The Power of Visuals

For those of you who don’t already know, I’m a huge Apple fan! I have a MacBook and an iPod, but there is one Apple product that I desperately would like – an iPhone! So it should be no surprise that I spent Monday, June 8 at 1 pm online, reading the live feeds from the keynote address at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Call me crazy, but I couldn’t wait to see what new features they would bring to the iPhone!

The live feeds gave quick, short blurbs introducing the new features of the iPhone – Compass, Voice Control, Video Editing, Copy/Paste. They didn’t provide a whole lot of detail on the new features, but instead just informed the audience about what those new features were. As I was discussing this and trying to visualize these features with some of my coworkers, we all found ourselves disappointed. With all the rumors that were circling around the iPhone, we were expecting something much bigger and better! A compass – nothing special. Voice control – come on… all phones have voice control. Video editing and copy/paste – we all knew about that one. Apple just didn’t “wow” us.

Later that night, I watched the “Guided Tour” video for the new iPhone on Apple’s website (http://www.apple.com/iphone/guidedtour). And boy – let me tell you – I was blown away by the new features! Everything that was mentioned in the live feed seemed so much better! They weren’t just talking about an ordinary Voice Control feature – this thing goes way beyond that. And the same goes with all the other features.

During the live feed updates, I was forming my own opinion on exactly what these new features were. I was being told about all the great new features of the iPhone, but I had my own mental picture of what these new features were like, and I didn’t really see how they would benefit me. There was a substantial misconception between what I was hearing and processing compared to what the people at the keynote were visually experiencing. When I watched the “Guided Tour” video, I was able to view, first-hand, the new features of the iPhone. The demonstrations in the video were engaging and intriguing, and allowed me to see the benefits of these new features.

This just proves the power of visuals. All too often, we get lost in what people are trying to explain to us. We try to imagine what we are being told, and we find ourselves forming our own opinions and thoughts – which can result in a number of misconceptions. Apply this to your organization’s strategy. Have your employees been shown visually what the organization’s strategy is? Have they visually been able to experience the strategy in an engaging manner? Or have they simply heard or read about the strategy and left to form their own conception – likely a misconception – of what the strategy is and how it applies to them? At Root Learning, we take pride in bringing your strategies to life through the use of powerful visuals and metaphors, using various forms of media to alleviate those oh-so-common misconceptions.