Another alternative is to press the "B" on your keyboard to temporarily blank the PowerPoint screen, which puts all of the attention on you. With undivided attention, tell a meaningful story about the issue, dramatizing the critical need to adopt your plan or idea. Then press "B" again, and use your slides to continue making your case.

Another colleague, Cliff Atkinson, who wrote Beyond Bullet Points, suggests taking most of your bullets off the slides entirely. Instead, put them into your Notes. You can use the notes for your own preparation, but by leaving just images on the slides you can deliver a polished talk that has a lot more impact; you won't be reading the bullets (guaranteed Death by PowerPoint) and neither will the audience (who can become distracted).

If you need accountability for your ideas, use handouts of your notes (in Word or PDF), but leave the visuals as your main material for the actual presentation, says Atkinson.

There are other excellent resources. At Kathy Villella's site, PowerFrameworks, she posts downloadable animated diagrams that illustrate a multitude of relationships that you can customize with your own captions. (With her permission, several of her diagrams, some of them animated, are included in the template that accompanies this article.) When working with some of the PowerFrameworks, bear in mind that custom-animating them can be a bit tricky and involves grouping the text boxes that overlay the objects. This is best done after revising the text so the template slides that contain these diagrams have not been custom animated.

Graphics masters like Nancy Duarte and Julie Terberg have samples on their websites that can inspire any presenter to come up with a visual to show or dramatize a problem, its solution or just about any situation.

4) Animate to Communicate
Few stage plays begin with all the actors on stage. For the same reason, you shouldn't project a complicated slide or diagram as one complete unit. Besides the actors' egos and their need for an entrance, the fact is that no one can absorb a complex idea all at once. Introducing your important ideas sequentially lets them be absorbed more naturally. You can use the animation features of your presentation program to build your ideas a step at a time. Also, when you show a complex slide, the audience is distracted by trying to figure it out as you discuss it, so give it to them in stages as you talk about each concept.