Is PowerPoint always necessary?

I saw a great professional speaker present last night at a meeting and he used no visual aids at all. At the same meeting I had a conversation with another person on whether he should use PowerPoint for the presentation he is planning. Even though my expertise is helping people create and deliver effective PowerPoint presentations, one of the most important roles I see myself playing is advising people on whether PowerPoint should be used at all. In last night's presentation, visual aids would not have added anything to the solid points being made through the use of well told stories. In the case of the other conversation, I suggested he use only a few selected slides to illustrate ceratin visual points, but most of the time leave the screen blank. About a year and a half ago I wrote an article on when PowerPoint would be a good choice and I suggest you read it for more ideas on this topic. The article is at: http://www.thinkoutsidetheslide.com/articles/whenusepowerpoint.htm .