you start with a column, I don't believe it's cheating to not draw anything until you're done. So if you are just starting, do the writing first and just leave spaces where you think I want to put a drawing in this circle and that square and I have, and in this corner. So I have three drawings I'm going to do and I identify where they're going to be. And then I write around those spaces. And then when I'm done, this idea is in my head while it's still fresh. I review my notes and think about what they look like. And then I draw images into the little spots that I've reserved. So that would be a completely normal sketchnote in my view that doesn't, it takes away the pressure of feeling like you have to do both things at once. And then as you start to get comfortable with that idea, again, you start to bring them together where like, as you're starting to process and you're focusing on this listening practice, images are going to start coming to you and you're just going to probably put them in. And I would say you can write a lot less and you can draw a lot less. So the goal is to kind of really get this, I don't know, compressed or like, you know, we're not trying to make a pot of coffee. We're trying to make a really good espresso with a crema on top, right? That's the goal, right? Because on the backside of it, think of it this way. The other problem that I had with the old notes was I wrote so much that I didn't want to go look at them because there was so much junk in there. I don't want to go through it all again and trying to find out what's valuable. I pushed all that analysis into the moment so that I could capture the good stuff and sort of capture it down in my perspective so that I wouldn't have to do that later work, right? It made reviewing my notes so much more enjoyable because I could scan them in like, you know, five minutes and get the gist and have enough information. And, you know, we live in the world where the internet will give you anything you want, right? So if I want to dig deeper, I just start doing search queries or something and dig into the things I want to go deeper on. So really, like, don't feel like you have to be a court reporter. There's probably recordings of the thing you're watching. So why are you replicating the recording, right? Just focus more on like, what does it mean to me? What are the things that I will actually apply in my life? Because there's some stuff that's just going to come through like, yeah, I'm never going to do that. So don't write that down. I don't know, like, it's this whole process of compression and understanding and figuring out like, how to make all these things make sense to you, because ultimately, you're the one that's going to make use of it in the future.

Brad Dowdy: I'm just sitting here nodding my head vigorously. Like, it's so important to have like good editing, right? Like, we can write all these words, but it's probably too many words to begin with. And then translating, you know, can I mentally edit this live, like while I'm doing these notes or in steps, you know, taking these notes first and then drawing later, you know, as like this editing down to like the core process. Like, I really, I really like that idea a lot. Any other challenges your students have or just hangups or getting started or any last tips on getting started? Do you want to talk about?

Myke Rohde: Yeah, I'd say, you know, drawing is always the big hangup. People come to me and say, I can't draw, so I can't sketch down. I'm like, sure you can. And here's a different way to do that drawing. The link that we mentioned before will show that. So, that is a huge one. And what I find is like, so this is really funny that people that are designers like me often have a harder time than non-artists doing sketchnoting because non-artists don't have anything to unlearn. They don't have perfection of drawing to like unlearn where designers or people who have skills, like they actually get hung up like spending too much time drawing and then like all the points pass them by, right? Someone who doesn't have the drawing skills actually comes at it almost from an inverse perspective where they're really focused on listening and then their drawings are simple and they're happy with that and it helps them to really capture the information. So, I would say, yeah, don't let drawing hang you up. And the last thing I'll mention in this is I'll send you a show note from the sketchnote handbook, we did a video companion and one of the videos, I have a friend who gives a talk and you see me sketchnote it from beginning to end.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, cool.

