Reply to: Swiss party demands Powerpoint's death

[eek]

I was trying to find the excerpt from Charles Stross's "The Jennifer Morgue" where a powerpoint presentation manages to kill an entire room of people but the best I can find is from earlier in the chapter

PowerPoint is symptomatic of a certain type of bureaucratic environment: one typified by interminable presentations with lots of fussy bullet-points and flashy dissolves and soundtracks masked into the background, to try to convince the audience that the goon behind the computer has something significant to say. It’s the tool of choice for pointy-headed idiots with expensive suit and skinny laptops who desperately want to look as if they’re in command of the job, with all the facts at their fiddling fingertips, even if Rome is burning in the background. Nothing stands for content-free corporate bulltulip quite like PowerPoint. And that’s just scratching the surface…

I think it sums up my reasons for disliking powerpoint quite well.

[doodab]

This isn't the fault of the application itself, as somebody said earlier. When I was a student I used to work for Shell and one of my jobs was to create the presentation slides, then in Freelance for DOS. I was told to put as little info on the slide as possible. A few bullet points and charts. They are supposed to support the presentation rather than being the presentation. My feeling was that they are simply the crib cards that the presenter would have and simply provide a structure and graphs/charts where needed. The worst example powerpoint I've seen was at BP where it was used to pass on all the presentation detail. Slides packed full of information in text that was so mall it was hard to read. In meetings people would sit there reading for ages and then ask the 'presenter' questions - that's the wrong way around!

But that is the whole point. Powerpoint encourages this misuse. It's as much to blame as guns are responsible for gun crime.

[BoredBloke]

This isn't the fault of the application itself, as somebody said earlier. When I was a student I used to work for Shell and one of my jobs was to create the presentation slides, then in Freelance for DOS. I was told to put as little info on the slide as possible. A few bullet points and charts. They are supposed to support the presentation rather than being the presentation. My feeling was that they are simply the crib cards that the presenter would have and simply provide a structure and graphs/charts where needed. The worst example powerpoint I've seen was at BP where it was used to pass on all the presentation detail. Slides packed full of information in text that was so mall it was hard to read. In meetings people would sit there reading for ages and then ask the 'presenter' questions - that's the wrong way around!

[Sysman]

What he should have done is insist. Every employee has a legal right to a reference, as references are big deals over here. You've also a right to reject anything in it that you feel reflects negatively on you.

WHS. Coded references also exist, and you need to know how to read them, There's a long discussion somewhere on English Forum Switzerland about this.

btw - I loathe Zürich.

The weather isn't too good either. The lake and surrounding hills create a mini climate which results in a lot of grey days. In winter you are best off clocking up the hours with a view to taking time off in summer.

[NotAllThere]

A Java developer went through 3 interviews to get a role with a bank in Zurich.
He spent his days creating PowerPoints for his boss.
After six months he had enought and decided to leave.
He asked for a referance from his boss.
The boss said no, he could not give him a referance as he had not seen him doing any jave code.

Got to love Zurich!

What he should have done is insist. Every employee has a legal right to a reference, as references are big deals over here. You've also a right to reject anything in it that you feel reflects negatively on you.

btw - I loathe Zürich.

[Old Greg]

In my last contract, we went out to tender for a bespoke training course. The bidders were told that they could not used computers or printed Powerpoint slides in their pitches. It made it much more interesting.

[Bunk]

Nice, and if we hear chuckling from cubicle No. 2, we know who it is.

[doodab]

I've seen some good Powerpoint presentations and some tulip ones. I bet if the same people used a flip-chart then the good presentations would still be good and the tulip ones still tulip.

Perhaps, but I think powerpoint exaggerates the tendency to make tulip eatingly dull presentations even duller.

At least with a flip chart you can pretend you are watching Rolf Harris and play "have you guessed what it is yet?".

[darmstadt]

The first presentation I ever did wasn't with Powerpoint but with overhead foils as laptops didn't really exist then and Powerpoint definitely didn't. It went on for around 3 hours but I think that was due to the alcohol the night before and getting to bed an hour and a half before it started. I ******* hate doing presentations and training courses

[wobbegong]

I have an app on my phone that does that. It cheers me up no end in dull meetings.

Nice, and if we hear chuckling from cubicle No. 2, we know who it is.

[Bunk]

One of the big US corporates apparently had (has?) a digital readout in their meeting rooms that showed the cost to the company minute by minute based on the attendees hourly rate.

I have an app on my phone that does that. It cheers me up no end in dull meetings.

[wobbegong]

Powerpoint is blameless in all of this, the real fault lies with the dullards who create a presentation for the purpose of reading it out loud to the audience.

Absolutely spot on!

In addition, middle managers need to grow a pair and learn to (in Dilbert's words) postpone meetings with timewasting morons.

One of the big US corporates apparently had (has?) a digital readout in their meeting rooms that showed the cost to the company minute by minute based on the attendees hourly rate.

[Bunk]

I've seen some good Powerpoint presentations and some tulip ones. I bet if the same people used a flip-chart then the good presentations would still be good and the tulip ones still tulip.

[scooterscot]

Gets my vote.

Keynote is much better, because steve says so.

[Sysman]

I think they make a very persuasive argument. Powerpoint blows goats.

The best 2 I've seen this year had hardly any words on them at all. One was done by an architect, the other by a guy who used to work in the fashion industry.