Dumbed down by PowerPoint

[writerinthenorth]

To mark the 25th year of Microsoft's acquisition of PowerPoint I've written quite a substantial article on the perils of this ubiquitous software. The article is for the online archive of the National Association of Writers in Education, but I have made it more generally available here.

[Filigree]

Seconded. I've had to re-write PowerPoint reports by younger workers into an understandable (and publishable) format.

[writerinthenorth]

Yes. In a former life I facilitated and reported on meetings, and did some consultancy. I've lost count of the number of times I've stared at PowerPoint printouts given to me by participating teams and individuals wondering how I could crack their opacity and make any kind of sense of them for my report.

Dumbed down by PowerPoint.

[alleycat]

I haven't read your article yet, but just the words PowerPoint Presentation strikes dread in the hearts of most people who have had to sit through a few of them.

I worked in architectural and engineering. Try sitting through a lunchtime seminar on Auger Cast Piles or Expansion Anchors done in PP.

In a just-for-fun thread in Office Party we have a running joke about PowerPoint since one of the regulars is a university student who had to do a presentation using PP one time.

[Puma]

All I have to say is - anyone who limits him or herself by the created formats provided by Powerpoint (or any of the Microsoft programs) is a fool. Powerpoint is a powerful presentation tool - if you start with a blank piece of paper and tailor powerpoint to your material needs rather than tailoring your material to powerpoint you can achieve fantastic results. I use it for presentations in which I have graphics or images, but that doesn't mean I can't have plain text slides too. My largest "presentation" was a 151 page family history packed with old photos and historic documents - and it received rave reviews. Puma

[Xelebes]

When doing powerpoint, I make mine as minimalist as possible. Most of the effort in communicating should be done by the presenter and the slides should only show information that needs to be re-enforced.

Of course, that was also pushed hard by the Business Communications instructor I had at school.

[Williebee]

Like too many tools, it got turned into a crutch.

[MattW]

We have met the enemy and he is powerpoint.

NYTimes from 2010.

Like an insurgency, PowerPoint has crept into the daily lives of military commanders and reached the level of near obsession. The amount of time expended on PowerPoint ... has made it a running joke in the Pentagon and in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“PowerPoint makes us stupid,”

[writerinthenorth]

Great quote, Matt. Thanks for sharing.

[areteus]

Totally understand... the concept of 'death by PowerPoint' exists for a reason...

It is a useful tool if used right but many use it wrong and get obsessed with flashy images and animations rather than the information they are trying to impart.

Personally, I keep it simple, use it instead of hand held notes to remind me of what I should be talking about and my students find it useful because they don't have to copy down everything because they can download the file from the server when the lesson is over.

There are also more imaginative ways to use it such as making a slideshow of images to create discussion (though I also use movie maker for that).

My wife is of the same opinion. She once got complained at by a colleague because he asked her to edit his presentation and she started by deleting all the images and animations that he couldn't justify as 'relevant' to the talk.

[Williebee]

These days, when I have to build a presentation, I'll use Prezi. More life, more direction, more attention keeping.