Using images in your speeches and presentations is an important feature that can help you deliver your message in an effective manner. As the saying goes 'A picture is worth a thousand words.' However, you want to make sure that your image portrays the CORRECT image. As with most things, people can interpret the image or picture that you use in a different manner then you intended. If you haven't heard, the New York Post is experiencing some negative feedback from a cartoon that has been interpreted a lot differently than the cartoonists intended.
Supposidly, the cartoonist and the paper are saying that the cartoon was an implication that the people running congress and our country are a bunch of chimps. If you are thinking in these terms, it reminds me of the Career Builder commercials where the monkeys were running everything and the one human kept getting irritated by them. In this sense, it is a pretty benign cartoon. However, what most people are interpreting it as saying that the money is President Obama and it is a racist cartoon that should never have been run. A Huffington Post column talked about the cartoon and at the time of this blog, there were already well over 5,000 comments.
Whether or not you think the image is benign or you think it is a racist cartoon, there is something very important that you can learn from it -- make sure you use an image or picture that is not going to be misinterpreted in a negative way. While there is no way to ensure that 100% of the time 100% of the people are going to understand why you used a certain image, just being aware of the possibilities is a good thing. Additionally, have a couple of other people look at it and get their reaction. If anyone brings up a concern, take that into account.
Are you going to be using something like the New York Post cartoon? I doubt it. However, being congnisent of the possibilities can never hurt and getting some feedback on the images that you use is always a good thing.
Travis
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