One of the things I point out in Ten Breakable Habits is that the slides are not the presentation, and if adding visuals doesn't improve your presentation, don't use them. 37signals founder (Basecamp, Campfire, Ruby on Rails, etc.) Jason Fried talked to me recently about his web applications business and about what he's learned about presentation delivery over the course of his career as an international speaker.
Here's how Jason describes his speaking style:
"Something I've started doing more recently is speaking without slides, or if I use slides, they are just pictures with few or no words. There's certainly nothing where I'm reading or anyone is reading off the screen. I have a set of ideas I like to use for topics and I just run with them and see where it goes. I much prefer the question and answer part of things anyway. I want to be prepared, but I don't want to over-prepare or think too hard about it. I avoid getting to a place where I'm thinking about what I wanted to say."
You can see the whole interview with Jason in today's TechRepublic article here.
Jason's third book REWORK is due out next month.
