By Robert L. Lindstrom

Author's Disclaimer:

In the interest of full disclosure, let me first state that this guidebook is not a primer on digital media technology. Don't expect to learn the difference between Bluetooth and 802.11b, or the advantages of MPEG-4 over MPEG-2, or whatever the hell happened to MPEG-3. It will not tell you when Intel plans to stop developing chips for your computer and begin installing Pentiums directly into your brain. It will not tell you what Bill Gates has in store for you next week that will obsolete the software you invested in this week. Nor, will it tell you how to maximize the lamp life of your boardroom projector, or the nightlife of your Board of Directors.

My intention with Being Visual is fivefold:

1. To broaden the peripheral vision of businesspeople, managers and executives by calling attention to the revolution in rich-media communication.

2. To migrate the understanding of the 21^st century business presentation process from tactical to strategic.

3. To facilitate more intelligent use of presentation technologies in corporations and other organizations.

4. To help media producers, manufacturers, distributors and others in the presentation industry better communicate the importance of presentation technology implementation.

5. To free the world from the grip of PowerPointr and the millions of ghastly presentations that it spawns. (A guy can dream, can't he?)

This guidebook is not commissioned, underwritten, preordained or sponsored by any manufacturer, product vendor, trade association, fast food chain, or other interested parties. It is not an implied or direct endorsement for any presentation products or services. Any editorial mention of specific companies, products or services is made strictly on the basis of merit. Honest.

Robert L. Lindstrom

Introduction

Those of you who have a well-stocked bookcase of digerati literature will recognize the title of this guidebook as a blatant rip-off of Nicholas Negroponte's 1995 book, Being Digital. In his groundbreaking [his word, not mine] publication, the founder and director of the Media Lab at MIT tells the compelling evolutionary tale of the transformation of information from atoms to bits. Negroponte-think of him as the Tom Peters of digital technology-explains that once translated into the digital 1s and 0s of binary language, information content is infinitely malleable. It can be edited, molded, transmitted, bought and sold in ways that just a few decades ago were inconceivable by all but a few sci-fi writers. In a 100-percent-digital-content environment, an orange will still be an orange (atoms), but the depiction, description and life history of that orange will be digital (bits).

Just a six-pack of years later, the digital revolution is old news. Anyone who has swept their scruples under the rug and brazenly stolen a few gigabytes of MP3 audio files knows that digitization has spread from basic text and numbers to rich media--voice, music, sound, animation, still images and video.

All forms of media are being created in and converted to digital at a rate that already has stuffed most analog media in a trunk in the attic. At an ever-increasing pace we are storing, retrieving, organizing, mutating and transmitting visuals in digital form. While this astonishing revolution makes it clear that typewriters, turntables, 35mm cameras and VCRs are no longer savvy investments, the impact of media digitization on business communications and corporate strategy remains shrouded in our outmoded ways of thinking about and living and working with rich-media communication technology.

The rich-media communication revolution-a subset of the digital revolution-is in full career, but most of us have yet to glean its significance or understand its implications on our lives and businesses. We suffer from a kind of strategic myopia that causes us to focus on the details of digital media presentation while missing the big picture.

As we poke at our PDAs, fiddle with the latest PowerPoint feature, show off our flat panel displays and sneak the office projector home to watch the Super Bowl, it is easy to overlook the fact that the array of new digital media tools and techniques are transforming the heart and soul of human communication. As Don Tapscott says in the introduction to The Digital Economy, "The new world of [communication] possibilities.is as significant as the invention of language itself."

The transition from text and speech to graphics and images goes to the core of best practices, organizational philosophy and competitive strategy.

While technologies such as the telegraph, telephone and fax have become entrenched in business activities, rich-media-enabled communication has long been considered a task-specific and tactical concern-an optional accessory. The past few thousand years of technological development inadvertently focused the attention of businesses and businesspeople on words and numbers.

Until very recently, our use of rich visual and audio in business communications was constrained by cost, production and distribution challenges. Historically, creating images was an expensive proposition; the creators were elite professionals; and the systems for packaging and disseminating the media were costly and awkward. For this reason, we rolled out the pretty pictures only when the importance of the communication event demanded it and the budgets allowed. As will be explained in Chapter 1: The Emerging Visual Enterprise, the tools for creating and delivering media presentations have been commoditized and democratized. Lower prices and ease-of-use features are making rich-media communications tools available to a rapidly expanding demographic of individuals and organizations. In the technology-driven 21st century business environment, everyone is a visual communicator.

