Evil PowerPoint
Edward Tufte’s PowerPoint is Evil seems a little harsh but I do think he has a point, though I disagree with him implying that PowerPoint is to blame–human nature is. The tool is only as good as the person using it. PowerPoint is a fantastic tool, when used correctly. Even Tufte points out, “PowerPoint is a competent slide manager and projector. But rather than supplementing a presentation, it has become a substitute for it. Such misuse ignores the most important rule of speaking: Respect your audience.”
Somewhere along the way we decided that everything must fit into a sound bite, and that the average person just doesn’t want to hear (or is incapable of staying focused on) a speech about anything. Speeches became about talking points, not about effective communication. Too many people try to fit every situation into a PowerPoint and don’t take the time to look at the material and to actually think about the best way to present it. The Gettysburg PowerPoint is a perfect (though admittedly extreme) example of what can happen when the user fails to analyze the audience and the purpose of the talk he or she is given. We’ve all been to these “Gettysburg PowerPoint” type of presentations. Something that could have been relayed in a matter of minutes in a concise speech is stretched into a 20 minute PowerPoint presentation that leaves us completely confused about why we were there in the first place. That is user error and, frankly, laziness on the part of the one giving the talk.
“I’ll whip up a PowerPoint on that” has become a standard mantra in the workplace. Sure, PowerPoint has made it easy to produce snazzy slides, but I’m old enough to remember people saying they’d “whip up an overhead” with the same off-hand nonchalance. It’s that nonchalance that is the problem.
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