Visual Gisting - How to Improve your Return on Attention (ROA).

The theme of this blog: Thoughts Illustrated -- is based on the old adage that "a picture is worth a thousand words"

In this post, I will give you an example of the value of that old adage.

If you listen to a standard speech with no long pauses it would be about 70 words per minute
( source WikiAnswers)


click on the image for a bigger version.



Yesterday I listened to a 45 minute YiTan call-in conference conversation between Jerry Michalski and Doug Rushkoff , author of Life Inc. (Estimated word count 3150 words, elapsed time 2700 seconds)

The image above is a "visual gist" created by my partner Joe Sterling as he listened in to the call. IMO it contains the essence of the conversation and can be scanned in less than 10 seconds to get the gist. ( 3150 words= 270o seconds, gist =10 seconds - ROA 270X) Also, you can select
certain "objects" from the visual gist , and , in the very near future we will enable"hot spots" on these images so that when you "mouse over" an object or text item in the visual gist, you will be linked directly to a brief snippet from the full audio track saved in the YiTan archive, and if you find the snippet(s) interesting, you can then download the full audio podcast into your iTunes playlist for later listening as a part of your personal knowledge library.

OR, you can learn more about Doug's book from from Amazon and.......

• watch a 9 minute video of Doug promoting his bookAmazon.com : Entertainment : Douglas Rushkoff on "Life Inc."
• Buy the book in hard copy form Amazon.com: Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back (9781400066896): Douglas Rushkoff: Books
• Download it to your kindle Amazon.com: Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back: Douglas Rushkoff: The Kindle Store
• or, order an audio version from Audible .com Download Life Inc. (Unabridged) | Douglas Rushkoff | Life Inc. (Unabridged) Audio Book unabridged | Audible Audiobooks | Audible.com

ROA analysis:

1. The visual gist can be scanned in 10 seconds, and you can ( when we have it activated) link directly to the snippet of the audio podcast from YiTan and listen just to that snippet( 30 -60 seconds) So far: Total elapsed time 40 seconds.
   
2. You can continue the snippet process from #1 above to link to other audio clips related to objects on the image, or you can save the full podcast to your audio library on iTunes (30 seconds)
   
3. The visual gist can be "played back" in synchrony with the podcast, so that you will SEE the visual unfolding along with the audio stream. Or you can turn off the sound and just watch the picture play forward. (This is not a great ROA, but it might suit your viewing/listening style)
4. You can share the visual gist with any one and soon you will be able to annotate the image with tags and hotspot links of your own, including other resources on the internet that relate to the visual gist
5. By saving your visual gists into a gallery of images, you can easily scan your collection of visuals quickly and link from the gallery to the full multimedia archive of your knowledge library.
   

So, to summarize,visual gisting is a powerful way to gain Return on Attention. To bring this powerful visual capability to anyone, anywhere, any time, we are training a cadre of master visualizers to use new digital tools that can link them to any webmeeting, or audio conference to do what Joe did during yesterday's YiTan call.

If you want to know more about how you can employ visual gisting in your webmeetings or conference calls, please leave a comment or visit Home Page