SHOWING THE MONEY

By Alexis Gerard & Bob Goldstein

The world of the 21st Century will be always on, completely interconnected, and visual.

Because the human brain processes the world visually first and foremost, man has striven to communicate visually since painting pictures on cave walls. Our world is a world of images:  In magazines, on television, billboards, catalogues, Web sites, and the kitchen refrigerator. The most important communications in our personal lives – the birth of a child, the purchase of a home, a family reunion – are invariably communicated visually.

Yet in the realm where we spend the greater part of our lives and need the most powerful tools – business communications – we do without.

Never mind that business is tougher and more competitive than ever, that technology has changed everything including the rate of change, that with globalization comes the pressing need to communicate in ways that transcend language barriers. We know a picture is worth a thousand words, yet most of us laboriously type or speak those thousand words in a futile attempt to replace the information content an image would deliver effortlessly. 

That’s about to change.

The Web has enabled people to communicate instantly through email, and millions do. Questions, which used to go unanswered or took days and a support staff to resolve, now can be answered easily using search engines. Hundreds of millions of people have changed their way of thinking and patterns of behavior in accessing information and communicating. The next step we will inevitably take is adding the visual component to everyday electronic interaction.

In the words of famed technology visionary and entrepreneur Philippe Kahn: “A picture is worth a thousand words, a picture with text is worth ten thousand words, and if you add audio to pictures and text you then have a communication that’s worth a million words.” 

The coming information shift – from the written or spoken word alone to enhanced visual content – builds on the technology adoption patterns of the last decade. The digitization of picture taking, combined with the emergence of a global telecommunications infrastructure for disseminating digitized information, empower virtually any business person to use images to communicate faster and smarter.

A dynamic group of companies that integrate imaging and information technology – hence the name “infoimaging” – are vying to supply the products and services that are the building blocks of Visual Communication solutions. The technology is available right now to eliminate the visual barrier. Success requires using every tool available, and digital images – still, video, synthetic, and live broadcast – are among the most powerful communication tools ever produced. Marketing, sales, advertising, corporate communications, facilities management, peer-to-peer communications – are just a few examples of the myriad fields where managers can take a quantum leap in effectiveness by “going visual.”

In the new world of Visual Communication, the phrase “Show me the money” is literally true.

Businesses, like the ones identified in this section, that are first to understand and embrace that paradigm will emerge as the leaders of the new Century.

Alexis Gerard and Bob Goldstein are co-authors of a forthcoming book on Visual Communication. Visit www.VisualCommunication.info for more information.