Why powerpoint is susceptable to abuse, or, Gettysburg Address in PPT

[jack]

http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/sld001.htm

[vivid green]
NOT ON AGENDA:

Dedicate
Consecrate
Hallow (in narrow sense)
Add or detract
Note or rememebr what we say

Also see: http://www.sethgodin.com/freeprize/reallybad-1.pdf which is quite funny.

Comments

[edith-the-hutt.livejournal.com]

Seen it. It's a very poor argument against power point.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Which?

And it depends what you mean 'against' -- the message I got wasn't that powerpoint sucks per se, just that most powerpoint presentations suck, (which has been true in my experience, caveat not statistically meaningful, etc.) so you should make one the right way, not the wrong way

[edith-the-hutt.livejournal.com]

The first. The point I took from it was that powerpoint was awful and could never be used as a communication aid. (actually I was reading from the wider essay http://www.norvig.com/lancet.html ). Although on re-reading I see there is some room in the argument for simply putting more effort into presentations.

I've read and printed out the second, which seems a bit more sensible but makes certain assumptions (eg: some of us use power point to present a report quite deliberately, try that emotional crap rather than a few solid figures at my department's weekly seminars and a lot of people will not have much time for you...). It made a couple of nice points though.

All in all I think both of these ignore that power point is a tool for a rather specific job. The examples cited (the Appolo 8 decision in the case of the first and the website and the veteran's fund for the second) are examples where a powerpoint presentation is not the best tool (I'd have used a chalkboard, a web browser and an actual veteran for those).

Perhaps what I really don't like about the first is that it ignores that a bad speach can be just as bad as a bad powerpoint presentation, and that simply buchering a good speach by converting it into a bad power point presentation proves nothing other than it's possible to ruin quality.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

You're right, I hadn't read the article, just seen the link. It does look very much it means 'no ppt'. I was careful to put 'succeptable to abuse' not 'bad' in my title.

One thing the second misses, is that their Gettysburg ppt is a bad one, but it COULD be good. IIRC political speeches of that era often were thought out and logically organised, so presenting an outline visually would be a good idea, provided the outline was thought up by, say, a good orator, not someone who's scared that the templates provided have a magical validity and departing from them is bad practice.

[edith-the-hutt.livejournal.com]

Erm, the Gettysburg is the first one isn't it?

But yes I agree. Having said that most of the attack seems to be directed at the template options rather than anything else. But the second spells the problem out in a much more reasoned and sensible tone.