Al Gore: another presenter extraordinaire?

The prospect of watching a former Vice-President of the United States give a "PowerPoint presentation" probably does not sound too exciting. If I told you that the VP was Al Gore and his presentation was on (yawn) global warming, that may not help peak your excitement much. "Sounds boring" you'd say. But you'd be wrong. From everything I've read and seen -- and from what people keep telling me for months now -- Al Gore's touring "PowerPoint presentation" on global warming is not to be missed. A serious presentation that's got the three key elements: (1) A crucially important (and controversial) topic, (2) an engaging delivery, and (3) visuals that are compelling, stunning and backup, and enhance the message.

"I have PowerPoint envy"
After witnessing Al Gore's live presentation in Seattle earlier this spring (not the movie), Eric de Place from Northwest Environment Watch exclaimed: "I have PowerPoint Envy." Mr. de Place, like so many other people who first see slideware used without bullet points was amazed.

"[Al Gore's] slideshow was easily the best slideshow I've ever seen on this, or any other, subject, but Gore himself was a study in mastery--at once funny and earnest, erudite and thundering. (Where was this guy during the 2000 campaign?)"

                                       -- Eric de Place

Al Gore's presentation is so good, so compelling, that they made a movie about it. A movie that is essentially an Al Gore presentation with solid, simple use of multimedia. What a concept -- who the heck thought *that* would be interesting? But it is.

"A movie about Al Gore giving a PowerPoint presentation about global warming doesn’t sound all that exciting, but if you liked “March of the Penguins,” you’ll love “An Inconvenient Truth.”

                                         -- Eleanor Clift, Newsweek

Al Gore's presentation style
Newsweek's Eleanor Clift says Gore's style is much different than the stiff speech-maker we saw in 2000. "He seems more approachable, and he’s a first-rate teacher as he explains in “An Inconvenient Truth” about the inescapable march of global warming, along with its consequences, that first captured his imagination as a college student."

Commenting on Gore's presentation, master presenter Lawerance Lessig sums it up this way: "Facts, reason and a bit of persuasion." Three important ingredients for any successful presentation. Based on this older video of Al Gore's global warming presentation, the only thing I'd like to see him do better is to not look back at the screen so much. But I assume he has gotten better at this since he has been presenting nonstop for the past couple of years.

Three things stand out about Al Gore's presentation:
(1) He looks relaxed, like he's in his realm. It's a serious issue, and he is serious, yet he's a pleasure to watch and listen to. Where was this guy in 2000 indeed.

(2) The technology is transparent to the audience, as it should be. He's got to be the only 50-something politician (former politician?) who can actually use slideware without stinking up the place.

(3) His slide images are photographic imagery of high quality. The design of the visuals are powerful yet complementary and subordinate to Gore and his message (though in many ways, the visuals are the message in this instance; certainly the visuals are crucial to his case).

   
Above: Al Gore gets naked, front and center and makes a connection with the audience. The large screen behind him is impressive and the images are important, but it is the person and the message that take center stage.

   
Above: Al Gore makes good use of visuals to help him make his points and tell his story.

"It is one freaking incredible PowerPoint presentation, let us tell you. We've never seen better. Gore claims to have given his "slideshow" over 1,000 times, and the way he handles the remote, it shows."                                                                                                          -- Michael van Baker, Seattlest.com

Spreading the idea virus
Seth Godin says that the more people who know about your idea, the more powerful it becomes (See Seth's slides here, here and here on this issue). So, I would like to see Gore put together a presentation kit which includes video, high-quality images, etc. that individuals and community groups can obtain (preferably via the web) so that they may give similar presentations themselves in schools, associations, etc. All slides would contain a script or key points in the notes view and the kit should contain an updated takeaway. Sure, they can sell the DVD of the movie and people can show that, but it's more effective if people can interact with a real person in a live presentation setting. Come on Al, unleash this presentation to the masses and let others get out there and make the presentation too. (Note: I have just heard that Gore may be training 1000 people to make similar presentations. True? I'd offer my services for free to help train a group of scientists to do something similar to what Al Gore,a lay person, has done.)

"Even if you want to reject the argument, understand it first."

                 -- Lawrence Lessig on "An Inconvenient Truth"

See this film ASAP and spread the word
This is important. Look, I know you may not agree with Al Gore's beliefs, but this is not a political issue (at least it shouldn't be). And even if you want to refute the contents of the presentation/film, shouldn't you see it first? If you are in agreement with Gore on this issue, then spread the word -- wake the kids and call the neighbors -- this is an important film. See this film and you get to see a well designed and delivered presentation sans bullet points, and you may just learn a thing or two about how to save the planet as well. What could be more important?

