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."

Comments

Do people honestly think these look good

[wheany]

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.

Improving your Presentations

[enkafan]

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.

Thinking

[cubicledrone]

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.