Oh, sure, and next he's going to tell us he's not using Word anymore
By adamg - Thu, 04/10/2008 - 8:54am.
Paul Levy, the hospital CEO who ditched his BlackBerry, now vows to fight the PowerPoint hegemony. He lists seven reasons he hates PowerPoint presentations, including:
... The slides are filled with Excel spreadsheets with tiny cells. How often have you heard this: "I know you can't read this from your seat"? Well, why put it up on a screen if people can't read it? ...
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All Hail Tufte!
I despise most powerpoint, more so once I took Tufte's seminar. There will be one problem so long as Microsoft dominates the market - it is difficult to get everything on a computer to work right in the 20 seconds between presentations with any other package.
Well, it might be possible if you have some control over it, but I'm putting together a set of sessions for a conference now and one can never count on a hotel having anything but power point for changing slides. There is also the issue of people arriving from multiple nations needing to just drop in their memory sticks and go.
I don't think it is the medium that is dumb - I think it is the lack of trained graphic sense in the general population that kills powerpoint. Remembering the transparancy era, things could seriously get just as dumb.
Handouts are on your chairs
Now I'm going to project these bulleted lists onto the screen. And then I'm going to read them. Slowly. While looking at them. If you have any questions, please wait for the slide that says "Any Questions?"
Amusingly enough, I'm making a ppt presentation right now. I try to start with pictures.
It would be cool to have a
It would be cool to have a Powerpoint Transparency Add-in to make your PPT slides appear to have smudges, tilting, pieces of lint, etc.
And a pointer
That works like a grease pencil!
Next up: Laser printers with a mimeograph setting (oh, you laugh now, but this past weekend, we saw a guy coming out of Best Buy with a USB record turntable!).
Since you mentioned USB turntables
Our very ancient turntable gave up the ghost a couple of years ago. So I bought a very classy (middle of the line) turntable -- which has never worked right since we got it. Having piddled around until (right) after the warranty expired, I had to pay (lots) for repairs -- and it soon started acting up again (probably defective lead wires from the tonearm to the stylus). So, I decided, why not buy a USB turntable -- it would be cheaper than having the lead wires replaced -- and it could be plugged directly into a computer to transfer LPs to digital form (we still have 1000s of LPs). Moreover, this turntable could also be hooked up to one's stereo.
As it turned out, the cheap USB turntable works just great (once I figured how to put things together with next to no instructions). (No -- I have not transferred any LPs to CD). The only problem -- no dustcover -- and it looks like a flying saucer when it is turned on. Still, I was pleased.
Not sure why a USB turntable is considered funny, but
I have one.
I also think that this is a cool idea. (Though the concept of this one as an internal drive has a certain appeal.
For funny USB devices, how about a USB humping dog, a USB missile launcher or a USB hub/tape dispenser?
Thousands of long
Thousands of long out-of-print albums are now available for download only because people are able to convert their LPs with USB turntables. One of my favorite inventions.
InDesign and even Acrobat
InDesign and even Acrobat Pro are retardedly easy and intuitive ways to make a presentation. Plus its infinitely easier to place, move, embed, resize, etc., images and video. Then you export as a pdf, open it up on ANY computer on earth, with no worries to whether the person has powerpoint or keynote, what version, etc. Hit ctrl-L or command-L and you have a full screen presentation.
I worked for a design office that lived by this method, it stopped so many headaches at presentations in other offices, countries, etc. Since then I have staunchly refused to even open powerpoint in any office, in grad school, etc. I've made many converts.....
I am such an HTML geek
Those rare times I've had to make a presentation, I hand coded the slides in HTML. And I liked it, dagnabbit!
OK, OK, I admit that last year, as part of a business presentation, I actually used PowerPoint. Because the other side insisted. Nowadays, I only crack it open so the kidlet, who, of course, is being taught PowerPoint in fourth grade, can make up fake presentations, complete with made-up numbers charted in roughly 16 million colors.
Powerpoint in fourth grade?
That saddens me.
