Badly done, PowerPoint detracts and obfuscates. Moreover, speaking is much like writing – it takes practice (as well as having something to say).
Bad speakers and lazy speakers use PowerPoint as a crutch; believing that flying widgets and rotating text will substitute for content.

There are three contrasting examples that stick in my mind.

First, the good:
It was a presentation by Larry Lessig that consisted of a stack of no more than 50 black slides, with only one word on the slide. His presentation was timed such that the slides would switch to emphasize a point. He’d then talk for a minute, or two, or three, with the same single word on the screen. It was brilliant, captivating, I learned more in that 30 minutes than from a thousand other presentations.

Second, the bad:
It was a business presentation, a pitch, from a set of visiting business people from India. Their presentation consisted of about 30 densely packed slides, all in 12 point sans serif. Apparently to avoid being accused of just reading their slides, they instead invoked a “Text to Speech” program that read the slides for them, in a drowsy robotic voice, devoid of rhythm. I could barely contain my laughter.

Third, the ugly:
The third is just laughable. It was early in my career – before I spent two years doing nothing but making speeches. I attended a series of presentations by communications specialists and media mavens on how to speak effectively, how to entertain a crowd and get your point across. I sat listening to one of the mavens, her head down, paper in hand, she was obviously reading. Her main point was that one should never, ever, read their presentation.

Finally, I heartily encourage all those interested in the effective use of PowerPoint and in graphical display of information to dive into the work by Edward Tufte, specifically his book entitled “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information” and his essay on PowerPoint entitled “The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within.” Both are excellent. You can find his work at Http://www.edwardtufte.com
Regards
Gavin

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