If you haven't seen Al Gore's environmental horror flick then I really recommend you do. Nothing I can write here will in anyway compare to the impact of the film. One of the interesting takeouts from the film (although obviously not as important as 'save the planet'!) is Gore's amazing live presentation.
Gore is a serial presenter and reckons to have given his global warming talk to over a thousand different audiences. For anyone who ever has to think about effectively communicating with an audience in a business meeting or conference this film is packed full of great stuff.
Gore's had a lot of practice at presenting, but he doesn't seem like someone for whom it comes completely naturally, he was criticised a lot in the past for his wooden style, however the presentation he has put together is massively effective. Here are some of the great ways he engages his audience:
- He uses the screen to emotionally engage the audience not to convey masses of information
- He includes lots of video and images
- He uses simple clear big graphics
- He has a few surprises, for example using a cherry-picker to allow him to follow rising carbon emissions up the chart
- He knows his talk and is very comfortable with the audiovisual content
- He doesn't rush what he has to say and goes at a nice slow pace
Impressed by all this I did a bit of searching online and discovered that the presentation is put together using Apple's Keynote software rather than PowerPoint. Judging also by the great quality of Steve Jobs' presentations, keynote must be worth checking out. I also found this really interesting interview with the Duarte Design, the company that worked with Al Gore to put his presentation together.