Back when I was her age, not only did I have to walk three miles uphill in the snow both ways, but I learned good ways to communicate, like writing and speaking.
The idea that they're taking class time away from something useful to practice soon-to-be-obsolete skills is absurd. Writing, speaking, drawing, math, and stats will all be useful a hundred years from now, but powerpoint? Why are they building obsolescence into education?
It's part of computer class
So at least it's sort of appropriate, but, yes, when she first told me, I was like "What?!? Why?" The answer, of course: "I dunno." Me? I'd much rather see them teach that most under-appreciated of skills: Typing.
How to present and share data
Also "graphic design 001". My older guy really got into it in the 5th grade, but not for making bulleted lists. He set up some animations that demonstrated temperatures rising during the day, etc. He did one for some sort of climate change process that was projected to go critical and made the screen flash and explode at the end.
Then he wondered why I didn't use any such fantastic animations in my dissertation defense when I had all these maps with toxic plumes of death on them. Way boring mom!
typing and obsolescence
Speaking of typing and obsolescence, are they still teaching (and requiring) kids to put two spaces after a period? That became unnecessary (and incorrect) as soon as they stopped using typewriters.
yes!
PDF presentations are totally the way to go.
(I hesitate to encourage anyone to do this, but it even has yucky effects for changing slides!)
That's nice, but ...
difficult to implement when you are getting a global team of academics to show up, presentation in hand, and use a hotel projection system that you have no control over.
well the trick is...
to get them to create it in Acrobat in the first place.
No more bullets
As mentioned above, the problem I have with most PowerPoint presentations, or presentations created in any app, is the bullet list. There's little vision or creativity in most presentations. Its all talking points. Like him or loathe him, when Steve Jobs gives a keynote presentation, his onscreen images are captivating. They complement the things he says. Its not redundant. Too many presentations are just a projection of the speaker's notes and add next to nothing to the experience.
The Gettysburg Address Powerpoint
Fourscore and seven years ago...
That Is Hilarious!
Poor Lincoln! He had to put it all on the back of an envelope.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
I was so wrong.
Shit. If it was good enough for Lincoln, who am I to make a fuss? F-U Steve Jobs and your smug, elegant presentations! Did you free the slaves or keep the Union strong?!
Abe forgot to include the
Abe forgot to include the ubiquitous "Any Questions?" slide.
But PowerPoint is fun!
Golly, who doesn't like boring presentations when they're spiced up with 16-color clipart of the little guy holding up bags of money or a FIRST PLACE blue ribbon? Whose attention isn't instantly captivated by slow-moving venetian blind transitions? And isn't a step-by-step animated bulleted list exciting? It's just like watching Family Feud! Call it out, everybody: "INCREASED ROI."
But most importantly, whose day isn't immediately made better by the chance to take a nap in a darkened room with a pleasantly whirring video projector fan?
Technology is a beautiful thing, Sam.
Good points
Congratulations, Spatch! You hit:
Thanks!
It's not Powerpoint that
It's not Powerpoint that sucks; it's the whole concept of dragging a bunch of people into a conference room to stare at some boring presentation by some middle management jagoff when they have a bunch of actual work that has to get done that sucks. And then later the MMJ wants to know why everyone's behind schedule, so what does he do? Meeting!
Powerpoint doesn't kill people...
People kill people...using Powerpoint. Er, or, something like that anyways.
Dave has it right. Useless meetings lead to banal presentations. On top of that, a total lack of effort or ability to generate a presentation also leads to piss-poor slides. Given the technical capabilities of a lot of people out there, I'm actually half-surprised they're able to master bulleted lists as well as they are.
There's a reason there are 114,000 hits on Google for "powerpoint do's and don'ts". It'd be nice to see people actually take some of those suggestions to heart before they mindwipe everyone in the room with their clipart, default font, and CliffsNoted speeches on screen.
Powerpoint (and to a lesser degree Apple Keynote) are just tools, like handguns. It takes a conscious and responsible user to keep the results from being lethal.