Preso Zen on Inconvenient Truth 2.0 beta
Yesterday, I blogged about Al Gore’s trial run of the latest version of his climate crisis talk. Presentation Zen has an analysis, with additional links to Duarte Design.
In general, PZ found it warm and funny, but gave two pointers:
- never apologize for not being prepared — not sure if I buy this. While telling your audience that you “cobbled it together” the night before might not be the most flattering thing to say, there’s no point in pretending that an unpolished presentation is more than it is. In the age of conversation and blogging, where the sharing of an idea is more important than production value, this kind of transparency, phrased more elegantly, might be a necessity. In Gore’s case, his presentation is known for its impossibly high level of polish, such that he couldn’t escape people noticing the current version’s lack of polish. What he could have done is set it up as a sneak peek into a work-in-progress.
- never turn your back on an audience — this is interesting. I could swear that, in the movie, we frequently see Gore turning to look at the slide. I’m not sure if this should be characterized as turning your back on an audience or as joining your audience in looking at the slide. When pointing out particular sections of a slide (points on a map, inflection curves on a graph), it seems more engaging to face the slide with your audience and use hand gestures than to continue facing the audience and look down at a monitor as you move the cursor around. Also, the body language which communicates that the slide is the center of attention and not the speaker strikes me as management of the audience’s attention and is in keeping with Gore’s concerns about the state of our respect for science.
Small nits to pick. I love Presentation Zen and hope some day that someone returns one of the three copies of their book that I’ve bought and loaned out.