Myke Rohde: And what's interesting is as you watch it, like he sort of opens, you see his face and he starts to talk and then it switches to me. And you can see like people have commented like, Myke, you're not writing anything. Like I'm listening and listening and the stuff that I write was very minimal. Like I was doing it in a pocket notebook and captured this, I don't know, 15, 20 minute talk on two pages of a Wolfskin notebook. So, there's not a lot of space to work with. And yet the gist of the talk is there. And so, I think that will give you like, if you're kind of like, what does this thing even look like when it's being done? That would be really valuable to see. Okay, here's Myke who's got practice and has worked with this. Here's how he approaches it and notice like, man, Myke's not really writing or drawing that much. He's just absorbing and sort of churning it in his mind. And then suddenly he's like, something goes on the page and it's not exactly one-to-one what John is saying. It's like a summation or a compression of what he's saying through Myke's perspective and then put on the page. So, it's kind of a different approach. And when you see it, I think it helps to see it in action to really see what it looks like. And then I think it sort of opens your mind to like, oh, I can do that, right? So.

Brad Dowdy: Absolutely. That's fascinating. Yeah. I think that's super valuable for people to see, especially getting started and trying to figure out just how this process works. So, yeah, that's great. We'll definitely have that link in the show notes. And while you were discussing that, you said the magic word, Myke. You said notebook. So, people want to know what you're using. So, of course, Panatic listeners, we're going to talk about what Myke's favorite analog tools are. First, let's hear from another one of our lovely sponsors here this week and we'll get right back to Myke.

Speaker 00: This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Penn Chalet. Our wonderful supporters of the podcast over at Penn Chalet. We really love everything that they do over there and you're going to love everything that they sell. They have all of our favorite brands and they have all of the products that you're looking for. Whether you're looking for something from Monteverde or Pilot or Sailor or many more. Maybe you want a rollerball, a fountain pen, a ballpoint and many more. They have all of it. Always go to Penn Chalet first because they're going to have what you want. They do free shipping on orders of over $75 in the US. They have great rates internationally. They have low prices on high quality pens. They have sales twice a month. They have 100% satisfaction guarantee. They do everything. They even do accessories. You know, maybe looking for some stocking stuffers still, carrying cases, pen holders, inks, converters, refills and so much more. But you should always go to PennChalet.com and click the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password PennAddict and you will see some special offers as well as getting the code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time. Now, there's a really cool exclusive here for PennAddict listeners this week. The private reserve inks. This is something that we've spoken about a bunch on the show. There is a huge selection of private reserve inks for wonderful prices. Whatever stuff we got. See, I'm doing it this week, right? I'm doing what Brad usually does. So we have some Lamy Ale stars up there. Oh, wow. That is an incredible price on a Visconti Homo Sapien. Maybe you're looking for the PennChalet Lucky Cat Pen Rest. Beautiful little thing. Go over and check it out yourself right now at PennChalet.com. P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password PennAddict for this week's special offer. Our thanks to PennChalet for their continued support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: All right, listeners. You know I'm going to tell you that the tools don't matter. And Myke is going to tell you that the tools don't matter. But you're not listening to a show called The Penn Addict and think that we're not going to say the tools. At least they're fun, right? They're at least fun. We enjoy them. What tools do we use? Right, Myke? Anyone can grab a ballpoint or pencil and a napkin or anything they have laying around to sketchnote. We get it. That's fine. But this is The Penn Addict. So us Penn Addicts want to know, what kind of tools are you using these days? I know you started when I was listening back to the podcast. We talked about this and like the original, some of the original like first sketchnotes when you were traveling. The Moleskine Pocket Sketchbook and then like the Pilot G2 .7 millimeter in black. So that was well over a decade ago. How have those tools held up? Have you switched? Have you found other things? So what's going on now?

Myke Rohde: Well, I definitely could run with those tools if I needed to because they're still good quality tools. I've sort of migrated to a slightly larger A5 page size as my standard just because it gave me a little more freedom and I started to just feel like that was the natural direction that I was going in. So one of the books that I really like is The Leuchtturm, 1917. And I really love the new 120 GSM books. I think you get fewer pages, but the quality of the paper is really great.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, those are super nice. Just I think with the past few years, they've started doing that. That's great.

