I wrote my first speech for pay in 1976: five minutes of remarks to kick off a local American Bicentennial celebration. It was a great first assignment--all that symbolism, patriotism and party atmosphere to work with--and I was pretty proud of the job I did. But even if Peggy Noonan had written that speech, the local Bicentennial committee sure as heck wasn't going to let a county official just stand up and recite it. The event demanded more. So my carefully crafted remarks were preceded by a drum-and-fife band performance, accompanied by the raising of a huge 1776 American flag, and followed by a barrage of fireworks.
Seeing Synergy
I look back on it all as a bit much, but the total effect was stirring. The music, the flag and the pyrotechnics gave life to the images in the speech, and in turn the speech provided a context for all that color, sound and excitement. Sure, I knew from years of watching educational filmstrips and TV commercials that people listen more attentively and retain the message longer if you link pictures to words. But standing in that crowd on that July 4th afternoon, I saw the synergy firsthand, clearly saw the writer's role in that synergy, and liked it. Which is why I've pursued scriptwriting as well as speechwriting and over the years have penned as many scripts for video and film programs and live events as I have speeches.
And why I welcome the advent of presentation software like Corel Presentations J and Microsoft PowerPoint7 .
Here to Stay
These are powerful tools. Unfortunately, like a teenager's cologne, they're too often misused, even abused, and suffer a pretty low-brow reputation among many otherwise open-minded and creative speechwriters. Nonetheless, powerpoint has entered the public speaking lexicon and having a powerpoint presentation is virtually pro forma for anyone who conducts a briefing or stands up in front of a conference, meeting or seminar.
This isn't going to change. It's the now and future we all have to live with and work in, and the best we can do is learn how to design presentations the right way and avoid the mistakes that give presentation software a bad name. Luckily, it's not that difficult.
Thinking Beyond Words
The hardest part is abandoning the view that a presentation is a speech. It's not. And if it's any good, a presentation isn't simply a speech accompanied by pictures, either. Or a set of slides explained with words. A presentation is a medium comprised of three elements--speaker, words and pictures--all of which have equal roles in conveying the message.
Speechwriters know the first two elements. The synergy between speaker and spoken word is territory we know. But where do visuals fit in?
The typical answers--both bad--are:
1. The visuals reiterate the speech. This is the ubiquitous cue card approach, in which the slides are little more than an outline of the speech and the role of the speaker is to recite to the audience what they can read for themselves.
2. The speech reiterates the visuals. This is the viewgraph approach. A series of charts and graphs provide the core information, and the role of the speaker is to point out to the audience what they can see for themselves.
The flaw with both approaches is that although they incorporate two media--the spoken word and visuals--both media are broadcasting on the same channel. They're both communicating literally. The slides, which should be adding a complementary and uniquely visual dimension to the speech, are just tagging along. In musical terms, instead of creating a two-part harmony, the speech and the visuals are playing the same melody.
There's a logical explanation for so many presenters falling into this trap. Most business and government folks live in a world of emails, letters, reports, articles, and memoranda. They communicate almost exclusively with words and, except for using charts and graphs, they never become adept at visual communication, or even learn to trust it. Where the creative director of an ad agency will use a photograph of a curvy woman holding a martini glass, perhaps with a single short phrase, to sell a new vodka, most presenters would rely on a photograph of the bottle and a paragraph about the vodka's smooth taste. This despite the fact that, outside of work, these presenters respond to the same visual cues on TV, in magazines and on the big screen, that we all do.
The trick, then, is for those of us who write speeches and design presentations to convince our clients that a visual can be more than a prop. It can communicate a thousand words in its own way, and that when a visual is on screen you don't have to say those thousand words in order for the audience to understand.
Developing Literal-Visual Harmony
I offer a simple example. Here's a slide that a CEO sent me for inclusion in his presentation at an annual sales meeting:
It's a cue card. As soon as it pops into view, the audience is going to start reading and stop paying full attention to what the CEO is saying. Worse, they are going to read ahead of him and end up anticipating everything he's going to say. As a result, the speaker, who should be the Star of the Moment, is rendered superfluous. Plus, the cue card is visually a dud.
Here's the replacement slide I created:
The theme of the annual meeting was sports. So I substituted sports images for the bullet points and, using the presentation software's animation features, synchronized the appearance of each graphic with the text of the speech. As the CEO begins to talk about "reinforcing our position with current customers," the football front line appears. He doesn't say "We have to work together like the front line of a football offense." He lets the visual speak for itself.
Instantly, the audience has to think. They have to look as well as listen in order to link the image with the words. It's a Classic Communications Double WhammyCengaging more than one sense to increase impact and retention. It's what makes TV advertising so effective. Writers will recognize that all I've done is employ visual versions of two devices that always make a speech more interesting: analogy and metaphor.
Just as important, the speaker is no longer sidelined by his own slides or relegated to the role of spoonfeeder. What he's saying doesn't reiterate what the audience is seeing. What the audience is seeing doesn't reiterate what he's saying. As a result, he's center stage, as he should be, controlling the flow of the message and getting bonus points for creativity, humor and entertainment value.
What About the Take-Away?
Speakers often distribute "handout" copies of their presentations so that meeting participants can refer to them later. At technical conferences, presentations are typically published as part of the proceedings. That brings up the question: What good will it do anyone to have a printout of slides showing nothing but unlabeled graphics?
The answer: not much. That's why it's important to prepare a separate handout version of the presentation. Here's the handout version of the sports-theme slide:
Notice that it reinforces both the information in the speech and the impact of the original visual images. And it took only a few minutes to do.
Not all presentations require drum-and-fife bands, flag raisings and fireworks. But today's visually sophisticated audiences demand more than just words. As a result, our clients are looking to us for more than just speeches, and it's fallen on us to not only make our clients sound good but look good as well.
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About the Author
Robert Ausura has been writing speeches, scripts and presentations for thirty years and is a recognized master at creating visually exciting PowerPoint shows for meetings, conferences and briefings. His clients include Fortune 500 companies, Federal agencies, associations and media producers, and many have been using his services for a fifteen or more years. Robert’s website (www.robertwriting.com) offers a number of resources for apprentice and journeyman writers alike, and he’s always glad to give new writers advice and guidance.
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