Advice on how to take advantage of social media is everywhere — articles, blogs, webinars, podcasts, etc.

Of course, much of the interest in Facebook, Twitter and the like is being driven by younger people. The message to companies and other organizations is clear — communication has changed. Audiences want simple, understandable, interesting messages or they’ll tune you out. They also want their voice heard and they’ll use it no matter what you do or say.

Then why are so many people who are tuned into social media still giving the same horribly boring, non audience-focused PowerPoint (and Apple Keynote) presentations? How long will it be before Gen Yers, Xers, and even Baby Boomers revolt by walking out on or even refusing to attend speeches that bore them with bullet points?

Often when I tell people their speeches would be much better if they dumped all their bullets, sub bullets and sub sub bullets, they’re shocked. They’ve always done it that way. How else would they deliver messages if they couldn’t fill their slides with words?

The answer, simple but not easy, is to fill slides with visuals — pictures, charts, and graphs — while using a bare minimum of words.

Chances are, if your PowerPoint presentation can stand alone without you explaining it, you have too much information on your slides. Your audience will either start texting and checking emails, or fall asleep as you drone on and on.

Here are five steps to help you make your slides — and your presentation — more engaging:

1). Plan your content before you ever start working on the slides to go with it. When we start with PowerPoint we often aren’t clear about what our important, overlying messages are.

2). Don’t put your company name and other information on every slide. Besides being unnecessary and boring, it takes up important real estate that you can use for conveying your message.

3). Plan on preparing three different presentations instead of trying to accomplish all your goals with one. The first presentation is your slides: visual, colorful and interesting. The second is your notes page at the bottom of PowerPoint or Keynote. Here you put all the bullet points that would have appeared on your slides. Finally, if you need a leave-behind or want to give your audience more in-depth information, prepare a handout.

4). Write a short headline that states the main point of your slide. It’s best to use a full sentence with an action verb. This immediately lets the audience know what you’re trying to convey.

5). Most importantly, present information in small chunks rather than a data dump. This means using only one idea per slide. So if you have a list of five bullet points, it might be best to convey the information in five different visually focused slides, rather than trying to put it all on one.

Yes, this is harder and takes more time. But what’s the alternative? Wasting your time and the audience’s on a presentation that makes no impact whatsoever.

I think it’s encouraging that, according to the Wall Street Journal, the Federal Reserve and its chairman Ben Bernanke are working to become more open and communicative — not only with the media, but also with the American public. They may even decide to hold regular news conferences

Former Reserve chief Alan Greenspan prided himself on being as unclear as possible. In his 15 years on the job, he did only one on-the-record TV interview and rarely took questions after speeches. His hesitancy to communicate is understandable given that anything he said could cause a major earthquake in the markets.

But I wonder if this lack of clarity is also part of the problem. I doubt that very many people in this country, myself included, truly understand our economic system, let alone what caused the crisis we’re in and how the government plans to get us out of it. What people don’t understand they tend to distrust or ignore.

Earlier this year, lack of clear communication from the administration was one of the reasons President Obama had such a difficult time selling his recovery plans. Since then, the White House has been trying harder to keep us in the loop.

According the the WSJ, Bernanke said in an interview, “I think it’s important for the public to understand what is going on and to know that the government is trying to solve the problem. They should know we have a plan and a strategy.”

He’s right. The days of obfuscation are over. We need leaders who can explain to us in clear, simple terms — not economic gobbledygook — just what we’re in for.

I just came back from another conference. Ho hum. More mediocre presentations that sent me checking email on my iPhone for relief.

It’s not so much that the speakers were bad (some of them were), but their PowerPoint was awful. I’ve written about this before, and I’ve done presentations on the topic, but I just can’t understand how so many smart business and professional people can be so stupid about using visuals that aren’t really visual.

How can anyone actually think that a slide filled from top to bottom with words makes any positive impact? Granted, I’m less tolerant than most. In fact, I’ve become so intolerant that I can hardly stay in the same room with bad PowerPoint. It makes me want to scream.

I believe that it’s time for audiences everywhere to revolt. Stop the insanity. We’re wasting precious time and resources. When speakers turn on those nasty slides, get up and walk out of the room.  If only Obama had a bailout plan for those of us who have to suffer through bad PowerPoint.

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal’s chief of staff inferred that the reason his boss’s Democratic response speech got such bad reviews was because he followed the President. “It’s a challenge for anybody to follow Obama. The guy is one of the most gifted speakers of our generation,” said Timmy Teepell.

That’s probably true. The problem is, Jindal would have also looked bad following one of the least gifted speakers of our time, George W. Bush.

