Creating an engaging presentation aid can be a challenge. A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself: What can I show my audience that will convey my point more easily than if I just use words?
It's much more compelling to show actual images of the places you've visited, the abnormalities you discovered, the renovations you made possible, or even a graph or chart that illustrates a dramatic downturn. Images are powerful. Sometimes too powerful. I'll never forget when an undergraduate student finished up his speech about the need for diagnostic heart testing by putting one of his cell phone pictures up on the screen: it was a picture he had taken of his recently deceased brother on a hospital gurney in an ER. It felt unfair and sensationalized that he closed with that picture, without giving us any warning. He had gone too far.
We all know that a picture can be worth a thousand words, but what if I told you that one of the most memorable images I saw on a PowerPoint was of nothing at all?
One of my Wayne State University undergraduate students was doing a persuasive speech about the deplorable conditions in puppy mills. This is a popular topic among college students and I think I have seen just about every sad puppy, mangy dog and dirty cage out there. But this student, when describing the conditions, went to a slide with a CENSORED logo on the screen. He told us that the images were just too disturbing to show in class. By doing so, he very effectively left it all to our imagination and made a powerful impact.
Sometimes less is more. Be sure to give your visuals a second and even third thought before subjecting your audience to something they may never forget.
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