In 1921, Frederick R Barnard used the phrase ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ in the first national trade magazine for advertising Printer’s Ink. The idea that graphics can tell a story as effectively as, if not more effectively than, a large amount of text is a widely accepted notion. To understand the strategic inclusion of photography, and to align this with the modern management learning, Goa Institute of Management recently conducted a 4-day workshop on photography.

The objectives behind conducting this workshop was to: (1) to use photography for market visit documentation, product displays, advertising (hoarding), flash cards, storyboards; (2) to aid in problem-solving through techniques of framing, perspectives and dimensions and (3) to teach empathy, observation, metaphors etc. The workshop was conducted by Uday Tadphale, an acclaimed art director. Both, the students as well as the faculty members of GIM were invited for this workshop, which complemented the classroom learning imparted by courses like Integrated Marketing Communications, New Product Development and Creativity and Innovation. The students who participated in this workshop are all set to exhibit their work in an art gallery in Panjim.

The photography workshop is one of the annual events organized by ‘The Centre for Creativity, Innovation and Design Thinking’ @ GIM. ‘The Centre’ organized a series of workshops covering theatre, dance, photography and film making. Previously, ‘The Centre’ had conducted a 5-day workshop called ‘Acting for Managers’. Mr Glenn Hayden and Ms Kyla D’Souza, internationally schooled corporate trainers, drew students out of their comfort zones, stressing on self-expression, articulation and group dynamics. “It was an eye opener and made us connect better with each other” said Betsy a PGP-1 student. Mr Hayden felt the students were drawn into the whole process and after a few hesitant starts threw themselves into the middle.

‘The Centre’ drives the credo of learning at every stage-classrooms as well as out of class events. “At GIM, the learning never stops” says Professor Cedric Serpes who chairs ‘The Centre’ with a team of dedicated faculty with diverse skills that enrich the student’s learning experience at every level in GIM. Professor Padmanabhan believes that it takes diversity of learning to form a global manager and ‘The Centre’ provides diverse opportunities to make this happen.