One pundit described the speech as “amateurish.” I agree. What’s surprising is that a state governor and someone thought to be the future of the Republican party could have performed so poorly.

Both the content and delivery were sub par. Yes, he told stories, but the stories were stupid and out of place. His arguments for less government were superficial and not the right message for the speech he was giving. He tried to be friendly and conversational, but it came across as forced. While the delivery got a bit better as he went along, much of it was sing song with repetitive, irritating gestures.

If Jindal aspires to run for national office, he’d better get some speech coaching.

It’s one thing for CEOs in the ivory tower to make PR blunders (for example, the big three automakers taking private jets to beg for money from Congress), but a CEO who is a former PR exec? What’s his excuse?

In January, 2008, Brian Tierney, CEO of The Philadelphia Inquirer demanded a 10% pay cut from employees. Meanwhile, four months later, his own salary went up 3% to $618,000. Then, around Christmas time, he got an even bigger boost — a 38% increase to $850,000.

Tierney spent 22 years in public relations and advertising before putting together the investment group that bought The Inquirer in 2006. For much of that time he ran his own firm. He represented high profile clients such as the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia. He was active in Republican politics, working on George Bush’s 2000 Presidential campaign and Sam Katz’s 2003 run for Philadelphia mayor. He even spoke at PRSAs International Conference in 2007.

Word got out about Tierney taking away money from his employees while lining his own pockets. How? His company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy over the weekend.

Now the not-so-savvy former PR exec has decided to give back his $232,000 pay raise. A spokesman said Tierney didn’t want the issue of his raise to become a “sideshow” to the filing.

Maybe that’s the kind of thing a so-called PR strategist should have thought about ahead of time.

Whether or not President Barack Obama can work miracles with the economy, health care, and all the other problems we’re facing, one thing we can all be happy about: once again we have a leader in the White House who knows how to communicate.

No matter what you thought about George Bush’s actions during the last eight years, you have to agree his way with words was often laughable and at times, embarrassing. Just Google “George Bushisms” and you’ll be reminded of some doozies, enough faux pas to fill 35 books offered on Amazon.com.

•    “Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?”
•    “They misunderestimated the compassion of our country. I think they misunderestimated the compassion of the commander in chief, too.”
•    “There is no doubt in my mind, not one doubt in my mind that we will fail.”

And no matter what you think about President Obama’s political views, you have to admit that now we have a leader with speaking skills we can not only applaud, but also emulate. Bush won elections in spite of his ability to communicate. Obama won because of his abilities.

We’ve already seen plenty to showcase his talents. His first major speech, at the 2004 Democratic convention, made such an impact it rocketed him to national prominence and set the stage for his presidential run.

More recently, Obama wowed critics and pundits with his nomination acceptance speech and his speech on election night. His inauguration speech, though not a spectacular effort for the President, was far and above what many can deliver.

Content
So what does Obama do that makes him such a powerful communicator? First, of course, a good speech starts with how it’s written. Here Obama shines (with help from his writers). He knows how to phrase things conversationally, yet poetically and eloquently.

He effectively uses oratorical techniques such as repetition — “Yes we can.” He understands how to use contrasts — “…and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.” And he regularly employs the rule of three — “…our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.”

Emotion
Obama knows that abstract ideas don’t register with audiences emotionally, so he uses specifics. Instead of saying, “We are lucky to have freedom of speech in this country,” he says “We can say and write what we think without hearing a knock on the door.”

He tells stories. This skill separates run-of-the-mill speakers from awesome ones, and Obama knows how to do it right. In his acceptance speech on election night he used a powerful anecdote about 106-year-old Ann Nixon Cooper, who grew up in a time when neither women nor African Americans could vote. Yet here she was in 2008 casting a vote for a Black man.

Delivery
Once the speech flows on paper, Obama delivers. He is cool, calm and confident, yet passionate when he needs to be. While many speakers underestimate the power of their voice, Obama makes skillful use of his. He lowers and raises his volume, speeds up and slows down his pace, and most importantly, he pauses.

Obama’s not perfect
While Obama reads the Teleprompter better than most, he could learn to be better. He does too many right and left motions too quickly and too predictably, as if he’s watching a tennis match. He needs to spend longer on each side. He also should expand his eye contact points away from the prompter, including the far left, far right, and middle.

Obama also communicates well without a script. But he has one annoying habit. He continually says “ah” when he talks. It’s only going to get more irritating as we hear more and more of him. If he can quit his smoking habit for wife Michelle, he can certainly break that verbal tic for us!

If you value communication and want to improve your own, the next four years will present plenty of opportunity to look, listen and learn.

Um, er, you know, if you’ve ever wondered whether it’s worth the effort to break a verbal tic habit, listen to Caroline Kennedy. She finally talked to the media about her quest to become a New York Senator. She should have worked with a media coach first.

