Chapter 9 How to illustrate your presentation

Opera is a narrative brought to life by music. There is a powerful simplicity to many operatic stories but it’s the music that gives them emotional complexity and makes them fly. Great visual aids, a little like the music in opera, can take your rhetoric and your argument to a higher level than if you simply rely on the spoken word (though opera lovers will probably shudder at this comparison). The one thing opera is not is understated. Nor should you be as a presenter. Those TED talks are all presentational arias and that’s why they work. It’s the same with blogs. In today’s world we’re into a short-form of engaging people.

Think of yourself ...

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