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June 30, 2004
PowerPoint: Prison or Pallette?
This week's quote supports where I come out in the recent heat around PowerPoint: My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action... Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit. - Igor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971), Poetics of Music There seem to be four basic views on this very simple product that we helped launch ages ago. Let's look at each: 1. PPT is evil, it is turning minds to mush and worse Julia Keller of the Chicago Tribune looks at all the arguements that PowerPoint is dumbing down the world and making us all superficial. Kinda like calculators allowing us to forget math but worse. Hightext also sees PowerPoint as evil and as really monocultural, derived from and pushing a purely Western, American way of thinking and expressing. While Paul Kedrowsky points out that all this sublimation of our brains by may not be such a big deal, just slowness of innovation. 2. PPT is bad communications and should be replaced This is typified by Edward Tufte's view in the Cognitive Style of PowerPoint. Smart guy, terrific influence on UI design. But made my brain hurt. 3. PowerPoint is a canvas, good or bad because of the painter Hey, if David Byrne uses PowerPoint to make art, it can't be all bad. And besides, it can be supremely funny. Just look at the Gettysburg address or Clinton's recent book as PPT (in one case at least PPT may have forced an improvement). 4. PowerPoint is a fact of life, deal with it. Get good at it. Most others see PPT as a tool that can be good or bad depening on how you use it. And a bunch of great entries have strong guides to help. Here are a few: Beyond Bullets is chock full of strong suggestions but here is one I really like. Peterthink and Michael Hyatt has a great list of resources to help you. Brad Feld and Oliver Thylmann offer some strong tips if you are pitching to a VC. Business2.0 highlights the secrets of PPT "KungFu Masters" my all time favorite of which is Jerry Weissman. And of course, Seth Godin offers some great advice on how not to creat really bad PPT (but remember to buy his book before you get this free prize). For me, I clearly net out on the third and fourth points. I love PowerPoint. It helps. Why? For the same reasons as Stravinsky.
Posted by johnza at June 30, 2004 08:30 PM
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» I Really, Really Hate PowerPoint from Peter Darling -- Business Development for Professional Services Firms
It's always fascinating to see what pushes someone's button. You never know until it's too late, but you can be in the middle of a perfectly civilized conversation, casually mention [Read More]
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