I’m sure Kennedy is a smart, knowledgeable woman, but after hearing her interviews you’d never know it. As an example, here’s what she said when asked by the NY Times what sets her apart from other candidates:

“I think that there’s a range of views in the Democratic Party, and you know, I am a proud Democrat. Those are the values, you know — middle class tax relief, helping working families, fixing the health care system — those are the national priorities right now. So those are the issues that I would expect — I mean, I am a Democrat, that is, you know — I am trying to become a Democratic senator.”

The Times interview transcript showed that Kennedy said “you know” 130 times. In a 30 minute interview with the NY Daily News, the total was even worse. She said “you know” more than 200 times, with “um” almost as often.

We’re all guilty, myself included, of using verbal tics in our conversations. But when it becomes bad enough that people start counting, it’s time to take action. No matter how smart you are, when you use fillers, people perceive that you are unsure and lack credibility.

Granted, the habit is difficult to break. You must be vigilant every moment of every day for three or four weeks, monitoring each conversation and voice mail. Friends and family have to help with feedback. Ultimately, the key is learning to substitute silence for the non-words.

The best medicine I know of is prescribed by Toastmasters clubs. Every time speakers use fillers during meetings, they hear a bell or buzzer. For many, it’s a rude awakening.

As for Caroline — whether she wins the Senate seat or not, she needs to lose the “you knows.”

These days I’m even more cynical than when I was a reporter. Greed and corruption seem to be everywhere. Politicians say they are honored to serve the public, but many, if not most, of them really want to serve the interests of numero uno. Corporations and other organizations say they care about the public good, but for many, the public good is only important if it’s good for profits and bonuses.

I’ve been on vacation in Mexico for a week and in that time I’ve watched the governor of Illinois get arrested for trying to sell President-elect Obama’s senate seat; I’ve seen the highly respected and trusted owner of an investment firm rip off his clients and friends with an elaborate ponzi scheme; I’ve heard reports of a Los Angeles hospital CEO and the operator of a homeless facility conspiring to cheat Medicare by performing unneeded medical procedures on homeless people.

And that’s just the stuff we know about!

I fear the demise of the newspaper. Not only because I relish my moments with my morning coffee and paper, but also because I wonder who will fill the role of watchdog. Not that the press is always on top of things, flushing out the bad guys, but at least they catch the occasional politician, government employee, or executive with his hand in the cookie jar.

Sure, newspapers will still exist on line, but staffs have already been reduced to the point where something like investigative reporting is an unnecessary luxury. Can bloggers do the job? Will they have the resources and desire to accurately expose government and corporate excess, greed and corruption? We can only hope someone fills the vacuum.

Why pretend you’re concerned about laying off workers? After all, it’s all about profits. We don’t want to let a couple thousand jobs and families get in the way.

Phillips plans to cut five percent of its 32,000 member workforce in its medical division worldwide. That means 1600 people are out of work.

So what does the company spokesperson say about it?

“We want to take all possible measures despite the sluggish economic scenario at present to maintain our profit levels and even improve them if possible,” said Arent Jan Hesselink.

And what did CEO Gerard Kleisterlee say earlier this month?

“Given the limited scope of the present economic scenario we have taken certain measures to maintain our profits.”

My, how heartfelt!

“It’s almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high-hat and tuxedo. . . . I mean, couldn’t you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled or something to get here?”

That quote from Rep. Gary Ackerman of New York sums up the idiocy of the chief executives of the Big Three automakers arriving in private jets to ask Congress for a $25 billion handout.

The worst part is, they probably didn’t and still don’t think they did anything wrong. After all, it’s one of the perks of the job.

Not to mention that on top of that perk and others, GM’s Richard Wagoner pulled down $15.7 million last year. Ford’s Alan Milally made $21.7. Chrysler’s Bob Nardelli only made $1 million, but don’t feel too sorry for him. He left Home Depot with a $210 million golden parachute.

Here’s hoping these clueless CEOs didn’t get the okay from their PR advisors before doing something so breathtakingly stupid and arrogant.

Speaking of arrogance, let’s talk about Elliott Spitzer, the disgraced former governor of New York. Rather than skulking off into the shadows of humiliation, he actually had the nerve to write an op-ed in the Washington Post offering advice on how to re-regulate Wall Street.

And, one week after he skirted a jail sentence by finding out he wouldn’t be prosecuted for soliciting prostitutes, Spitzer portrayed himself in the article as a wise sage and victim who was “scoffed at” for raising red flags about what was going on in the marketplace.

Elliott Spitzer a victim. Now that’s rich.