Business communication in the Knowledge Economy demands clarity, speed, comprehension and impact at every point of contact. Even the most trivial communication can have monumental impact. The pace of change, the onslaught of data and the mercurial nature of the modern enterprise have propelled rich-media communication tools and capabilities into an ascendant role in business. The result is an unprecedented surge in the creation, distribution and storage of business information in media form-a surge toward being visual.

The title of this guidebook is not meant to slight the other four senses. Ear fans and nose supporters should save their angry letters. This guidebook is about all forms of digital media communication and their impact on business. It is called Being Visual simply because we soak up the majority of what we know about the world through the two portholes in our head.

As will be explained in more physiological depth in Chapter 3: Multimedia Literacy, human beings were designed first and foremost as visual communications creatures. Except in cases where vision is lost or impaired, sight is our primary sense. Rarely do we say, "I'll hear you later," or "I'll smell you next week."

In the world of business and commerce, in every contact and transaction, visual communication has always been a deciding factor. Face-to-face conversation is by far the most media-rich communication activity in the human experience. In a simple two-person encounter, literally millions of bits of information are exchanged every second. In a group discussion, the bits fly back and forth by the billions.

As we will see in Chapter 7: The Electronic Conversation, the effect we are after with all of our frantic invention and deployment of digital media tools is a communication experience that is as close as possible to the power and richness of a face-to-face conversation. The essence of the rich-media communication revolution is simply this: Every day our remarkable technology moves us closer to recreating the intensity and realism of an in-person communication experience free of the limitations of distance, time and culture.

The rich-media communication revolution is happening all around us. But ironically, we can't see the digital forest for the digital trees.

As humans and businesspeople (some of whom are humans) we naturally tend to focus on whatever is closest to us. We zero in on opportunities. We target markets. We pinpoint problems. But while dissecting the details helps us get things done, it often prevents us from seeing the context of what we are doing.

As you read Being Visual, don't sweat the details. Read it the same way you drive your car on the freeway. At 20 miles-per-hour you have plenty of time to take in the scenery and focus on the details-nice house, ugly dress, the elms are blooming early this year. But at 70 mph, the scenery goes by in a blur. Focus on any one detail for too long and you'll wind up in a scrap-metal coffin. The key to safe driving at high speed-the key to business success in the 21^st century-is learning to un-focus. The onrush of information and the rapidly changing speed, obstacles and conditions of the business environment require that we make decisions and develop strategies on the fly. The greater the speed, the more we need to let the details blur and learn to sense what is happening around us.

So, as you read this guidebook, don't fix your attention on the fine points. To better understand the growing strategic importance of rich-media-enabled communication, un-focus your vision of business, technology and communication. To improve your competitive eyesight and strategic foresight let the foreground fuzz, take in the 360-degree panorama and watch out for squirrels.

As you work to avoid fixating on the details, also attempt to let go of old definitions and defunct assumptions about business presentation. In the Knowledge Economy, where the strategy of an organization centers on processing raw information into enriched knowledge assets, the role of visual presentation transforms. Instead of being reserved for the "big event" when specially prepared information is delivered to a target audience, presentation of information becomes a value-enhancing activity that occurs continuously.

In the Knowledge Economy the very nature of what we used to know as business presentations has metamorphosed into something that blends attributes of the slide show of yore with elements of the powerful new communications technologies and processes of the IT-driven enterprise. Every direct and indirect interaction is a presentation. Every individual is a presenter. At some point in the near future, defining presentation as a discrete business activity will be meaningless simply because such activities will be ubiquitous.

As will be discussed in Chapter 2: Presentation Evolution, presentation in the rich-media-enabled enterprise begins at the conception of an idea and is part of the life cycle of that idea from the initial design to the final customer transaction. Whether the final product is manufactured goods (atoms), or a great idea or concept (bits), the richer, more robust and effective the presentation, the greater the chance the product will succeed. The same holds true for a company. The business that embodies a culture of effective, always-on presentation enhances its own chances for survival and success.