Myke Rohde: Yeah, that's pretty recent development. And I still really like the regular non-whatever-their 80 GSM or something. For my bullet journal, I actually use those. I don't mind the show through, like it doesn't bug me. Right. And so that's, but the 120s, if I'm doing a sketchnote, I would do that. Of course, I have to be a little biased. Yeah. My friend Michael and I created this thing called the sketchnote idea book, which I think you've got some shows where you talk about it.

Discussion on the Idea Book and Notebooks

Brad Dowdy: Yep. We're definitely going to, let's go ahead and cover that now. So let's talk about the idea book.

Myke Rohde: So I had, I had been using Moleskines for a while and I liked them. I'd even used some sketchbooks from Leuchtturm and some other ones, but I always felt like there was like some, one little thing missing, or I wish I had this thing, or I wish it would be like that. And I ran into, to Michael, my partner of the project over at Airship Notebooks. And he said, Hey, you know, if you can't find the book you want, we can just make one. It's like, really? Like, yeah, let's, let's just, let's start working on it. So we spent, I think about a year in the Skunk Works where Myke would send me samples of his books and I would like hammer them and you do got two sketchnotes in them. Okay. I don't like this. I want thicker paper. I want, I love the cover. I want two notebook bookmarks. I want information on the inside front and back cover to kind of show people how to sketchnote. So we then tried some stuff. We ran, we actually had some made, Myke, Myke had some made, and then we finally got it to where we felt like, okay, this is pretty good. And the idea there was number one had to have really good paper. So we went with a 120 GSM, really bright white paper. Uh, and it was in a lay flat book, really important for sketchnoting to have that lay flat, especially when you get to the middle of the book and either end. Right. So that was important. I really liked, Myke had found this, um, I don't know what we call it. It was a PLM, I guess it's this vinyl material, but it felt sort of leather, like a rubbery or something. And I just really liked the feeling of it. It's tough. Uh, but I wanted a different color. So we picked gray as our color. And then, um, with the handbook and the workbook, the colors there were like, uh, kind of a teal and orange, almost like Miami dolphin colors have been sort of part of that. So we integrated those in and then designed inside front and back plates that, uh, introduced the book, gave some basic concepts and, and layouts and other information. So someone was beginning sketchnoting. They could take this book. It would have all the references they need. Had a little thing in the back we added for creating icons and then just tons of great white paper that, uh, really works good for sketchnoting. And as it turns out, uh, apparently the paper was really well loved by, um, fountain pen fanatics because it, uh, it held, it holds really nice, uh, for most pens. Um, I think there was, uh, my friend Catherine Miesook even did, she did a watercolor on the, on the paper and it, you know, wobbled a little bit, but it held up as like, holy smokes. So, um, we were really happy. We, we did a Kickstarter, um, we went way over our, uh, estimate and got a ton of people backing us. And then we delivered that in early 2020 and it's, uh, continues to sell. You can get it for 20 bucks at, uh, airship, uh, that store, I think.

Brad Dowdy: And yeah, well I'll put the link in the show notes and let me just brag on it real quick. As someone who sees a lot of notebooks across their desk, it is technically awesome. Like it is an awesome, awesomely built product. It feels great. It looks great. It works perfectly. You know, it has the thick sketch, uh, type paper, uh, pages, you know, the 120 GSM. If you were into this type of thing, you can't get this quality for this price. That's not a hint for the, for the other mic to go raise the price now, but, um, but no, it's, it's legitimately great. Uh, it's a great product, right. Just from like the technical side of things and then how you use it on top of that to be able to use all different types of media on there with, you know, a focus, you know, behind sketchnoting, like what you said, the, like one of the keys is having these little tips and notes, you know, as, as part of the notebook to help you along the way. But really the bulk of it is a blank notebook for you to go explore sketchnoting and, or just drawing writing in general. Like I, I can't recommend it highly enough. I think it's fantastic. Y'all did a really, really good job. Y'all should be proud of that.

