The following comes from TJ Walker’s upcoming book “The Wisdom of Your Audience”. Consistently, the worst advice speakers and presenters get, comes from everyone who is NOT your audience. The following gives examples of some of the WORST advice people are often given. It is followed by the advice of your audience. Listen to them. They are your true judge and jury.

Should I use special effects in my PowerPoint?

Your Corporate Communications Director: “This is the MTV generation. Of course we have to have special effects. Get with it!”

Your Director of Marketing: “Yes you need some special effects and music. In fact, this will be the perfect time to unveil our new TV advertising campaign.”

You: “Wow, if I could have some eye-popping special effects, that will really make my presentation sizzle. This will also take the spotlight off of me and make my whole speech go down better.”

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Your Audience: “Do you have any idea how many chumps we’ve seen standing in front of us apologizing for their audio or video not working in their presentation? Or worse, they have some PowerPoint page flying in from the top and then dissolving at the bottom like we’re going to be impressed. You know who impresses us? Steven Spielberg impresses us. George Lucas impresses us. You and your special effects in a PowerPoint don’t impress us. Do you know what would impress us? That’s if you actually prepared something interesting to say and then you said it, rather than wasting 15 hours preparing some cheap special effect gimmick that probably won’t even work.”