Powerpoint & other slide shows: the antithesis of thinking
11:45, 21 July 2009
.. Posted in Communication, Outreach and General Mngmt.. Link
T.X. Hammes' blog Dumb-dumb bullets: As a decision-making aid, PowerPoint is a poor tool has really struck a chord, at least with me. 'Cause I hate slide shows, whether they are done in PowerPoint or any other presentation software.
Hammes uses "PowerPoint" to mean any "slide show", and has this to say about it in his blog:
I hate slide shows for the same reasons Mr. Hammes does. But I have even more reasons for hating them, namely, that
I do slide shows for my presentations because they are expected, but honestly, I don't really need them. I like for my presentations to have a healthy dose of discussions, with the audience chiming in throughout the presentation with their own thoughts, even answering each others' questions instead of all answers coming from me. Slide shows kill interaction. They kill listening. Instead, audience see glowing colored lights, audience stares at glowing colored lights, audience no listen, audience no think.
Next time you are asked to do a slide show, think about what it is you are really trying to accomplish. Is a slide show really the right mechanism?
Hammes uses "PowerPoint" to mean any "slide show", and has this to say about it in his blog:
Make no mistake, PowerPoint is not a neutral tool — it is actively hostile to thoughtful decision-making. It has fundamentally changed our culture by altering the expectations of who makes decisions, what decisions they make and how they make them.He continues
Before PowerPoint, staffs prepared succinct two- or three-page summaries of key issues. The decision-maker would read a paper, have time to think it over and then convene a meeting with either the full staff or just the experts involved to discuss the key points of the paper. Of course, the staff involved in the discussion would also have read the paper and had time to prepare to discuss the issues. In contrast, today, a decision-maker sits through a 20-minute PowerPoint presentation followed by five minutes of discussion and then is expected to make a decision. Compounding the problem, often his staff will have received only a five-minute briefing from the action officer on the way to the presentation and thus will not be well-prepared to discuss the issues. This entire process clearly has a toxic effect on staff work and decision-making.If I didn't know that T.X. Hammes retired from the Marine Corps after 30 years, I would swear, based on the above, that he, too, worked at the United Nations. Please read the entire blog. He's so right on.
I hate slide shows for the same reasons Mr. Hammes does. But I have even more reasons for hating them, namely, that
- people stare at the presentation rather than listening to what's being said
- people stare at the slide show the entire time rather than looking at the presenter
- people think reading the slide show later, having missed the actual meeting, will provide them with all the information needed
- the presenter often stares at the presentation instead of the audience
I do slide shows for my presentations because they are expected, but honestly, I don't really need them. I like for my presentations to have a healthy dose of discussions, with the audience chiming in throughout the presentation with their own thoughts, even answering each others' questions instead of all answers coming from me. Slide shows kill interaction. They kill listening. Instead, audience see glowing colored lights, audience stares at glowing colored lights, audience no listen, audience no think.
Next time you are asked to do a slide show, think about what it is you are really trying to accomplish. Is a slide show really the right mechanism?