Myke Rohde: Well, thanks. I gave a lot of the credit to Myke Sciano because he was in the notebook business for years when he approached me. So he had all the, all the connections. He knew what he could produce and he had, he knew what the questions to ask. And so I think he was a huge part of the partnership going so well because he was such an expert in his space. And then I brought my expertise and, you know, you always feel like good partnerships are the ones where you think you got the better end of the deal and people feel that way.

Brad Dowdy: So, yeah, exactly. And it's fun when like the, like the, the nerds come together in their own little spaces and come out to make a thing because like you may not know, and I'm just speaking to this from making things experience. Like you may not know all the details that go into making a notebook, but you know what you want, right? You know, it has to end up like this. So you can now have this conversation with Myke and say, well, it has to end up like this. How do we get there? And then he takes his expertise and then you come together and make a product that is executed as perfectly as the idea book. So yeah, it's fantastic. It's fantastic. All right. So what, what about other pens are you using? Are you still just mostly using like gel pens to, like if you're going out to sketch notes something today and you're going to use a notebook, probably the idea book, what pens are you using just for like a live session?

Myke Rohde: Well, actually I've sort of come back around. So I still love gel pens. G2s are great. Pentel Energels are great. Yep. Even Bic has really nice gel pens. I like them juicy. So 07 to 1.0 are great. I just like that dark, rich ink color. But lately I've sort of rolled back to the old retro 1951. I've got one of these matte black. I don't even know what the model is, right?

Brad Dowdy: Should be the tornado. Yeah.

Myke Rohde: Yeah, the tornado. And then I've got the retro 1951 inserts, which I love. The ref five piece, really juicy and they roll really nice. And so it's sort of come back to that. And ultimately it's pretty much the same inner component that's doing the inking. But I just like that heavy brass feeling of that pen, right? It just feels good in my hand. And then I have a companion, which is the retro 1951 Tornado pencil. Oh, nice. Which has a thicker lead size. I think it's 1.4 or 1.0, something like that. And a soft mechanical pencil lead for when I do a sketch or anything like that. I just like that really loose. I want it to slide almost like butter across the page. So that would be the pencil I would use. I also have been in the last couple of years involved with a company called Neuland in Germany. It's a small family business who focuses completely on markers and tools for mainly graphic recorders, but also sketchnoters. And they have this amazing set of pens called the Outliner. So the Outliner is really fascinating. It's a felt tip pen. And the pigment in it is permanent, but it is not alcohol-based. It's water-based. So you can lay really heavy black on even like a Leuchtturm 80 GSM page, and it'll not bleed through to the back. It might show through, but it's really beautiful. It doesn't have any scent to it, so you don't have the Sharpie problem. And it just has such beautiful pigment. And it goes all the way down to pretty small bullet point nibs, almost like a Sharpie. And they have big ones too. So the cool thing about it is because it's waterproof, like I can lay, like when I do a sketchnote, I can lay down this black and then come right afterwards once it's dry, which doesn't take long, and then drop color on top of it and it won't blend together. So that's huge when you're trying to work fast. So Neuland.com in Germany, they have blacks and colors and all kinds of different shapes and sizes. The Sketchline is the one that I use. It's smaller scale. So bullet nibs, brush nibs, and flex nibs are really great from them. Another brand that I really like too is a company called Molotov, which is another German company. Super heavy, black, rich pigment. A little bit different formulation. But that really works well. And then as far as fountain pens, I don't have a ton. I sort of come back and forth with fountain pens. I'm not as nutty about them. I like them, but they're just not integrated into my life. And of course, it's what's the one that I'm looking at here? The Lamy Safari. I've got a nice bright orange one and a couple other ones that occasionally I'll just get the cartridges and use the cartridges just because it's easy to run with that. And I really like the feel of the pen body. So that would be the sort of like a pretty simple tool set. There's probably other stuff around here that I could look at, like Baron Fig Squire is another favorite. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That uses the same refill as the Retro 51. So that same refill is great. That's one of my favorite refills. It's the Schmidt P8127 is the refill that they build around. They have their own like SKUs, like Retro 51. Like they market their name or things like that. But it's a great rich black refill. And it's kind of wide and wet and rich black, but it dries fast enough. And kind of like the gel markers. And you were saying this 10 years ago that you prefer these wider tips because like if you're drawing, it allows you to like color in quicker, right? Like you're going to have a hard time. If I'm me picking up one of my 0.38 millimeter pens and doing these sketch notes, and then it's a little bit slower with the micro fine lines. And it takes a little bit longer to fill things in or to shade something if you are doing drawing, even after the fact, right? It's just faster and quicker to have these bold, smooth, dark lines. And it also helps like if you have to transfer those images into something else, you have like a real bold line to be copied or faxed or not faxed or just, you know, copied or digitized anyway.

