Tufte’s criticisms of this ubiquitous presentation tool have mostly to do with the “low resolution” of PowerPoint, i.e., the small amount of information that can be included on an individual slide. According to Tufte, “PowerPoint allows speakers to pretend that they are giving a real talk, and audiences to pretend that they are listening.”¹

My own criticisms of PowerPoint concern the fact that it’s a presentation tool that’s virtually guaranteed to lessen your influence as a speaker. Since you as presenter are (in Shakespeare’s language) “the be-all and the end-all” concerning the delivery of your critical message, anything that actually reduces your influence is a truly catastrophic state of affairs.

Used as a simple tool of visual information, PowerPoint can be effective. Indeed, in some types of presentations–such as where complex diagrams, procedures, or moving parts need to be displayed–it may be essential, since such effects can be difficult to achieve otherwise.

Huge problems arise, however, when presenters try to make PowerPoint pack more persuasive firepower than it can deliver. PowerPoint is as effective–and limited–in its narrow range of abilities as a pencil. I happen to love working with lead pencils. But a pencil in a speaker’s hand has never convinced me of anything.

Yet far too often speakers depend upon PowerPoint to achieve some lasting impression on an audience–as if the razzle-dazzle of a multimedia slide show can take the place of an intelligent and compelling argument. But visual and auditory fireworks can never replace a dynamic speaker who commands our attention and belief.

Yet for those of you who adore Bill Gates’s ubiquitous presentation software, there’s hope. It concerns what I call the best kept secret of PowerPoint. This secret weapon in the war to make PowerPoint a dynamic presentation tool lies in the humble “B” button on our keyboard. Here’s how it works:

When you are in the “View” mode of PowerPoint, i.e., when your slides are being projected onto a screen, pressing the “B” button on the keyboard takes your image to black. Any screen or surface on which your slides appear–pull-down screen, laptop, or both–will suddenly go completely dark.

When this happens, I guarantee that every one of your audience members will look in the same place: at YOU.

With your audience now paying attention to you instead of your PowerPoint slides–and you focused entirely on them–real engagement can take place. An organic connection between you and your listeners will be formed, just as it was when you greeted them at the beginning of your speech. In real terms, there is nothing between you and your audience any more. And now the give-and-take that is essential to influence can occur.

I recommend that you go no more than 20 minutes in any presentation before hitting the “B” button and re-engaging your listeners. Ask a question that requires a response. Introduce a group activity. Invite a volunteer to help you with a demonstration.

Try any of these things, or others that you come up with yourself. But hit that “B” button and re-connect with your audience in person-to-person terms. I think you’ll enjoy the people that you’ll meet.

¹ Edward R. Tufte, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press L.L.C., 2003), 23.

The blogger writes: “Finding new dental marketing ideas is a hot topic in the dental industry today. In fact, ‘new dental marketing ideas’ is one of the top dental searches done on the Internet. But is any idea really new?”

The writer touched on some things but he didn’t go all the way. First of all, most ideas in business are not “new” — they’re an evolution of existing products or means of communicating.

For example, take Welch’s ‘Squeeze’ jelly. For years, jelly came in a glass jar, then Welch’s had the idea to put it in a plastic squeeze container. Neither product nor the concept (squeezable food products) is new; the company simply combined what was already available. Yet the idea was a huge financial win for Welch’s.

The Dental Services blogger stated that you could put the Yellow Pages inside a newspaper. Take your message, he wrote, and your mission statement, and put it into a form of media that the public is now reading.

Unfortunately, the writer neglected to comment that newspapers are dying due to declining readership, so this isn’t exactly a great idea.

The blogger also left out all forms of social media — including blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.

And finally, the blogger touched on dental Websites. I would state that if a dentist has a site and wants to generate business from it, he or she needs to hire a professional marketing person to optimize it, write it, and manage it. Simply having a site, which many dentists do, means nothing if people can’t find it in the search engines or if it’s poorly designed / written.

Once the optimized and professionally design / written Website is in place, the dentist should then use all forms of social media to reach prospective patients — in other words, use media the public is actually using.

Based on what I see dental marketing companies telling dentists on how to market their businesses using old tactics that don’t work, this indeed would be a new idea.

And Mrs. Merchant, the 4th grade teacher that I remember so fondly? I can say with certainty that I’ve never mused to myself: “Gosh, I loved the way she folded culture into that unit on South American geography. And her grasp of pre-algebra? Outstanding!”

No, my memories prompt me to think: “That woman changed my life – because she believed in me and showed me what I was capable of.”

In both these situations, my emotional response was what mattered.

It’s the same with the audiences for your speeches and presentations.

Human beings make important decisions because those choices feel right for them. They will justify their decisions with data and logic. But it’s EMOTION that turns people on, and drives the choices in their lives.

Persuasion begins with trust, not with information. Every time you talk to a customer, prospect, colleague, or stakeholder, an unvoiced understanding takes place: you (the speaker) are seeking to influence your listeners. You’re trying to change them in some way–positively and ethically, we hope. Change isn’t easy for anyone. It only occurs when the person to be changed trusts that you are worth listening to and believing in.

As speaker, you are modeling the way: “Hear me and see me,” you are saying. “You can see I am trustworthy, and therefore what I have to say is valuable.”

By speaking in the realm of emotion, you open the door for positive influence. It isn’t influence that computes right–for our brains are not machines that subsist on logic–it is change that feels right.

