W5

Effective images function by communicating the intended message of the brand or mission of a company. A visual analysis can help you explore the effectiveness of images used in a business context to begin to see how they might be interpreted differently by customers with different backgrounds.

Visual Essay

Your task is to create a visual essay to explore how a topic or idea is communicated through images. A visual essay is a type of visual analysis that explores how images (logos, advertisements, etc.) convey certain messages. These ideas can be at surface level/literal or at a deeper level of meaning that requires the viewer to use context clues and design features to infer the intended message of the image.

What you will do is:

Choose one of the following topics or buzzwords: “green” living, fresh, local, savings/discounts, “box store,” online shopping, social media—or choose a retail buzzword you want to explore (be sure to ask your instructor if the term is acceptable).

Use the skills you learned in Using Images Legally to search the images tagged with this term.

Choose 8–10 images that you feel best convey the search term you chose and express a point of view on the topic.

Create a PowerPoint with a title slide and the 8–10 images on the rest of the slides (one image per slide). The images you use should be able to express a point of view on a particular topic all by themselves.

With each slide, provide a brief explanation on why you chose that image and how it conveys your message.

Essential Activities:

Reading Module 5 will assist you in writing your paper.

Watching the video, "Persuasive Presentation: How to make graphs more powerful" will assist you in writing your paper.

Notes:

This paper must be formatted in APA Style 7th edition.

Module 5: Visual Media

Why It Matters: Visual Media

Our prehistoric ancestors struggled, rock in hand, to carve just the right picture into the wall of the cave, hoping that someone would come along and understand the story being told. They may have drawn stick figures with spears, or a woolly mammoth in the distance about to become dinner. In the next series of drawings, the mammoth has been struck, the stick figure looming over him. In a third series, a gathering of stick figures at a fire, presented with a feast.

There is beauty and clarity in the simplicity of the prehistoric man’s drawings. You understand his hunting victory even though he’s used no words. Prehistoric man was on to something with this approach.

Fast forward to today where studies have been done on the impact of visual aids:

Only 70 percent of people reading labels on medicine containers understand the instructions when they are written in text form, but that understanding increases to 95 percent when the text is accompanied by images.[1]

People follow written directions 323 percent better when the images accompany the instructions.[2]

From this, we know that visual media can make your communication easier to understand. But does it help you make a point or sell an idea? When listening to an oral presentation, 50 percent of an audience will be persuaded by the speech alone, but that number increases to 67 percent when the speech features visual aids.[3]

Because of this, we know that visual media can make your communication more convincing. In an age in which we humans are asked to process more information than we have ever processed before, let’s look at today’s trends:

People are 80 percent more likely to engage with content when it features color visuals.[4]

Facebook audiences are 651 percent more likely to engage with a post if it includes an image, compared with posts that don’t.[5]

This shows us that visuals attract attention and draw our audiences in. Visuals make our communication noticeable.

Communications are more memorable, persuasive and easily understood when visual media is involved. Like prehistoric man, we can use visual media to more effectively deliver a message. In this module, we’re going to talk about the uses of various visual media—charts, graphs, images, and even video—and how communicators can leverage them to connect with their colleagues and other professionals.

Module 6: Reports

Why It Matters: Reports

Why learn to write business reports?

decorative imageYou’ve just come home from your day at work as a produce manager at a local grocery store. As you sort through your mail (bills to pay, items to read later, and junk to recycle now), you come across postcards from two different meal kit services, where they send a box of ingredients with recipes to homes. The home cooks then follow a recipe for a unique meal with a few special ingredients that the company ships to their residence. The home cook doesn’t have to go to the store for anything.

When you go to work the next day, you plan to ask the grocery store owner about these services. How hard would it be to create something similar at your store?

The owner of the store thinks your idea has some merit, but isn’t sure how many customers might try it, what they would be willing to pay, or how much it might cost for a small town grocery store. He asks you to put together information that summarizes these answers. He wants to review it with a couple of business friends in his network where they share new ideas and brainstorm business strategies.

