A message and its channel

Those of us who want a message to come across in a public speech, may just need two things:

1. A great message in the first place.


2. Some rock-solid presentation skills.

Nowadays, more often than not we see a slight bias towards No. 2 at the price of No. 1. And this is not just with the Toastmasters among us whose job it is to specifically not care too much about the point to make but instead about how to get it across.

But sometimes we can still witness a performance that concentrates on the message without caring much about the outer style. Like with Dean Ornish. At TED, even. Where the strongest part of his visual aids is this:



Which is an interesting variation of a well-established visual pattern. Most else he presents is bullet points. Which are some perfect food for the theory that PowerPoint makes you dumb, which we've all been knowing for a while now. But Señor Dean has a point to make. About something which is rarely talked about in a well-respected environment: obesity and how it's trying hard to hit us all.

This may be the first generation in which children lead a shorter life span than their parents

Which is, interestingly enough, a topic that was just picked up again some four years later: at this year's TED. Not by anybody, that is. But by Jamie Oliver:



Same topic. Stronger, but still weak, presentation style. Higher celebrity status.

Given that obesity and all risks it caries along are a worthy area of interest, this opens up an interesting question: does a really great message need less rock-solid presentation skills than a mere ordinary topic to be perceived just as well?