Going Visual: Using Images to Enhance Productivity, Decision-Making and Profits [Hardcover]

Alexis Gerard (Author), Bob Goldstein (Author), Guy Kawasaki (Foreword), Guy Kawasaki (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471710253 | ISBN-13: 978-0471710257 | Publication Date: February 28, 2005 | Edition: 1

How and why to make visual communication a powerful competitive tool
From digital cameras and camera phones to videoconferencing, visual communication technology is changing not only personal lives but global business relationships and communities of interest. Visual communication is an essential tool for every corporation-in any industry-that wants to stay competitive.
Going Visual demonstrates how businesses can harness the power of digital images and video to communicate comprehensively and unambiguously. Through real-world success stories the authors outline a clear, simple, five-step plan for developing a Visual Communication Strategy that will sharpen every organization's competitive edge and improve its bottom line.
Alexis Gerard (San Mateo, CA) is the founder of Future Image Inc., an imaging technology think tank whose clients include Adobe, Canon, Eastman Kodak, IBM, Intel, Procter & Gamble, and Sony. He previously held executive positions in new technologies marketing at Apple Computer. Bob Goldstein (Los Angeles, CA) has been the president and founder of ZZYZX Visual Systems, president of the Altamira Group, and a visual communication consultant to such companies as Eastman Kodak, Apple, Oracle, Microsoft, Intel, and Hewlett-Packard. Gerard and Goldstein have coauthored articles in Red Herring and Forbes.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Throughout history—beginning with our earliest ancestors who painted on cave walls—people have used images to communicate their thoughts and ideas. Yet as a society, while we understand and effortlessly use the power of visual communication in our personal lives, we're just now awakening to its tremendous potential in our business lives. With the democratization of technology, in the form of the Internet, wireless communications, and easy-to-use, inexpensive digital devices, the doors to Going Visual are now open to virtually any organization or businessperson.

In Going Visual: Using Images to Enhance Productivity, Decision Making, and Profits, authors and visual communication experts Alexis Gerard and Bob Goldstein demonstrate how businesses large or small and entrepreneurs can harness the power of digital images and video to streamline information flow, communicate more effectively, and gain competitive advantage.

Today's technology makes it possible to use—in everyday practical business circumstances—visual tools that capture the full richness of the information you wish to convey, enabling you to communicate more completely, more efficiently, in greater detail, and with greater power of conviction than through words alone.

Through real-world success stories and interviews with professionals who've enthusiastically gone visual, this one-of-a kind book outlines a five-step plan for developing a visual communication strategy that will sharpen your organization's competitive edge and improve its bottom line. You'll receive instant access to innovative research, proven strategies, and real-world business cases that will carefully guide you down the path to Going Visual. Topics discussed include:

• The Four Essential Requirements with which a business can set goals and measure the effectiveness of deploying a Going Visual strategy
• The Five Action Steps that serve as guiding principles for planning and implementing a Going Visual strategy
• How entrepreneurs, as well as small, mid-sized, and large companies can reap significant benefits by transforming their interpersonal business communications from words alone into an image-rich mix
• The new directions that imaging technology will take in the near future and how it will augment the visual communication process

Visual communication is rapidly becoming an indispensable part of the way we do business. Just as you might find it hard to imagine how you ever did business before e-mail or FedEx, you'll also wonder how you ever got by before Going Visual.

From the Back Cover

PRAISE FOR GOING VISUAL

"Practical and thought-provoking, Going Visual will help any company move their business communications from good to great."
—Dr. Rudy Burger, founding CEO, MIT Media Lab Europe

"Our book, America 24/7, shows how new mainstream technology has dramatically democratized image making. Going Visual demonstrates compellingly how businesses can harness that same power of visual communication, through a set of broadly applicable 'best practices' that any executive or entrepreneur can use."
—Rick Smolan, coauthor of America 24/7

"At last, the technologies for digital image capture, storage, processing, and transmission converge with the long-standing needs of man to more effectively communicate visually. Gerard and Goldstein outline a practical process based on real-world examples for taking advantage of these new tools. Going Visual is a must-read for all of us interested in improving corporate effectiveness through use of imaging."
—George M.C. Fisher, retired chairman and CEO, Eastman Kodak

Before you read on, take a look around you.

Now think about how long it would take to accurately describe to a colleague what you've just seen by (A) writing it down or typing it, or (B) taking a picture. You've now experienced just one way that using images can improve business productivity. Going Visual demonstrates how corporations and entrepreneurs can harness the power of digital images and video to sharpen an organization's competitive edge and improve its bottom line.

Through innovative research, proven strategies, and real-world business cases, Going Visual will show you how pictures are truly worth a thousand words when used as a powerful communication tool that can significantly improve your business.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 264 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (February 28, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471710253
• ISBN-13: 978-0471710257
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #485,112 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars A little short, May 9, 2007

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Etienne M. Lorenceau (Washington Paris Dusseldorf) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Going Visual: Using Images to Enhance Productivity, Decision-Making and Profits (Hardcover)

This book aims at making corporate and marketing directors to realize that we have entered a culture of images and videos. It covers well some of the consequences of this mutation from writing to visual. Admittedly, lots of situation are covered to advocate for anticipating actions in the image civilization, and suggestions are made on how to do it. As a matter of fact, the discoveries of Neuro-sciences including Neuro-marketing (not covered in the book) explain why this phenomenum does happen. At a practical level, the successes of MySpace and YouTube (after the not so recent development of TV ads) should be sufficient evidence.
The book however does not refer to the problems linked to the daily use of images by the professional world (mainly the necessity to index them for database treatment or simply for searching, filing and handling). Machines do not know how to recognize if there is a blond guy on a picture in the middle of several other individuals, when they can do this selection with texts. There is a huge amount of research going on to solve such complex problems which have more consequences than it seems and the author simply does not even touches these aspects. Amazon's mechanical turk was created precisely for such reasons. Some scientists try to use the sound track of videos to that effect... This book totally misses these issues.
In brief a great topic properly advocated but imperfectly analyzed and not exhaustively covered. Reality doesn't need to be advocated, it lands by itself ; virtue for books (which are in depth studies) lays in detailed solutions and this book comes short on this.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very important book!, April 20, 2005

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Howard Brainen - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Going Visual: Using Images to Enhance Productivity, Decision-Making and Profits (Hardcover)

This is a book that perfectly captures the convergence that is going on between technology, photography and communication. It is a must read for any person ready to improve efficiency and profitability in their workplace and their life. The case studies cover businesses of all shapes and sizes, so its easy to see how to make the strategy fit. A big thanks to Gerard and Goldstein for this very important book.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An inspiration, March 11, 2005

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A publisher (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Going Visual: Using Images to Enhance Productivity, Decision-Making and Profits (Hardcover)

Going Visual really inspired me, as an entrepreneur. I'm sure like most people I had no idea of the possibilities held within a simple digital camera. Reading this book opened a new world of possibilities. I don't go anywhere without a camera now.