The plummeting value of the US dollar has helped Atlanta to emerge as a particularly desirable location in which to hold conferences and training sessions. The city has burst into the Economist Intelligence Unit’s list of top ten destinations for business travel, occupying 6th position. Three other US cities make the list. Here is the top ten in full (the ranking relates to December 2007 and is based on cost and environmental issues such as infrastructure and culture):

1. Vancouver
2. Toronto
3. Adelaide
4. Honolulu
5. Perth
6. Atlanta
7. Auckland
8. Helsinki
9. Pittsburgh
10. Detroit

Ever since his Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore has been viewed as one of the world’s most persuasive public speakers. So when his new climate change lecture was premiered on Ted, a website dedicated to “inspired talks by the world’s greatest thinkers and doers”, earlier this week, I decided to pick it apart to see how it worked.

Like many people, I was impressed by An Inconvenient Truth. I’d even stood in line to hear Mr Gore speak in New York last May (this was deeply hypocritical, given that I had jetted in from Paris for an emission-heavy long weekend in Manhattan - unless getting him to sign a DVD counted as a carbon offset).

It was my hope that a close analysis of his new slideshow might be useful to public speakers in the business world. Having viewed it three times - and watched An Inconvenient Truth yet again for context - I think I have been able to identify four key elements to the performance. But after studying his verbal and visual tricks in detail, I’m not sure I’d queue to see him again.

(more…)