According to the winner of last year's "World's best presentation contest " on Slideshare "25% of Chinese population with highest IQ's is greater than population of North America" and "China will soon become the number 1 English speaking country in the World" which means that "shift happens" (that was SHIFT). There are plenty ofother intersting facts manipulated from different ways of looking at figures and lots of fans (635k plus views and over 60k downloads) and cynics commenting on their take on the presentation but I think what makes the contest and the past winners and current entries more interesting is to observe what make a great presentation.
Agencies often moan about having to send over presentations or talking them through over the phone and this is often completely legitimate as they want the chance to say their piece and passionately sell their work but it is a great discipline to get into when you must make the presentation sell itself using words, pictures and designs and a lot of these presentations do it fantastically (see meet Henry)
I think far too many agencies have great intentions when it comes to planning big presentations or pitches and fall back on lame Powerpoint (see Death by Powerpoint ) and this contest proves that a lot can be communicated with "a good story well told".
Although when it comes on to the actual presentation we must always remember the rest of Mark Twain's quote "....that is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself"