I’m 20 years old, just quit a corporate job and now I’m back in college. PowerPoint presentations were the rule at the office, and now it seems many college lecturers, professors, etc. are using them.
All I can do is hope that one day people will come to realize that no amount of god awful clip art and 48 pt. comic sans projected onto a wall can replace a charismatic and eloquent speaker who is capable of engaging the audience.
What’s worse is the PowerPoint presentations that include some sort of “joke” slide, which is invariably some sort of dated pop culture reference from the late '90s.
Stop it, stop it, stop it. Kill it dead.
I’ll be off to my shack now, got some letters to write…
I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter. (Seriously, you need to indicate sarcasm–somewhere, some mid-level managment executive is lurking and reading your comment, thinking to himself, “Yeah, that’s what I’ve been telling my people all along!” :rolleyes: )
Well, I don’t know. My boss loves ‘em. Fcensoredin’ loves 'em. Can’t get enough of it, actually. “Hey, can we break that down into three different slides? Hey, can we add some subbullets to that list so it looks a little busier? Hey, why don’t you add an animation of a rocket taking off there? Hey, I’ve got a sound file we can embed in there.”
Hey, why don’t you shut the hell up and go back to playing with Project.
Along with a cure for AIDS and seeing Jerry Farwell struck down by lightning, that will be a day when the entirity of humanity will hold hands and sing with rejoicing. PowerPoint (or rather, the way people use it) is the bane of my professional existance.
In other words, there’s nothing at all inherently wrong with PowerPoint - it’s only that it’s made most presenters far too lazy to make a compelling presentation. And it’s a vicious circle too, because 90% of the presentations one sees will be accepted as adequate, and so when the next one comes around, it will be similar.
Agree with the poster who said by far what makes a presentation compelling is the presenter, not the presentation.
PowerPoint/HTML/Flash/overhead display/juggling clowns - whatever it is you use, make sure your content by itself can hold the audience’s attention. The aforementioned tools can add to it through visuals, textual highlights/reminders, segues, whatever.
Basically, having never used Star or Open Office, they’re significantly cheaper than MS Office, and since you have no need for other aspects of MS Office, go for 'em.
But again, there’s nothing wrong with PowerPoint, it’s just an easy target because it’s so easy to use, and used so poorly.
(Seriously, you need to indicate sarcasm–somewhere, some mid-level managment executive is lurking and reading your comment, thinking to himself, “Yeah, that’s what I’ve been telling my people all along!” :rolleyes: )