To say that the integration of rich-media into business communications is about information exchange is like saying that a teenage boy giving a bouquet of flowers to a girl is about horticulture. While in purely mechanical terms rich-media helps us get our message across more efficiently, its essential value rests much deeper in the human communication experience.

Look to the heart of business presentation and you will find the persuasion process. Being visual is about being persuasive. In business and elsewhere we are always trying to persuade somebody about something. The persuasion process engages every aspect of human communications, including physiology, psychology, technology, sociology and sexuality. [I added the last word in that last sentence to persuade you to keep reading.]

In Chapter 4: The Art and Science of Persuasion we will take a look at the relationship between rich-media communications and the persuasion process. We will discuss the reasons why all of us-not just the residents of Missouri-need to see it to believe it. We need to see what we are getting into and see what we are getting for our money. We need to be persuaded to believe before we can be persuaded to buy.

As we will see, we are best persuaded when all of our senses are engaged. The array of rich-media technologies that are here now and coming in the future are tools of persuasion. Being visual gives us a better shot at being persuasive. Rich, robust media communication helps us grab attention, increase retention, improve comprehension and bring an audience into agreement. The new tools and techniques give us better odds that we will produce the desired outcomes and actions that are behind every presentation and just about every human interaction.

Think of rich-media communication as that bouquet of flowers.

The rapid growth in visual information and the need for being visual does more than reconfigure the messages we send. It also redesigns the places where we work and live. Being visual intensifies the need for information spaces in which knowledge can be accessed, shared and edited in rich-media mode-all the time and anywhere. As we will see in Chapter 9: Rich Media Workspaces, visually astute 21^st century organizations recognize the need for computing, communication and visual display capabilities, not just in traditional presentation rooms and meeting venues, but everywhere. From the lobby to the cafeteria, from the boardroom to the storeroom, information displays are popping up like mushrooms after a spring rain.

In the era of information interdependence, team collaboration, collapsing business cycles and distributed organizations, the pressure is on to leave the room with ideas and solutions. But the "room" is no longer one room in one location. It is anywhere that people are. Within the rich-media-enabled enterprise the functional barriers break down and communities of practice take their place. These communities of practice are defined by task, not by titles. They are highly collaborative and united by ideas and information. Multi-disciplinary teams depend upon access and sharing of information and ideas. They work in virtual environments that are idea-friendly and conducive to the sort of inspired discussions that are the knowledge worker's daily routine.

In addition, the collaboration space has left the building. In Chapter 5: Multimedia Mobility we will look at ways in which businesses are taking the room with them. Media mobility not only means communicating with one another while traveling from place to place, it means creating interaction environments virtually anywhere. Handheld computing and communication devices are combining forces with small, lightweight display tools to allow mobile media events to take place whenever and wherever necessary. Oh yeah, in case you hadn't noticed, they also double as cool leisure time accessories.

Finally, in Chapter 8: Presentation Futures, we will step gingerly into visions of our rich-media future. These days, predictions about technology tend to hold their value about as long as campaign promises. But there are clear indications that rich-media technologies are changing not only the nature of business communication, but the nature of society as well. In fact, there is strong evidence that has always been the case.

When we look back at the history of communication and collaboration technologies we find clues about our future. Based on what has gone before and the current technology development track, it is safe to predict that the digital integration of media types and omnipresent, broadband communication will change our world as profoundly as the making of fire, the invention of the wheel, the discovery of the sail or the introduction of the George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling Machine.

A word of caution here. It would be easier to pick the Super Bowl champs of 2025 than to predict what technologies will appear in the future and which ones will succeed. It is also virtually impossible to predict how those technologies will change the nature of society and business. Being Visual is not about being clairvoyant. Being Visual is about being aware. It is about being conscious of the interrelationship between the fundamental business communications processes that never change and the business communications technologies that constantly change.

If you take one thing away from reading Being Visual, take away this: The most important moment in the human communication process is when you or someone else says, "Ah, I see." Being Visual is about helping that moment to happen.

Copyright c2002, Robert L. Lindstrom

All rights reserved

No part of this material may be copied or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the author. 

Chapter One: The Emerging Visual Enterprise. Click here to read it now.

Learn more about Robert L. Lindstrom, the author of The Business Week Guide to Multimedia Presentations and director of the Digital Exploration Society, in our Contributor's section.