Visual Literacy in Business - Essay Example

Visual Literacy in Business al Affiliation) The disaster preparedness management plan is meant to serve as a simulationexercise in order to ensure that the company employees, ranging from the top management staff to the auxiliary staff, are well versed with the emergency protocols pertaining to preventing an outbreak of Ebola and how to react in the event that there is an outbreak. The events that occurred earlier this year in West Africa serve as a reminder of how the lack of a containment plan or emergency plan can lead to disastrous consequences.

In addition to preventing an outbreak, the intended purpose of the message is to ensure that the company is not liable for negligence, in terms of adhering to the state health/safety codes. As a future leader in the organization, I recognize that the company can be sued if it fails to provide adequate protection to its employees, which is achieved by ensuring that management provides suitable working conditions for its employees. This includes adhering to the latest preventive and safety measures when complying with biohazard safety practices.

That is why I recommend the extensive application of simulation and drill exercises at the company, at least twice a year, to ensure that all company employees are well versed with the protocols, and that the company is adequately linked to local hospitals and the regional C.D.C facilities for quarantine and damage control purposes. In terms of topography, I plan to employ a Times Roman font. For the body of the message, I would adopt the standard 12 point for the point size, while I would employ a larger point size for its heading (18 point), in order to highlight the importance of the message being relayed to the company management and its employees.

The use of capital letters in the heading is necessary in order to evoke strong emotions that match the importance and severity of the message. In addition, the use of a Times Roman font reflects the formality of the message since the issue of an Ebola outbreak is quite serious. To further emphasize the seriousness of the matter, and in order to capture the attention of the reader, I could alternatively utilize a Sans Serif header typeface coupled with a Serif font body typeface since the combination exudes an aura of formality and urgency, an approach that matches the message being communicated.

Howells is of the opinion that the use of visuals is very useful, especially due to their ability to elicit strong emotional responses, preferably from the company employees. Visuals depicting the graphic symptoms of Ebola, the mass graves of thousands of dead civilians courtesy of the epidemic (even depicting the deaths of children and infants), would go a long way to sway the employees to advocate for the rapid institution of a disaster management committee spearheaded by the managerial staff and constituted by members from all the departments in the company.

I find the use of visuals very effective especially after initially toying with the idea of using internet links to journal articles instead of visuals. However, I found it to be an ineffective alternative especially considering its lack of emotional impact and the persuasive element of visuals (Howells, 2009). Due to the importance of the message, I find using word document as the best medium for communicating the message, which will be sent via email to very employee. All other mediums have the disadvantage of being viewed as fun and casual, which is not appropriate in this instance.

In addition, word documents also allow the use of visuals for the purpose of communicating information. Reference List Howells, R. (2009). Using visual evidence. Open University Press: McGraw Hill.