I never thought I’d say this, but I have been won over to the use of slides in presentations because of two things: a speech by Bill and Melinda Gates and a book by Carmine Gallo, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience. (carminegallo.com)
Bill and Melinda’s speech was a report on the activities of their foundation given to a Washington, D.C. audience last October.
The presentation incorporated the use of powerful visual slides with stunning images (not a bullet point in sight) “to illustrate or amplify the message in the clearest way possible,” according to Garr Reynolds of presentationzen.com, where you can see the entire presentation.
The second reason I embrace visual slides comes from Carmine Gallo’s book on the presentations of Steve Jobs.
Gallo tells us this: “On June 9, 2008, Steve Jobs announced the introduction of the iPhone 3G… He used eleven slides to do so… Only one slide contained words (“iPhone 3G”). The others were all photographs.”
Further, Gallo cites research to support his claim concerning the power of visual images, “Researchers have discovered that visual and verbal information is processed differently along multiple ‘channels’ in your brain. What this means for you and your next presentation is simple: your ideas are much more likely to be remembered if they are presented as pictures instead of words.”
He continues, “If information is presented orally, people remember about 10 percent, tested seventy-two hours after exposure. That figure goes up to 65 percent if you add a picture.”
Who am I to argue with science? I always knew traditional PowerPoint slides were deadly, especially the way most speakers used them – simply as text they could turn to and reiterate.
Thinking about slides in this new way is exciting for me as a speechwriter. I am currently working on a talk about “diversity of thought” and am thinking (diversely) about some powerful images I can use to illustrate the ideas I will present.
It’s sort of like making a movie, isn’t it? You can “storyboard” your talk and its salient points as you develop images to support them.
I think I’m going to like this.
