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Accelerated PowerPoint?
darkjohnson writes "If you're looking for an
excuse to offer your manager to approve that high end graphics card so you can
play Doom 3 at full tilt (on your
'breaks' ;) you might want to check out the Instant
Effects' technology as it
has the first product
(OfficeFX) that justifies upgrading your display hardware so you can do a POWER
POINT presentation of all things. Especially true if you're
the one stuck with the duty of making them look good. I saw this at Siggraph
and was not only impressed with the look but the number of people packed into
the booth to see it demoed, competing side by side with real
time 3D game renders and high-end effects software."
Do the people who make Powerpoint presentations honetly think the sweeps and other effects look good? Because I've seen many presenters getting embarassed about the letter flying around the screen when they're trying to make a point.
And if you just have to use some transition effect, pick one. Do not use a different random one on each page.
I've been trying to say this for years. Accelerated graphics and nifty effects have a use in games, sure, but in the operating system arena they don't seem to be useful for much more than eye candy (and games are an area where eye candy usually helps).
Except presentation systems!. On IRC at least, where I rant about this occasionally I'm often dismissed with a "feh, who really cares" but presentation software is all about making a big impression (regardless of those who attempt to use them like note sheets that can be easily handled by a session guide)
Finally!
It's you. I've just visited using FF, and watched the demo through it too. You're not missing much, mind. Looks like it's just a bunch of canned 3D effects to make PP presentations even more pointless - and probably drag out boring meetings even longer ;-) I'm thinking that by the 10th time you have to sit through the "Dolphin swims through text" animation, you'll be wanting to start fragging for real, sod the 3D card upgrade...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
I'm the kind of guy that when I make a PPT presentation, it's black text on a white background made to emphasise what I'm doing rather than what the graphics are doing. However, if you're off selling stuff, this could be 'useful'. Not truely useful, but a piece of eyecandy that some marketeer or executive would want, earning the creators money. It's like a pop-up blocker add-in for IE. None of us are going to use it, but there's still a market for it, for better or for worse.
"Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is living in a state of sin." -- John von Neumann
As a technical instructor, I give presentations basically 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. And let me tell you, a rotating teapot isn't going to improve anyone's presentation. The best way to improve your presentation is to cut out as much as possible. Make yourself the focus of the presentation, not the clip art or whatever fancy crap you've got on the screen.
I'd highly recommend anyone out there who is looking to improve their presentations to check out "Presenting to Win", by Jerry Weissman. Excellent book on giving presentations.
The thinking not done because of the "elevator pitch" approach to business is one of the reasons so many companies are losing so much money.
AT&T is no longer trying to sell residential phone service.
Disney no longer makes animation. Instead, they want to make computers.
and so on. "There's no money in it" they whine. What they really mean is "nobody can explain in a PowerPoint presentation or an elevator pitch (30 seconds or less with no eye-glaze) how we can make hundreds of millions of dollars this quarter with no work or capital expenditure."
Everything formerly valuable is becoming a commodity while attention span is becoming the most expensive luxury in business. Nobody listens any more. Ideas and products that make hundreds of millions of dollars CANNOT BE EXPLAINED PROPERLY IN THIRTY SECONDS.
So, everyone runs from meeting to meeting, conference room to conference room frantically looking for something, ANYTHING that they can borrow to sell and get some short-term cash to the bank so the paychecks don't bounce (well, the paychecks for the half-dozen people who didn't get fired prior to the last quarterly stock-bump layoffs).
And, so business gets what they want. Accelerated PowerPoint so the elevator pitch can be 27 seconds instead of 30. Why, we're TEN PERCENT MORE EFFICIENT! LET'S FIRE SOME PEOPLE TO CELEBRATE!
It's just another icon to click. Another "efficiency token" to impress rooms full of accountants who, in the money-grab economy, are the only people who matter.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Seriously, i know this if off-topic and all that, but light brown links on white and a touch lighter-brown background?
Horrible, guys. Horrible.
Let me guess, does it look like Apple's Keynote?.
Just remove all the animations, gradients, and clipart and concentrate on the message.
Sure, a spinning teapot isn't going to seal the deal ... but more powerful tools give an artist more options when creating a presentation to market whatever it is they're marketing. That's not to say that every slide needs 3D crap flying all over the place, but I'd argue that used appropriately and conservatively ... these new tools definitely offer a presenter a more complete toolset with which to convey their message.
Unfortunately, we'll probably suffer the same hell that Photoshop filters have yielded (i.e. overuse of the lense flare, and drop-shadow) but I believe the talented artist will use these new features to build some truly impressive presentations.