This is your first time creating a business report in a real-life business circumstance, and you’re excited because it’s not just a school assignment. You start with what you were trained to do by thinking about this report as an internal proposal. The first step is to set up the exact item or problem statement to research. With that focus in mind, you can do the research needed to answer the questions and determine how to share your results in an orderly fashion.

In today's fast-paced business environment, effective communication is paramount for organizational success. As future business leaders, it is crucial to develop skills in crafting concise and impactful executive communication reports. These reports enable executives to make informed decisions, allocate resources efficiently, and drive strategic initiatives. This assignment aims to give you the opportunity to propose a topic for an executive communication report and outline its key components.

Task: Your task is to submit a proposal for an executive communication report on a relevant business topic of your choice. This proposal should highlight the significance of the chosen topic and provide a clear overview of what the report will cover.

Proposal Components: Your proposal should include the following components:

Topic Selection: Choose a business topic that is relevant to today's corporate landscape. It could be related to a current industry trend, a management challenge, a technological advancement, or any other aspect that you believe is important for executives to understand.

Rationale: Justify the importance of the chosen topic in the context of executive decision-making and organizational success. Explain why this topic deserves the attention of busy executives and how it aligns with the organization's goals.

Scope and Key Points: Provide an overview of what the executive communication report will cover. Outline the main points, key insights, or recommendations that you intend to present in the report. This should give a clear indication of the depth and breadth of your proposed report.

Target Audience: Identify the intended audience for your executive communication report. Specify whether the report will be directed towards C-suite executives, board members, department heads, or any other relevant group. Consider how the report's content will cater to their informational needs.

Communication Approach: Briefly describe how you plan to structure and present the report. Will you use data visualizations, case studies, comparative analysis, or other techniques to enhance clarity and impact? Discuss your communication strategy.

Sources: Provide a preliminary list of potential sources you will consult to gather information and insights for your report. These could include academic articles, industry reports, credible news sources, and expert opinions.

Conclusion: Sum up your proposal by reiterating the significance of the chosen topic and emphasizing why it is relevant for executives. Conclude with a sentence or two about your motivation for selecting this topic.

Submission Guidelines: Your proposal should be clear, concise, and well-organized. It should be 1-2 pages in length, excluding references. Use a professional tone and appropriate formatting.

Assessment Criteria: Your proposal will be evaluated based on the clarity of topic selection, the strength of rationale, the appropriateness of scope and key points, alignment with the target audience, effectiveness of the communication approach, relevance and credibility of sources, and overall presentation.

Note: This assignment aims to assess your ability to propose and plan an executive communication report. You are not required to write the full report at this stage. Your proposal should serve as a roadmap for the report's development.

Essential Activities:

Reading Module 5 and 6 will assist you in writing your paper.

Watching the video, "Persuasive Presentation: How to make graphs more powerful" will assist you in writing your paper.

Notes:

This paper must be formatted in APA Style 7th edition.Conclusion: Sum up your proposal by reiterating the significance of the chosen topic and emphasizing why it is relevant for executives. Conclude with a sentence or two about your motivation for selecting this topic.

Submission Guidelines: Your proposal should be clear, concise, and well-organized. It should be 1-2 pages in length, excluding references. Use a professional tone and appropriate formatting.

Assessment Criteria: Your proposal will be evaluated based on the clarity of topic selection, the strength of rationale, the appropriateness of scope and key points, alignment with the target audience, effectiveness of the communication approach, relevance and credibility of sources, and overall presentation.

Note: This assignment aims to assess your ability to propose and plan an executive communication report. You are not required to write the full report at this stage. Your proposal should serve as a roadmap for the report's development.

Essential Activities:

Reading Module 5 and 6 will assist you in writing your paper.

Watching the video, "Persuasive Presentation: How to make graphs more powerful" will assist you in writing your paper.