The video I watched, which was entitled "Sunni Brown: Doodlers, unite!", was intended to persuade people that doodling, commonly dismissed as being a time-waster, is actually a powerful tool that facilitates processing of information.
I'll admit that I was initially very skeptical of the argument being made in this video. I'm not an avid doodler, and really, I'm probably one of those kill-joys that staunchly supports paying attention and taking notes when people are talking. Therefore, I have to say that the fact that I'm convinced means the speaker, Sunni Brown, was doing something right.
First of all, I feel like all of the visuals Brown used in her presentation were very effective. (And they related to the presentation since, wonder of all wonders, many of them were doodles!) In terms of their effects, Brown's visuals can be grouped into three categories:
1. They make the audience laugh, which consequently softens them up to be receptive to the argument. One great example of humor was Brown's claim that the commonly-known definition of doodling is "to do... nothing."
2. They make the information she presented very easy to digest but also very impactful. For example, she highlights all five modes/factors that contribute to learning information as she says that doodling uses all of them.
3. They make her argument seem relevant to the average person. The outdated-looking picture of Freud at 2:30, the picture associating an old man with words and a young man with doodles at 2:50, and a collection of pictures of normal people productively doodling at the end all seem to distance the idea of "us" (the audience, the younger generation, and the people who enjoy creativity) from "them" (the stiff, boring, rigid people).
Brown's primary appeal was probably ethos: she uses a lot of humor and also some other techniques to increase how much the audience relates to her thinking and trusts in her argument.
Brown definitely builds her ethos with her more informal speaking style: she talks to her audience in the same way that we'd talk to a friend we're getting coffee with. Brown is at times sarcastic but consistently well-spoken, which hints to the audience that she is reliable since we tend to put more stock in people who seem educated. Brown also builds a rapport with the audience by saying that she's "letting [us] in on a secret" or by sheepishly admitting that she was excited by something "nerdy." (This is making the assumption that her audience is a bit nerdy. Since that line worked on me and I'm a part of the audience, you can do the math.)
Link to video: http://www.ted.com/talks/sunni_brown.html
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