Links
• Inconvenient Truth website, Climate Crisis.net
• See the trailer on Apple's site
• Al Gore takes Cannes by storm
• 2004 Al Gore global warming presentation
• Nike teaches kids about Earth being a closed system. Yet, why can't FoxNews get an expert who knows Earth is a closed system?
• So much for this being a non-political issue. The Competitive Enterprise Institute made TV spots that would make Saturday Night Live proud -- except they are not kidding. "Carbon Dioxide: They call it pollution. We call it life" they say. How's that for a non sequitur? The 60-second spot on glaciers has been rebuked by the same scientist they used to support their claims that the ice sheets are actually increasing, not decreasing. What would these people have told the crew of Apollo 13? "Relax guys, that CO2 building up is not smoke or pollution, in fact, we call it life." Whoa.

Notes
• Gore, who is a long-time Mac user and sits on the Apple Board, uses a PowerBook for his presentations and is probably using Keynote, but it doesn't really matter. The only advantage to Keynote is the lower cost, ease of use, smoother dissolves and fades, real drop shadows, etc. PowerPoint or other software would work fine as well.

• The trailer for "Inconvenient Truth" (and the website too) is just a bit over the top and may smack of "fear mongering" to some, or at least overly hyped. This is after all a documentary, not Hollywood fiction. Maybe that's what it takes to get people to see a film these days. But surely some will see the trailer and dismiss the documentary as hyperbole. The Gore presentations themselves appear to be impassioned, but also reasonable, logical and persuasive without the hype.

Comments

[Frank Patrick]

Note - Everyone keeps referring to Gore's PowerPoint presentation, while, as a member of Apple's Board and as a politico who's aware of superior technology, I believe it's probably a Keynote presentation.

[Frank Patrick]

whoops - didn't get down to the bottom of the piece where the notes mention the possibility of the use of Keynote - http://www.apple.com/iwork/keynote/

[ming666]

savagely ironic that the presentation is about CO2 emmissions and their effect upon the environment and the resulting climate change. what is the carbon cost for delivering this presentation in person around the world? hasn't he heard of webex? i mean after all he created the internet.

[Stephen]

Actually, carbon dioxide is life: without it the planet would be too cold to support life.

See The Real Inconvenient Truth: http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

And no, I don't need to hear Al Gore; since every medium seems to be in accord on this issue, I think I've heard quite enough about it. I'd rather see someone make a case for the truth in a big-budget motion picture. Unfortunately I doubt even Michael Crichton could swing a film version of "State of Fear".

[Jay Reding]

First of all, I agree - Gore's presentation skills are incredible. It's a very well packaged presentation, and Gore is far more natural then I'd ever seen him before. I was quite impressed by the technical and rhetorical fluency he displayed.

However, his evidence is bunk. To borrow from Cicero, the "oratio" was there, but the "ratio" was not. Gore uses selective evidence, misleading statistics, and rhetoric which is designed to frighten people into believing something that is scientifically unproven. There's plenty of evidence that the overall average temperatures are increasing slightly. There's precious little evidence that proves mankind is the cause. In fact, satellite observations have shown that the average temperatures on Mars are also increasing (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_ice-age_031208.html ), which suggests that solar activity is a significant factor in the current warming trend.

The arguments that there is some kind of "scientific consensus" on global warming are false. Science is not based on consensus at all, it is based on reproducible real-world results. While Gore's presentation skills are excellent and the presentation of his argument is supurb, it doesn't change the fact that the argument itself only presents one side of the issue.

Still, if you have the chance to see Gore's presentation, it is quite interesting just for the way in which the argument is presented.

[Dan Blomquist]

I have to agree with Jay.
I recently attended a conference in Las Vegas (sorry, I know I contributed to the CO2 levels). While in that conference I struck up a conversation with a gentleman seated next to me. He was from the National Weather Service. I asked him what he thinks of Global warming. His response (paraphrased) : Numerous studies have been done and none of them are conclusive on either side of the issue. I believe we are really in the midst of another cycle where the Earth is slowly warming. Eventually this cycle will reverse to a cooling period.

I tend to agree with this guy and we also agreed on another matter. Since we really don't know, it does not hurt to be careful. After all we can't be doing Good by pumping chemicals into the air.

[Sean Fousheé]

You've got me interested, not in the global warming topic as I agree with Dan and Jay above, but in Gore's skilled delivery. I'm always looking for examples of slick presentation to fold into my own, but is this worth taking a few hours out of my work day to go see just on his presentation skills alone?

[Ted Boda]

Al Gore's presentation was in fact using Apple's Keynote presentation software (the same software Steve Jobs presents from) and did so for a number of reasons. As a designer for the presentation Keynote was the first choice to help create such an engaging presentation.

