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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.
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DATA HANDLING
