Having done done this for a living
I know a few things about the presentation of Data to an audience.
The key was to sound authoritative with no fluffy edges. Often the lecture
would at least allow me to find out what I actually thought about Santa
Claus, Goya or Bauhaus furniture. However I often undermined my own case
when it was evident that I was changing my mind as the lecture progressed.
Those who returned the following academic year were confused in that
I had changed my mind yet again.
I was seldom seen out without visual aids, even when
they were unnecessary. This entire website is a testament to that. Even
when the rhetoric and the logic failed (and they did - Lord how they
did!), I could turn with a large gesture to a projected image which always
clinched the deal. Which deal was clinched was dependent on sensibility
of the listener. I made sure I had at my disposal perfectly crafted images,
charts or diagrams.
The audience who had been developing a suspicion that I was running out
of Gas or out of Sense, or both, saw the picture, and suspended disbelief.
You could hear their compliant sigh.That was sufficient for me. I never
aspired to Triumph.
Projected sequences
of images were even more successful because they battered the sceptical
into compliance. Delivering information beside a projected film was
better still. No matter how drab my schtick, the film was always
a pip, and I took full advantage of my physical proximity to its flickering
authority.
In later days the garish lure of Powerpoint gave the
profession of Information Presenter a bad name. The Wordsmiths
felt they could deploy the Visual. The audience stared at the spinning
barbers' poles, animated bunting and letters in motion with a gradual
sense of dizziness approaching nausea. I have been present at one Powerpoint
display at the University of Brighton when an entire screen devoted
to Assessment Criteria was alive with pulsing bullet points, beckoning
Victorian-style hands and Uppercase A, B, C and D executing a stately
square dance. The feeling experienced in the corridor afterwards was
like having hair lice at the same time as a Migraine.
This screen celebrates the Person as Conduit of Information
but also the visualiation of data. In many ways computers have made us
forget the intricate joys of the punched card which
could reveal all manner of saucy stuff if we had the hard-ware. Above
is a range of Men with Fingers and Sticks, drawing the viewer's attention
to their information. The Man from Remington Rand exercises his prerogative
with one finger jabbed into the copy while the other hand lingers in
his crotch. His expression is one of sheer bliss. Back will take you
to other concepts of the Narrator.
Chemistry Lesson
Be a Better Speaker, autocue 1955
Logistics for Generals of Industry 1950
Here's the Difference, the Demonstrator Points 1957
Keeping an Eye on Sales, Remington Rand May 1945
Ride 'Em Cowboy, Powers Adding Machines 1933
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