Myke Rohde: Yeah, they show up well. You know, if you're lefty, you might have a challenge with these wider, wetter markers, right? Because you're going to rub across it. So that's where like a 0.38 or something or a super fast drying ink would help you. Probably the last tool I'll mention, I just happen to have one on my desk here, is the good old Papermate Flare. Still one of my favorite pens. So good. I kind of what I want, my dream is to have Neuland take their pigment and fill it inside Papermate Flare pens. Because the ink in those is not waterproof, but I still love the, I like the new tips because they're really sharp. And I also like the mushy ones. Like I would almost use those as two different pens in a way. But they have tons of colors, really popular in the bullet journal community. You can find them. I kind of like this idea that I could find, if I could walk into a corner grocery store, any in the world, and find the pens and do sketchnoting with it, right? Exactly. You just don't get so tied down to like having, I got to have that pen. It's like, I just need a wide gel pen. Walk me into a corner grocery store, a bodega in New York City, and I can find tools to do my work. That's a really great feeling.

Brad Dowdy: I love that. Yeah. I am, you know, I like my fancy pens and my crazy inks, but the consistency of finding a good pen that you know you can find anywhere is very, very valuable. And that's why like some of these pens that are our favorites and some of the ones that you're talking about, like that's why we like them so much. It's not just that they're good, it's they're accessible and we know they're going to work when we buy them. And yeah, it's fantastic.

Myke Rohde: I think like 70, 80 years ago, that was not even a possibility, right? Right. You couldn't do that stuff. You had, it just was a different world for writing. I mean, in some ways, maybe better, but like for the immediacy, like we just forget what great technology just good old ballpoint pens are, right?

Brad Dowdy: Big time. I'm a huge proponent of the basic pens, despite my fancy fountain pens. So, all right. We got a few more things I would want to cover, including most importantly, the sketchnote handbook, which we've just kind of glossed over a little bit. But that is the core, core reason why I wanted to get you on today. But let's hear from our last sponsor on this week's episode, and we'll dig into the sketchnote handbook.

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Reflections on Early Podcast Episodes and Sketchnote Journey

Brad Dowdy: All right, Myke. So when I was listening to episode 17 of the Penaddict podcast, you were in the planning phases for the sketchnote handbook. You were working on layouts. I think you had just gotten some cover samples back, some cover art to kind of check it out. So we're 10 years on now from the launch of the sketchnote handbook. What has that been like for you?

Myke Rohde: Well, it's been a great journey. And at that point when we had the podcast, I wasn't totally sure what would happen with the book. We did all these things. My editor was super important. Again, another partnership where we both felt like we got the better end of the deal. And yet, together, we became even more powerful. That she had experience in publishing and sort of knew what she wanted to achieve from that perspective and could guide me and help me look better with editors and all that kind of stuff. But we were both kind of rolling the dice a little bit. So some context is there's actually two publishing, generally two ways you publish a book. One is trade press. That's the stuff you see at an airport or Barnes & Noble. They pay for placement on those shelves and stuff. And there's tech press, which is like O'Reilly, each bit. That's your Photoshop books. That's your how to code CSS and HTML or something like that or whatever. Right? So there's sort of, generally speaking, two directions. And of course, you can do self-publishing. But at that time, that wasn't quite as prevalent as it is now. So I considered going the trade press route. But the concern was I would sort of be fit into a formula that the trade press would force me into, like I wouldn't be able to do what we wanted, which was I want it to be almost completely all drawn and have lots of samples. We want it to look and feel like it was created by me in person. So I worked with another partner to do a typeface. So if the typeface is in there, we now sell that typeface. And if you're an Adobe Creative Suite user, it's accessible to you. If you look for SketchNote in the Adobe Creative Suite, you can use it, right? It's just, it's there for your use.

