When I’m lecturing about technical topics, there’s some element of futzing around my computer – I start with the presentation but I’m always switching over to Visual Studio to show some code, or to some utility to give a demo and whatever. This invariably involves some measure of showing people your desktop on the projector. Rather than keep your desktop matte black and noncontroversial, I find that it’s a good idea to have some sort of desktop image that gets people interested. Not too much, of course, but a minor conversation piece. This keeps people looking at you even in the dead moments between talking, keeps them from drifting away.

In my case, I use this.