Author and playwright George Ade, Mark Twain’s contemporary, said it this way:

“In uplifting, get underneath.”

He didn’t mean crawl down into the bogs of raw data, or dig into foundations long since excavated. He meant get into the things that matter. As a speaker or presenter, that means reaching across the real space of your speaking venue to touch people’s hearts.

You do it with the story you tell, and the way you tell it, of course. Inexperienced speakers buckle the load of information they have to convey onto their backs, and then dump it into the laps of their listeners. To an audience, that feels heavy and unwieldy, and it’s not something they want to take home with them.

Instead, your story–the one you’re telling to change people’s lives–must begin and end with people, and the things that move people deep inside. It’s only to support that narrative that you bring in your information–your content. This is so whether you’re talking about return on investment, your nonprofit’s mission, or the marketing tools your company specializes in. All the information you convey is important; but you must convey it in terms of the satisfaction and benefits to be gained. The more you can link those benefits to an emotional response in your listeners, the stronger your content will appear.

How does this knowledge impact the practical necessity of developing a successful message? It’s a reminder that we have to get the order right: Know your audience and what matters to them. Then tell them your story in human terms, relying on emotion, and using your content to help you make your case.

You’ll feel good about that way of proceeding. And by the time you’re finished, your listeners will not only be moved, they’ll be persuaded.

Few people write that they enjoy visiting the dentist. Quite a number of people write that visiting the dentist is like being in hell and their dentist is Satan (or worse).

I know many people have fear and anxiety when visiting the dentist. Sharp pointy needles and tools look scary and can cause pain. People have had bad experiences with inept dentists — I see these patients all the time and get angry that they received such poor dental care.

This fear and anxiety is one reason why I educate my patients about procedures before we begin. I also provide a soothing environment where they can relax, and I offer various sedation techniques — ranging from topical gels to Valium — in order to ease people’s anxiety.

I’ve also learned how to do “little” things that help ease pain. For example, when giving multiple injections into a patient’s mouth, I will use a needle for a maximum of three injections and then use a new one. Why? Dull needles can cause more pain. (I also buy high-quality needles.) 

I’ve learned where to give injections in the areas of the gum that are less sensitive, and if a needle hits the jaw bone, I throw it away immediately. This is because hitting the bone can create a “burr” on the needle — again, causing more pain.

But more important, like many modern dentists today, I continually take classes in order to learn how to best use advanced technologies and techniques. My mission is to give patients the ultimate in dental care, preserve teeth wherever possible, and give back to patients the ability to eat, smile, kiss, and laugh with freedom. 

I’m passionate about educating my patients about the benefits for taking care of their oral health. For example, one patient came in recently and while checking her mouth I said, “Wow, your teeth and gums look beautiful. What have you been doing?” and she replied, “I followed your advice and started brushing and flossing every day.”

Brushing twice a day and flossing once a day can go far in helping you to have a pleasant — and stress-free — visit. You’ll have less plaque (and less scraping), your gums won’t bleed, and you’ll spend less time in the chair.

But more imporant, you’ll leave the dentist’s office feeling happy about your visit and your dentist — someone who is your partner in maintaining good oral health, not Satan.

“We don’t have an epidemic of heart disease in this country,” he said. “We have an epidemic of breathing disease.”

You could call that a “breathtaking” statement in itself. It certainly resonated with someone for whom-as a stage actor-breathing and breath control were central to my art. What the teacher was saying was that, typically, our heart isn’t given enough oxygen because of poor breathing habits. A heart continually deprived of an adequate supply of oxygen will naturally fare poorly over time. Interestingly, the same careless breathing habits will negatively affect your performance as a public speaker.

Why? Well, an interesting fact about public speaking is that breathing for speech is different from breathing for life. The latter is sometimes known as “vegetative breathing,” meaning that it is passive and not aimed consciously at a goal. In speech, however, breath not only is the energizing force which powers our vocal cords. It must also be controlled to achieve the effects a speaker desires. Chief among these is sustaining the sound, since in English the most important words-the ones that need to be “punched”-usually come at the end of a phrase or sentence.

This means that as speakers, we use controlled exhalation that is much longer than the “quick in and out” inhalation-exhalation cycle of breathing for life. We must control our exhalation, and that means taking full breaths that form the reservoir of air that powers our speech. Speakers therefore must breathe more deeply than in everyday vegetative breathing. This is often a particular challenge in public speaking, when self-consciousness and adrenaline are enticing us to breathe shallowly and rapidly.

Getting a full reservoir of air that allows us to sustain our vocalization is only one benefit to slower, deeper, relaxed breathing for speech. A full rush of air that fills our lungs actually slows our heart down, calming and centering us. Try this exercise yourself: Get a baseline pulse rate at your wrist, then take a huge intake of air, pause for a few seconds, then “whoosh” it all out in a big exhalation. You should feel a distinct slowing on your pulse rate in the first few seconds afterwards.

Another reason to breathe fully and deeply is that it oxygenates our brain. And the brain needs this precious fuel oxygen if it is to function at top efficiency. In the speech environment where thinking on one’s feet is paramount, this is no small benefit. So, try some relaxation exercises–lying down or sitting, it really doesn’t matter–that teach you to breathe slowly and more deeply. You’ll feel good, and you’ll be more centered and ready to speak. Equally important, you’ll look good by avoiding a “caved in” appearance. Best of all, you’ll be able to vocally support your crucial points as you talk.