Categories
fun Presentation social media

The Days of Talking Heads Are Nearly Over

I ♥ David Byrne.

I even ♥ David Byrne’s “I ♥ PowerPoint.”

Really, I do.

But the days of the Talking Heads are over.

I’m not talking about the band. I’m talking TV. And presenters. And presentations.

We have social media to thank.

I ♥log
Creative Commons License photo credit: andyket

Interactive presentations are in.

Authoritative anchors reading dispassionately from teleprompters are out.

Teachers and professors lecturing from on high? Also on the way out.

Note your TV news shows asking, “What do you think? Talk back. Send us your video. Talk to us at Twitter. Comment on our blog….”

Walter Cronkite, bless his trusted soul, didn’t ply his trade in an era of interactivity. He was a talking head, appropriate for the decades he served. A deep authoritative voice coupled with a kind-looking face served him well in his time.

Today, Jon Stewart is the most trusted man in TV news. Well, not really. People just voted him as the most trusted newscaster.

In an online poll.

By Time Magazine.

See what I mean? Online polls. Talking back. Old-school journalism meets citizen journalism. Opinions. Interactivity. It’s all the rage.

Burning down the house. Last week, Stewart jokingly called his second-place poll rival (TV news anchor Brian Williams) a “teleprompter monkey.”

Does that make the new style of news anchor, a “hyper-interactive monkey?”

And how are you using social media to make your presentations more interactive, compelling, and contemporary?