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Why PowerPoint Should Be Banned
An anonymous reader writes: An editorial at the Washington Post argues that Microsoft PowerPoint is being relied upon by too many to do too much, and we should start working to get rid of it. "Its slides are oversimplified, and bullet points omit the complexities of nearly any issue. The slides are designed to skip the learning process, which — when it works — involves dialogue, eye-to-eye contact and discussions. Of course PowerPoint has merits — it can help businesses with their sales pitches or let teachers introduce technology into the classroom. But instead of being used as a means for a dynamic engagement, it has become a poor substitute for longer, well-thought-out briefings and technical reports. It has become a crutch."
... MEETINGS should be banned.
"Its slides are oversimplified, and bullet points omit the complexities of nearly any issue.
- I see, so the reasons to use PowerPoint are exactly the same reasons as the ones to ban PowerPoint.
You can't handle the truth.
PowerPoint is not the crutch. The crutch is pointless meetings and the desire for "material" when what you really need is a discussion with the right key people in the room.
Might as well ban PDFs while we're at it, I've seen lots of pointless PDF files too.
Let's call it what it is: An aid when giving presentations, which are themselves also not documentation. There is no substitute for documentation.
I literally had a professor (3 years ago) that put his lecture notes in text documents, and showed them on the projector from his ubuntu laptop using emacs. And he was one of the best CS professors I've ever had.
This was because he used them as outlines for what he intended to teach during the class. We discussed, worked through things, and had eye-to-eye contact and whatever else the summary says.
----Isn't this what powerpoint is for? We don't want to ban powerpoint; people just need to learn to use it properly.
The problem isn't the software, but how people are using it. Banning Power Point won't fix bad end users. They will just find a different way to give crappy presentations.
Perhaps a better approach is bundle or create software that helps people create presentations from the script on up, and perhaps the software should have one presentation the audience sees and one the presenter sees full of more info or a complete script.
...or let teachers introduce technology into the classroom. "
Oh hell no. Tech in the classroom is not an end unto itself, and certainly not a justification for Powerpoint. Don't get me wrong, PP can be a useful tool (in some cases), and yes, it don't work without tech in the classroom. But the idea that any random PP show is valuable because "it's introducing students to technology" is ridiculous. Students are on a first-name basis with technology, they don't need to be introduced to it.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Powerpoint is a tool. Don't blame the tool, blame whoever is making the content. The truth is, doing informational slides require skill, knowledge and a good speaker to present them - it doesn't really matter if you're using acetate sheets or some fancy top-of-the-line video editor. Its like blaming typewriters for making bad literature. And if you 're afraid powerpoint is going to make you stupid, guess what? You already are.
The problem isn't that they are crappy presentations. It is how they are being TAUGHT to present. Sales people are intentionally leaving out information and glossing over facts, because facts can lose a deal. Oh, there are some major cases that some piece of software doesn't handle? Don't present that, that goes in a footnote in the readme file tucked away somewhere. Presentations where products are concerned are drafted and built to never EVER loose a customer, only convince people that the product is the best thing since sliced bread. They are designed to not raise questions, or inform beyond a simplified message. The product isn't the issue--it is how people are being trained to use it, and changing the way a message is presented won't change the message.
Indeed, presentation tools can't compensate for poor skills in creating or giving presentations. Do people remember before powerpoint? At the scientific conferences I attended, as often as not people were throwing unreadable transparencies onto the project at a rate significantly faster than anyone in the audience except their collaborators could comprehend the concepts. Now they just flip through readable but incomprehensible power-point slides. It's the humans you have to fix, not the technology.
The first time that I was pressed into being a project manager was at a subsidiary of a new telecom company.
We inherited some basic rules
1. Whoever called the meeting had to prepare the info for the meeting and send it out to the participants at least a day early
2. The meeting could be no longer than thirty minutes
3. Whoever called the meeting would prepare a summary and send it out to all participants with a list of action items before the end of the day
The unwritten rule was that if you started wasting people's time they would stop coming to your meetings
This put the power into the hands of the people doing the work and made the PM a servant to getting work done
That is how is should be, I cannot tell you how many times I have wanted to apply the 'unwritten rule' and walk out on some PM that was just sucking all of the intelligence out of the room and keeping people from working
Wherever You Go, There You Are