Use PowerPoint Visuals, Not Bullets – What the World Eats
Are you still annoying your audience with boring slide after boring slide?
Break free from PowerPoint bullets!
Learn from photojournalists — tell stories with visuals, and your audience will love you.
A Visual Feast — What the World Eats
This article is inspired by a captivating photo essay from Time magazine titled: What the World Eats.
The photo essay is based on the remarkable book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio.
Among the families, we meet the Mellanders, a German household of five who enjoy cinnamon rolls, chocolate croissants, and beef roulades, and whose weekly food expenses amount to $500. We also encounter the Natomos of Mali, a family of one husband, his two wives, and their nine children, whose corn and millet-based diet costs $26.39 weekly.
Captivating contrasts, indeed!
How Would You Present this with PowerPoint?
Suppose you wanted to discuss the contrasts in your next speech.
How would you do it?
- Would you present a series of boring text slides?
- Would you prove your conformity and lack of originality by using one of the stock PowerPoint templates?
- Would you read the slides aloud to your audience?

Or…
- Would you use a series of visuals?
- Would use maximize the photos to run from edge to edge?
- Would you punctuate the visuals by sharing real stories about the families?

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Oleg K. — May 1st, 2008
Excellent point and one to remember for the future. I appreciate that you showed an example.
Though some presentation are more agreeable to photographs than others, one can certainly put some creativity into figuring out how to visually represent dry academic subjects. I can see from your post that the extra time spent may be worth it.
Andrew Dlugan — May 3rd, 2008
Good point, Oleg.
The slides and bullets may convey the facts, but the visuals in this case convey the story of these people much more dramatically.
Kaushik — May 27th, 2008
Well said. This is one of the keypoints Garr Reynolds emphasizes on. His slides you have posted in a previous entry shouts out this truth. Its just not fair to bury your audience with the weight of figures and facts. Visually enhanced slides achieve the desired result in a much more pleasing and appealing way.
Michael Gerharz @praesentieren — Jun 17th, 2008
Sehr schöner Vorher-Nachher-Vergleich in Andrew Dlugans Six-Minutes-Blog: http://tinyurl.com/5wyudr
brett161 @brett161 — Jan 27th, 2010
Excellent example of getting rid of bullet points and using visuals instead. RT @6minutes http://bit.ly/cXS4d #powerpoint #presentations
Tobie Halliburton @trhalliburton — Feb 9th, 2010
Checking out info here: http://bit.ly/awGYg0
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