Have you heard the one about PowerPoint?
September 26, 2012 Filed under Blog, Featured, Humor, Presentations
A word about PowerPoint. PowerPoint was released by Microsoft in 1990 as a way to euthanize cattle using a method less cruel than hitting them over the head with iron mallets. After PETA successfully argued in court that PowerPoint actually was more cruel than iron mallets, the program was adopted by corporations for slide show presentations.
Conducting a PowerPoint presentation is a lot like smoking a cigar. Only the person doing it likes it. The people around him want to hit him with a chair.
PowerPoint is usually restricted to conference rooms where the doors are locked from the outside. It is, therefore, considered unsuited for large rallies, where people have a means of escape and where the purpose is to energize rather than daze.
Paul Ryan photo: reason.com
Oh yes, and the old transparency days were soooooo much better. Death by powerpoint is still less painful than death by transparency.
There are two things that make PowerPoint especially bad — both brought on by the user. First is when a person reads verbatim from the slides. This is one of the most horrible presenting techniques because people can read it in their mind before you can say it. Second is when people plaster the slide with text, which is a huge distraction and takes the listener’s focus from the speaker to reading the slides.
As I’ve evolved I have used progressively less text on slides in favor of images that remind me of what I should be talking about. I also rehearse so I really don’t need to look at the slide for more than 1-2 seconds; then I can focus on the audience which makes the presentation more personal.
Chuck Doswell does a good job with this. I’ve seen him give presentations where he spent several minutes on a single slide that had very little text. He looked at the audience and you felt like you were having a conversation with him. He referred to the image(s) on the slide when needed to make his point, but he didn’t dwell on the slides. However, I have been on the other side of this where a person has read line after line of text crammed on a single slide. That is the epitome of “death by PowerPoint.”
The bottom line is that the speakers need to put more effort into making a finished product. It’s not PowerPoint’s fault.