Ethos Public Relations Manchester

The age of PowerPoint?

by Sean

Today I was present when Vince Cable MP, Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor, addressed Co-operatives 2009 in Old Windsor.

The annual conference of the co-operative sector is an important event, bringing together hundreds of co-operators to share information and learn from one another. Ethos public relations even led a presentation on marketing to a very appreciative audience. Like most of the presenters over the weekend we used a PowerPoint presentation to give the audience a visual representation of what we were saying.

Over the years I have sat through many hundreds of presentation and I am always glad when the slides are informative, colourful, the text is not too small and I prefer there not to be loads of unnecessary slides! So it was refreshing today to hear Vince Cable start his 'speech' with an apology for having no PowerPoint slides. He didn't need them. Obviously, in the House of Commons MPs use notes when making their contributions but Westminster is not the place for PowerPoint. Listening to Vince it reminded me of the power of a good speech and how it can help focus the mind on what is being said.

Posted at 3:54pm on 27^th June 2009