It does not matter whether you are trying to champion at a church or a school or a Fortune 100 company, you are probably going to use Power Point.

Power Point was developed by engineers as a tool to help them communicate with the marketing department—and vice versa. It is a remarkable tool because it allows very dense verbal communication. Yes, you could send a memo, but no one reads memos anymore. Companies need to communicate ever more quickly, but still with accuracy. Enter Power Point.

Power Point could be the most powerful tool on your computer. But it is not. Countless innovations fail because their champions use Power Point the way Microsoft wants them to, instead of the most effective way.

Communication is about persuading and negotiating with others to adopt your point of view, to help them understand why you are excited (or sad, or optimistic or whatever else you are.) If all you want to do is create a file of facts and figures, then cancel the meeting and send in a report.

Our brains have two sides. The right side is emotional, musical and moody. The left side is focused on dexterity, facts and hard data. When you show up to give a presentation, people want to use both side of their brain. So they use the right side to judge the way you talk, the way you dress and your body language. Often, people come to a conclusion about your presentation by the time you are on the second visual or even before. After that, it's often too late for your bullet points to do you much good.

You can wreck a communication process with lousy logic or unsupported facts, but you cannot complete it without emotion. Logic is not enough.

If everyone in the room agreed with you, you would not need to give a presentation, would you? You could save a lot of time by printing out a one-page project report and delivering it to each person. No, the reason we do presentations is to make a point, to sell one or more ideas.

If you believe in your idea, sell it. Make your point as hard as you can and achieve what you came to do. Your audience will thank you for it, because deep down, we all want to be sold.

1. Make yourself cue cards. Do not put them on the screen. Hold them in your hand. Now, you can use the cue cards to make sure you are saying what you came to say.

2. Create visuals that reinforce your words, not repeat them. Create visuals that demonstrate, with emotional proof, that what you are saying is true not just accurate.