Brad Dowdy: And Myke's bearing the lead here. This is his handwritten font.

Myke Rohde: Right.

Brad Dowdy: Right. You hand wrote this font and had it digitized to use in this book.

Myke Rohde: Yeah. So some history is I'm an old print designer and I did production work. And I knew what production meant. If I was going to hand write this whole book, like that would be a nightmare with typos and stuff. And I thought I should be smart. I should have a typeface made from my handwriting. So then I worked with this guy, Delve Witherington, to produce it, which was great. It helped. It's helped so much. Right. So we wanted that to be part of it. We wanted, I wanted lots of people from the community. You know, we talked earlier about how I'd made this decision that community was so critical to sketchnoting. I wanted to have other people's work represented either as samples. We gave whole spreads. I think seven spreads were given to other people that weren't me. Right. Cause I didn't want, what I didn't want was this book to come out and it's like, oh, this is the Myke Rohde sketch noting book. You have to do it just like him. Right. There would sort of be this barrier for some people. So I wanted to make sure there there's like librarians in there that had samples. So, so we had all these ideas, like even the design of it, the cover texture, the, we went with black and orange instead of full color intentionally. So all these things that we thought like, that's the book we want. Right. We're always told like, make the book you want to see. That's what we did, but it was unknown. Like, I don't know. I mean, there's a bunch of UX designers who do sketchnoting. We'll probably sell two, 300 maybe. We didn't know. Like, you know, we just kind of rolling the dice a little bit. And as it turned out, I think a lot of it was luck. Like coming out at the time we did was the right time and people were kind of doing it. The community was starting and so it, it sort of hit and people started buying it. Right. We did a lot of guerrilla marketing to lots of samples sent out. I was a lot of podcasts like yours. I sort of told the story of making the book as I made it on my blog at the time. So that was kind of a unique perspective. And so, you know, it was sort of a guess in a lot of ways. It's a little bit like a startup, right? You sort of put all the pieces in you think will work and hope people will spend the money and buy your thing. And it just turned out that it did work. Then went on to be translated into a bunch of languages. I always have to say them out because I can't remember the number. I think it's seven or eight. So German, French, Russian, Ukrainian, Chinese, Vietnamese, probably some I'm missing in there as well. So it's not an easy book to translate either because you need a designer to kind of like convert some of the stuff to fit your culture, right? So it's not an easy lift for someone to do it. So having, you know, seven or eight translations is pretty cool. So it's been really fun to see. And it continues to sell because I think the last thing I'll say about it is part of our intentions, in addition to like all the features of it was, we want this to be the principles of sketchnoting that are evergreen. They don't change. Whether you use an iPad or use a piece of paper, it doesn't matter. The principles will remain the same. This is how we approach it. Here's a bunch of different ways to do it. And a lot of practical step-by-step ways to get you into this thing. And I think that's why it's continued to sell because it really doesn't ever go out of style, right? It's just these principles that always apply. And that means, you know, 10 years later, you can buy the book and it's still relevant and not out of style like, you know, a Photoshop book that just got, you know, they just did an upgrade and I got to throw all the stuff away and start over some portion. So we didn't face that. I think that really helped us. And that was an intention to be evergreen because that Peach Pit Press who did the publishing, they weren't in that space. They were doing the Photoshop things that changed every six months and required all these updates. So they kind of wanted to move in this other direction. So it was a little bit of a bet that they took and it's done well. I mean, they're doing really well too because it's been selling for 10 years, I think. Asked my editor and I think she counted up 60,000 copies have sold since 10 years ago. So that's like no marketing budget, all gorilla marketing, all word of mouth. So that's, I felt really good about that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And you should, like, you should be super proud of that because like you were kind of saying, making an evergreen product, like it's literally just as popular, if not more so than when you created it back then. And it's still the same content and the same content is going to be consistent and learning how to do this. And, you know, it's fun to see a product like this just kind of go on and live this life and continue it. It's like it hasn't like got away. Like you were saying, like the Photoshop thing, you know, went away in six months and now it's this different version. Like this just keeps going and going. And it's just fun to watch and it's cool to see. And it's cool to see all the things you're involved in related to it. Like there's a workbook like you can get with the sketchnote handbook too, right? And all your videos and teaching. Tell me kind of like, you know, the big, big umbrella sketchnote handbook. What all, you know, what all is involved with that aside from just the handbook itself, like with the workbook and classes and all that stuff.