Apple's Keynote anti-aliases its fonts and graphics, scales vector objects and supports QuickTime videos easily and without any plug-ins. Duarte used a combination of Keynote's graphics and graph tools, Illustrator, Photoshop, AfterEffects (for more complex animations) and dropped in numerous videos from different sources to complete his presentation. Some of the videos dropped were up to 1920x1080 (HD), they played and scaled extremely well and was something our team could not even begin to think about doing in PowerPoint.

[Jay Reding]

I don't know if I'd pay to see Gore's movie. (I almost never go to movies in the theatre these days as it is.) However, it would most certainly be worth a rental or a Netflix when it comes out on DVD - which I'd imagine would be fairly soon. Then again, I've only seen Gore's speech live, I haven't seen the movie yet.

Gore is selectively using evidence, to be sure, and he has admitted so. However, if you do have a chance to see one of his presentations, yes, it would be worth seeing how everything fits together.

And yes, Keynote is quite easily the best presentation software ever made - light years ahead of PowerPoint, and the iWork suite is, IMHO, well worth the money. In fact, I'd argue that Keynote itself would be worth the $79 cost. (Provided, of course, that you already own a Mac - and why don't you?)

[kathryn]

Note: I have just heard that Gore may be training 1000 people to make similar presentations. True? I'd offer my services for free to help train a group of scientists to do something similar to what Al Gore,a lay person, has done.

True. He said so last night in New York City at a Wired event in Town Hall, and said this decision was influenced by many conversations he had with Lawrence Lessig.

[Jeremy Dunck]

The link to the Fox News segment on YouTube is now dead.

[Matt Cline]

Sounds like a pretty killer presentation.

But "not a political issue"? C'mon, Garr. You can't really be that naive.

From an interview with Grist magazine, Gore admits to "over-representation":

"Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis."

http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/05/09/roberts/

[Vladimir Orlt]

Where was this guy in 2000? Well, over 1/2 of the US population voted for him...

He was a politician... mucn more constrained than in his new 'non-politician' role... perhaps he can be more effective as the latter at a grass-roots level.

[Wadard]

I wrote a counter ad to the CEI propaganda that I am pleased with :::[They call it a spot, we call it a stain (http://globalwarmingwatch.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_globalwarmingwatch_archive.html)] It is my way of combating their lies so, if you like it, link it to help fight the good fight.

[john]

REVIEW OF GORE'S BORE

Al Gore may turn out to be like Richard Nixon, as some are predicting, by running again in 2008, but Nixon was never this phony
http://www.jamesbowman.net/reviewDetail.asp?pubID=1717

[Heidi Miller]

Garr, I was fascinated by your article (and now I really want to see this presentation for myself!), but even more so by the comments to it. Isn't it amazing how difficult it is to separate content from delivery? Despite your excellent job of commenting only on Gore's delivery and presentation skills, many of your readers couldn't resist commenting on the political content one way or the other.

But then, the task of any good presenter is indeed to incite an emotional response from his audience, so perhaps the comments aren't all that unusual. Since I haven't seen it yet or checked the facts either way, I really can't say. Just an observation.

[Stephen]

Heidi, how is the following an "excellent job of commenting only on Gore's delivery and presentation skills"?

See this film ASAP and spread the word
This is important. Look, I know you may not agree with Al Gore's beliefs, but this is not a political issue (at least it shouldn't be). And even if you want to refute the contents of the presentation/film, shouldn't you see it first? If you are in agreement with Gore on this issue, then spread the word -- wake the kids and call the neighbors -- this is an important film. See this film and you get to see a well designed and delivered presentation sans bullet points, and you may just learn a thing or two about how to save the planet as well. What could be more important?

Did you read a different post to the rest of us? Seems Garr was the first to bring in the political content: we simply responded to that.

[Allan White]

Not only is Keynote used, it's the star of the show:

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/articles/2006/05/inconvenienttruth/

I get the impression from the article that he's playing back HD videos inside of Keynote - something I have not been able to acheive on current hardware. I'd love to see if a.) that is true, and b.) how they did it if so.

I'd really like to see his charts, and hold them up to Tufte's ideals.

[linus]

I am worried that many who read this blog are more moved by presentation skills than facts and reason. That is, many readers are more inclined to value a “good” presentation more than the facts that need to be attended to in order to move forward. (The fact that this may be true of humanity in general, but does not mean we should use this to manipulate others.)

As a scientist who is not convinced that the data we have collected to date speaks clearly to what if anything should or can be done about global warming, I find this blog’s recent tone on this topic disheartening. Many are jumping on board after hearing a “good” tale.

