PowerPoint Is Evil

Wired News ^ | September 2003 | Edward Tufte

[John Jorsett]

Imagine a widely used and expensive prescription drug that promised to make us beautiful but didn't. Instead the drug had frequent, serious side effects: It induced stupidity, turned everyone into bores, wasted time, and degraded the quality and credibility of communication. These side effects would rightly lead to a worldwide product recall.

[Naspino]

Powerpoint Evil?

In this lecture we will cover:

• Slide 1: Infomericialism
• Slide 2: Slides to Riches
• Slide 3: Corporate Strategies

[Pan_Yans Wife]

ping

[upchuck]

Fortunately, I've never had to create a presentation using PP. But I've endured many of them. Boring, time consuming and easily predicted. Mostly a waste of time.

[Ahban]

Its just a tool. It is the way that it is used that is evil.

[Huck]

I asked some older folks what did everyone do before PowerPoint and they said printed handouts. Seen in that context, I imagine ppt files are more efficient. I just scanned the beginning of the article, but I am sure I know what it says. I design instructor led training programs, and I was very proud to produce a full day training module that contained 0 powerpoint slides.

[ASOC]

As they say in Training circles

"Death by PowerPoint"

[rwfromkansas]

Somebody has too much time on their hands.

We did Powerpoint in school. I don't know why this person thinks it is awful to learn how to use such important software. He needs to take some more meds.

People aren't doing Powerpoint instead of papers now or something, please.

[thtr]

• With all the evil that exists in the world today
• you choose to speak on PowerPoint?

[Friend of thunder]

It is no more evil than the printing press – or the Internet – it may alloy mediocrity to become more ubiquitous; but so do the others. Allowing the inept access to a larger audience is not evil; it is annoying. In the right hands, PowerPoint can aid greatly in communication.

[spodefly]

Powerpoint killed the market for gelled Kodaliths.

[renosathug]

How about the employees in the office of one company who learned they are about to lose their jobs during a PowerPoint presentation.

Bullet: CLOSE AUSTIN OFFICE


Don't remember the company, but just read of it the other day.

[thtr]

LOL - Very Good!

[KrisKrinkle]

The Gettysburg Address Powere Point Presentation:

http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/

[RedWhiteBlue]

Powerpoint Haiku:

• Exploding pie charts
• I'm fighting the urge to sleep
• Death by Powerpoint

[Conservative4Ever]

We did Powerpoint in school.

I suddenly feel old.

Red

[LasVegasMac]

but convenience for the speaker can be punishing to both content and audience. The standard PowerPoint presentation elevates format over content, betraying an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch.

BS. Any media used by a presenter is simply a tool.

PowerPoint's pushy style seeks to set up a speaker's dominance over the audience.

Software has an attitude? It's only a tool. Perhaps the user of that tool needs to get a grip on how to make a meaningful presentation.

With so little information per slide, many, many slides are needed. Audiences consequently endure a relentless sequentiality, one damn slide after another.

Again, perhaps if you learned the proper techniques of a "real" presentation, your presentations would not drag on - one damn slide after another. Moron.

Presentations largely stand or fall on the quality, relevance, and integrity of the content. If your numbers are boring, then you've got the wrong numbers. If your words or images are not on point, making them dance in color won't make them relevant. Audience boredom is usually a content failure, not a decoration failure.

Now you are getting close. Content! Not flash!

Yet the PowerPoint style routinely disrupts, dominates, and trivializes content. Thus PowerPoint presentations too often resemble a school play -very loud, very slow, and very simple.

Oops, lost ya again. PP has no style. It's a tool, remember. The user has to know how to use the tool.

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.

The last three words - Doh!!!

What a moron. Must be a liberal. Blame everything else except the gray matter 'twixt the ears.

No, moron. This is not PowerPoint's fault.

Perhaps if our liberal tainted institutes of higher learning bothered to teach communication skills - instead of socialist propaganda crap - you would not be so pissed off at a piece of software.

LVM

[Pan_Yans Wife]

That is hysterical!

[Friend of thunder]

I suddenly feel old.

That makes (at least) two of us!

[RightOnGOP]

Good point.

PowerPoint's just like anything else...like handguns, cars, etc. If used as intended, it can be a good thing. If used by someone who has no business in front of an audience, well, it's a bad day. Finally, an expert can do the technology/subject justice, with or without PowerPoint.