PC Workshop:
Business Media
graphics | sound | video | presentation
Business media is a euphemism. What we're talking about here isn't the p-word, programming. It isn't the d-word, design. It's the a-word, art.
Yes, I am seriously contending that in order to prosper as an MBA in today's online world, you will be well-served by developing your artistic judgment. To communicate effectively, you must write effectively. No argument there. To communicate effectively, you must speak effectively. No argument there, either. Now comes the tricky one:
To communicate effectively, you must have some rudimentary abilities to make, edit, and communicate with images and other media, specifically sound and music.
If we include video, you might have heard this spoken of as multimedia. When you add networked computers, it's called the Web.
What I do on Ricci Street is a solid baseline. The knowledge and skills in this section do not suppose you're on your way to being the next Steven Spielberg. They will show you how to make webs and supplement oral presentations at the basic skill level of Ricci Street.
No doubt some of you will launch from here into an artistic stratosphere by finally finding an outlet for hitherto frustrated aesthetic interests. Most of you just want to impress customers without embarrassing yourselves, and this section will show you how.
You will soon find that the computer skills are trivial, even video editing. The hard part is making judgments about effective use of shapes, sound, and colors.
These skills will also come in very handy for personal communication with family and friends.
Judgment.
"This looks good." "This is fun!" "This will communicate effectively." "This sucks!"
Many organizations make those judgments for you. They have templates and style sheets because they want you to concentrate on content. By content, they usually mean words and numbers, perhaps a Word document or an Excel-generated graph.
There are other ways of knowing, specifically images, the visual representation of ideas. Most organizations do it poorly. They ignore it or minimize its importance. They try to template it; many outsource it. Larger organizations may keep it in house. Smaller ones may send it to a vendor.
To which I say, "You should be so lucky."
In reality, templates don't always apply and budgets can't be stretched. In reality, the visual aspect of most corporate communication is poor. It doesn't begin to take advantage of the available tools and resources.
Your ability to use the Internet to communicate effectively with multimedia will make you a more effective communicator. Because the Internet is so visual, it will do more than words and numbers alone to distinguish you from your professional colleagues.
As icing on the cake, for many of you this will be fun, and that's not a bad thing.
images and sounds - acquire, make, edit (crop, resize, and compress), combine, display, and distribute them.
file formats and characteristics: image (.bmp, .gif, .jpg), sound (.wav, .mp3), video (.mpg, .avi), animation (.swf, .gif)
still camera (scanner, too), video camera, microphone, speakers, projector
graphics editor such as PaintShop Pro or PhotoShop
presentation program such as PowerPoint
graphics editor: Paint (Start | Programs | Accessories)
screen shots: Print Scrn (and paste into Paint)
audio: Sound Recorder and CD Player (Start | Programs | Accessories | Entertainment)
video: Media Player (Start | Programs | Accessories | Entertainment) and (with ME) Windows Movie Maker (Start | Programs | Accessories)
acquire, make, edit, combine, display, and distribute business media
concept mapping - IHMC Concept Mapping Software
slide shows, web sites, charts and graphs,
file formats and characteristics: image (.bmp, .gif, .jpg), sound (.wav, .mp3), video (.mpg, .avi), animation (.swf, .gif)
import, acquire, scan, clip art and exposures from digital cameras
music and audio
Graphics Editor - learn more
org chart
Excel's graphing
animated gif
music
audio
video
scanner, camera
slide shows, web sites, charts and graphs, and images both still and moving, including music and audio
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
