A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures

I was talking to my friend Bob Braun of Revelant Technologies a couple weeks ago while we were reviewing a new presentation our marketing team at Bostech had been working on for our ChainBulder Labs solution.  I am big on using infographics rather than lots of bullets to convey important points and concepts in presentations so in this ChainBuilder Labs presentation we were looking at an infographic illustrating what the product does for labs and healthcare providers.  Bob made some positive remarks and provided some feedback on ways to improve the infographic (thanks Bob). 

Somewhere along the line I said, "a picture is worth a thousand words Bob" (totally cliche) and Bob replied (wisely), "...and Brad, most importantly, a word is worth a thousand pictures." 

Bob is right.  When you hear someone say something - like the word "compression" - you have your own thoughts and beliefs related to that word.  For every thousand people, there are a thousand different thoughts they may come away with if you put a slide full of bullets and text in front of them.

With a picture (fancy word is infographic) you capture the message instantly in a way that is consistently understood.  And the bottom line is, if you don't capture your audience in the first 60 seconds, you never will...

This topic came up again today with Bill Johnson and he recommended the book "Back of the Napkin" which apparently is about the art and science of developing infographics.