Myke Rohde: Yeah, that's great. I always wanted to provide a wide variety of things. So the handbook, of course, would be sort of like the foundational piece. It sort of introduces the concept. The workbook sort of takes the idea of the handbook and spreads it out and says, what else can you use sketchnoting for? You can use it for ideas. You can use it for travel. You can use it for food. You can use it for all these different things. Agile development can be useful for there. So I just took all these things that I was experimenting with and put it into a book and showed practical ways you could apply it in everyday life. That's what the workbook focus was. Then, of course, the idea book, which we talked about, is, you know, the medium or the canvas on which you can do sketchnoting. That's ideal for sketchnoting for a lot of reasons. And then there's, of course, the free stuff I'm doing on YouTube, which is the 20-minute introductory you can find there. But then I've started doing the Sketchnote Army podcast, which is interviews with sketchnoters and visual thinkers. Just really fascinated to hear, like, how they work. How do they get into this space? So if you're into it, it's something you can listen to. It's weird to have a visual thinking podcast, right? Because there's no visual component. But the last couple of years, I've been putting videos online. So you can see the people talking. And sometimes they share things on screen. So that's another component. Then the biggest thing lately has been doing this live workshops. I really felt like workshops that are just recorded and dead on a website are okay. But there's no accountability. Like, you can start it. No one ever knows whether you finish it. And my goal wasn't to sell workshops. It was to help people do sketchnoting. So I thought, well, what if I sort of flip it on its head? What if I did a live performance where people would pay to come and see me do a workshop live, do a presentation, do drawing, teach things where it's all live and it's happening in that moment? And of course, we'll record it. And you can buy the recording after the fact. So I've done a couple of those. One on lettering and most recently on layout, which, you know, it's kind of fun to like, I feel like maybe things could go sideways and go wrong. And how would I adapt to it? So that improv sort of approach. And those have been really fun for me. People who attend them really like them. And so I'm going to continue doing that and breaking down like one aspect of sketchnoting and going like really deep on it. So that by the end, I'll have this whole suite of teachings that you could either attend live or see recordings of and write rich and deepen your practice.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's super cool. And I was thinking about, you know, having the guests on like the sketchnote army or any, you know, visiting sketchnoters that you work with. And has there been any place that sketchnoting has come up that really kind of caught you off guard? Like someone sharing, like someone sketchnoting something like completely random, you know, like in Antarctica at the base station, there was this sketchnoter there. Like, have you ever had anything that's just like tripped you out? Like, wow, that's really a thing with sketchnotes?

