Al Gore has taken enough heat about his flat and wooden speaking style over the years to raise the Earth’s temperature several degrees (some of it from me), but you have to give him credit for one thing he does well: the man knows how to use his PowerPoint slides.
Long before Al Gore was turned into a movie star (“an Inconvenient Truth”), he toured the country giving a PowerPoint presentation on the dangers of global warming. I’ll let others debate the merits of the science or Al Gore, but I will critique his style. I saw Gore give his presentation in 2004 here in Manhattan (his critics took great comfort that Gore spoke on global warming on the coldest day in decades in New York).
But the thing I still remember years later about his presentation was this: no text. Gore used NO TEXT in his PowerPoint presentation. Gore correctly used slides that contained images of the earth, glaciers, ice caps, and the sea to make his points. His visuals enhanced his presentation; they didn’t detract and they didn’t bore.
So if even Al Gore can use PowerPoint in a non-boring manner, what’s your excuse? If you are going to use PowerPoint slides, don’t fill them up with text. Instead, use images, photos and graphs, whether you are trying to save the planet or your number one aluminum siding account.