I am not sure that Mr. Gore has a solid grasp of all the facts. As one who is active in this field and spent the seven dollars to see his pitch, I can say he has not changed from is days as a senator. He presented his case well. The key point here that he presented his case (controlled the message and did not have to deal with a rebuttal). The case was ideological in nature. Science is not about presenting cases, it’s about testing hypotheses. He selectively used facts to evoke an emotional response.

The rumor presented here that he is looking to recruit presenters to spread this message should terrify a rational person. This smacks of evangelization - a religious practice not a scientific process.

Science is a discipline that demands intellectual rigor. It is frightening that people who did not have the capacity (ability or will) to study the hard sciences suddenly become experts. More specifically, I do not recall reading that Mr. Gore earned a doctorate (or a masters) in the sciences. Mr. Gore is NOT a scientist. He is just playing one on the screen (pretending). He has played politics his entire career. He has used his NOVA length (60minutes) attention span for the sciences to dupe others into thinking he actually understands the hard sciences. His failure in his presidential bid should caution those who are so willing to believe his new message. In summary, I think Mr. Gore is a fraud who is polluting the real study and dialogue that needs to occur on this issue.

[margie meares]

I just stumbled in to this conversation and I want to add a thought. I agree that Al Gore is not a scientist but I don't believe he claims to be one. I am also not a scientist nor do I claim to be one. I am an advocate for clean air and for doing something individually and collectively to stem the tide of greenhouse gases pouring into our atmosphere. I am a well educated layman. My point is this, I believe we are facing a crisis which the scientist are not going to solve. If this problem is to be solved it will be the people, the governments, the corporations, the whole of humanity that will change behaviors to solve this. I think Al Gore is operating from the same motive I operate from which is that I see this as a very real problem that will be harder to solve the longer we wait. I am glad to hear that his presentation is well done. I am counting days until the movie arrives. I would very much like to be one of those 1000 people he trains. Final point, every time we discover that something we are doing is causing harm - those who profit from that thing and many many others remain skeptical for a long time. But eventually the truth wins out. There are predicted crises that do not materialize like Y2K. But there are others that are very real - news flash cigarettes cause cancer and lung disease. CFC's destroy startosperic ozone. OK that was really all - Gore is right and I hope we mobilize the will to avert the crisis.

[margie meares]

Major Typo - That word should have been "stratospheric". Sorry about that.

[Vladimir Orlt]

"If I told you that the VP was Al Gore and his presentation was on (yawn) global warming, that may not help peak your excitement much. "Sounds boring" you'd say"

Don't worry, global warming will get real exciting in a couple of decades... esp. if you live near the ocean.

[bjorn]

margie meares ... the key word is "believe" in your statement ... it is time to look at the facts and not jump around ... the global temp is NOT outside of the normal range for Earth ... the level of CO2 gases is NOT outside of historical records ... the weather patterns are NOT outside of histrocal records ... the ocean levels are NOT outside of histrocal levels ...

Accepting for a minute the hysteria assoicated with the claim we have global warming at a material level, the consequences of global warming are far from clear. The consequences being unclear leave little reason for hype ...

[John]

Still waiting for that peer-reviewed (read non-industry funded) scientific journal article supporting the view that man is not the major cause of this 'atmosphere cancer', commonly referred to as Global Warming. So far the tally is 928 to 0.

Please don't skew the relevant argument. The cause for concern is the highly abnormal and unprecedented RATE of change. A similar type of change did occur some 250 million years ago and 90% of the world's species went extinct within less than a million years.

The effects of global warming are being compounded every year and are increasing exponentially. Unfortunately, most of us humans are conditioned to think linearly instead of exponentially. For example, if you agree to give me a penny a day and then double the amount each day for 30 days - would you believe at the end of the month it would be over $10 Million dollars?

[Andrew B]

Stephen quoted, "I believe we are really in the midst of another cycle where the Earth is slowly warming. Eventually this cycle will reverse to a cooling period."

ming666 said, "Actually, carbon dioxide is life: without it the planet would be too cold to support life."

Were you not listening to the presentation?!
Scientists have recorded the temperature of OUR planet going back 700 thousand years, the temperature had a few slight increases only 3 times, and they were quite minimal. Right now we are having THE HIGHEST TEMPERATURES EVER, and they are going WAY UP.. remember when he had to use the cherrypicker to show how the data is off the charts?? Yes CO2 supports life, we are carbon based life forms, but when CO2 increases to the point where the Earth's average temperature is 180 degrees, what are you going to say then?

It never ceases to amaze me, that no matter how much you disprove someone's argument, all they want to do is be a cheerleader for their "Right" side, nevermind the actual FACTS and DATA!! They just want to root for their football team and call it a day.. Well my friend, the times are a-changing..
and if you don't help the change, we're all going to freaking die, now is that enough of a wakeup call for you.. Or do you want me to hold your hands and show you the movie again?!