Even if you do nothing more than add meaningful pictures to your slides (preferably full-screen), the visual impact on audiences can be enormous. Pictures are readily available from so many places these days. It's amazing, too, how many presenters never think to use their own digital cameras to produce visual content. Pictures in presentations don't always have to be super professional, they just need to communicate.

Then the question becomes, "Well, but what if I don't know how to work with digital images once I have them?" We recommend a marvelous and inexpensive piece of software called SnagIt by Techsmith for novice relational designers who want to easily add more visual interest to their presentation materials. SnagIt is known (and used) mostly for its screen capture capabilities—which are great. What is lesser known is that the software has reasonably good, and user-friendly, graphics editing capabilities as well. It provides a convenient way to reduce the file size of images going into slide shows, if nothing else.

Serious designers should invest in and learn Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements (a stripped down, less expensive version that still is quite powerful). Professional graphics are an important part of high-quality, reusable networks. It's a worthy investment of time to learn at least some basic graphic editing skills.