Hans Rosling: Magician

As we spend some time this week exploring some truly bad Power Point presentations, it's refreshing to watch Hans Rosling mix key aspects of information and entertainment to create a very engaging presentation.

The first thing I noticed about Mr. Rosling is his energy. He's clearly passionate about his material, and takes steps to incorporate some humor into what can easily degenerate into a dry statistical lecture. Right out of the gate, that energy drew me in.

Rather than the standard bar graphs and pie charts, Mr. Rosling used circles of different sizes and colors distributed on the graph to represent the nations and regions of the world. He had clearly thought about the material, and how best to connect the audience to it. It caught my attention because it deviated from the norm, but when he began discussing growth and change of health and wealth, he had me hooked!

Mr. Rosling clearly understands the entertainment adage of "Show, don't tell." By conducting a fast slide show of the statistics year to year, he showed the change in nations health and wealth through movement on the screen. To complement, he also created energy in his commentary, making me, the viewer, sit up and take notice. He continued to "show" the statistics he was talking about, breaking up the world into regions, and regions into countries. The consistency and fluidity of his presentation was great, in that he spoke well enough to make his points, but kept the visual graphics moving at a pace that was engaging.

Often in Power Point presentations, I find myself racing ahead and reading the slides, but the pacing of this show kept my focus on Mr. Rosling, and allowed me to absorb what he was saying, not just what I was reading on the screen. I was really impressed with this discussion, and am going to strive in the future to incorporate some of the tips I've picked up by watching this magician in action.