Myke Rohde: Well, I have a good friend now. Rob DiMio is a friend of mine. He's a physicist. And he really applied sketchnotes in the physicist space. I don't know how you say this. Yeah. Physicist space, right? Where physicists live and work. And he really got into it. And he has been really doing great work practicing, like taking these complex topics and using visuals to communicate them. So, the installation where he works called NIST, he worked with someone to do a sketchnoted introductory video to explain what they do and all that kind of stuff. He regularly sketchnotes concepts from visiting scientists who come to his installation to speak. He's got like the smartest people in the entire world and he can go and see them, right? So, because he's got a science background, he can prepare and produce really excellent sketchnotes that for other physicists and scientists are valuable because it sort of breaks down the thinking into clear structures. So, that was one where like, man, when I started out, I would have never imagined that physicists were using sketchnoting to communicate ideas. But it's kind of like that community seems like it's really adopted it in some regards. So, that was really cool and probably the weirdest experience I had was I was invited to go to Prague in relation to the release of the language translation. And the handler, I guess the person who helped me and my wife go there said, hey, you want to be on TV? I was like, I guess so. So, we got up super early in the morning in Prague and we drove to the outskirts of Prague to this TV station. And I was on like the Prague Czech Republic morning show talking about sketchnotes and showing some samples. And it was really bizarre, like the most bizarre experience and but amazing and fun at the same time. And my wife was right there watching me. It was pretty great.

Speaker 02: That's awesome. I love that so much. Yeah, I remember seeing you sharing those pictures. That was hilarious. So, really, really cool.

Brad Dowdy: So, anything new or different coming up in sketchnote world that you want to share? You got everything covered?

World Sketchnote Day and Upcoming Events

Myke Rohde: Well, January 11th is sort of, we've decided that's World Sketchnote Day. So, we just celebrate sketchnoting and post it up. Someone picked January 11th because it looked like three pencils standing up one, one, one. So, that was about the level of thinking. It was just sort of fun.

Brad Dowdy: That's my level of thinking.

Myke Rohde: I love it. Yeah, so that's coming up in January on the 11th. And then it sounds like there's something called the International Sketchnote Camp, which is this community of sketchnoters that gathers together. They teach each other. It's super welcoming and friendly and family. It was in Poland this last year, in Western Poland. And I hear that it's going someplace this coming year. I don't know where it's going yet or I can't share it. But that's coming in probably next fall, September, August, September. So, we're pretty excited about that coming. And the other thing I could say is the next live workshop that I'm planning is how I create icons.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, nice.

Myke Rohde: These workshops are basically my approach and the way that I do the work that I do. I sort of take you inside my thinking and deconstruct it. So, I'm going to deconstruct like how do I do icons? Where do I do my research? How do I gather them together? And also talking a little bit about metaphors. That's coming sometime early in 2023. I'm just starting the planning for that. So, that'll be fun if you want to see what the live workshop looks like. And, of course, you can go to my website and buy the recordings of the past ones if you're into that.

Brad Dowdy: Love it. Love it. All right, Myke. Well, we'll have to not wait 10 years to do this again. That's for sure. Maybe you'll have to get me out to maybe one day I'll come watch one of your classes and do Brad's sketchnoting during that. And that would be fun. There we go. We could do that. So, thanks so much. Where can everyone find you online? I'll have a bunch of links in the show notes to find, you know, all Myke's websites, the sketchnote handbook, the ideobook, all the fun stuff we talked about today. Anything else you want to plug? Twitter, Instagram, any of that fun stuff?

Myke Rohde: I would say the two places I would recommend is just roadesign.com, my site. That's where all the books and all the stuff I'm up to is at. And I hang out mostly on Instagram just because it's visual. So, it's, again, roadesign there. If you look for me, I'm roadesign pretty much everywhere. If I've grabbed some place, even like a mastodon or someplace, I've got that handle sort of reserved. So, that's a good way to find me.

Brad Dowdy: I'm working that path, too. All right. Well, we appreciate you. And everyone can find me. I'm at penaddict.com. And you can find all my links to everything there. And I really appreciate you, Myke, spending some time with me today to talk about sketchnoting. And we'll talk to you again soon.

Myke Rohde: Thanks.