Today's MediaDailyNews Article "What's wrong with PowerPoint?"

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Paul Jackman

I for one couldn't let this one slip by. Perhaps we should let Mr. Kubin the
author know what our feelings are. Whether we agree or disagree with his
article written in today's Media Daily News.
http://www.mediapost.com/dtls_dsp_news.cfm?newsId=213167 Michael Kubin
paints the PowerPoint presentations with a broad brush statement that
,"PowerPoint presentations have turned into "Power Disappointments."

Although we have all sat through disappointments and probably created a few
ourselves, we have experienced some great presentations as well. We will all
acknowledge that knowledge of PowerPoint doesn't make us a presenter, just
as a camera doesn't make someone a photographer. But may I also add that a
owning a pen doesn't make you a writer. Mr. Kubins article is structured and
flows just like the PowerPoint presentations he describes, and I for one
will let him know. If the article had even one line of constructive
criticism I may have felt differently. His e-mail address is clickable in
the heading of the article, if you care to give him some feedback.

Paul Jackman
 
On the other hand, Steve, a few writers do get it. Thankfully.

One of them writes: "All these datapoints -- as they say -- make it
easy to dislike or even loathe PowerPoint. Too easy, in fact. Think
about it for a moment: Which came first on the evolutionary ladder,
stupidity or PowerPoint? For all the demonizing, PowerPoint is just a
tool. And we should all know by now that tools are like messengers:
They shouldn't be shot, they should be feted because they tell us
something about what's going on beyond our headquarter's camp ...
Eliminating PowerPoint won't solve the problem of bad decision-making
any more than PowerPoint itself brought on an epoch of sharply
distilled, fact-based thinking."

From the Aug 2003 issue of Inc. Magazine. See article by Adam Hanft:
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20030801/ahanft.html

Best regards,
Tony

Tony Ramos
Specialist in PowerPoint Presentation Design
http://tonyramos.com


Steve Rindsberg said:
I finally realized why these articles annoy me so (apart from the fact that
they're all apparently cribbed from the same source). Apart from the
stupidity of blaming the tool for the shoddy work of the presenter, it's
that it lumps all PowerPoint users together. Because Tufty or Kubin or Paul
Pundit's mom was scared by a bad presenter using PPT, PPT must be bad and by
extension, so are all presentations made with it.

Nonsense. And insulting nonsense at that.

--

Steve Rindsberg PPT MVP
PPTLive ( http://www.pptlive.com ) Featured Speaker
PPTools: http://www.pptools.com
PPT FAQ: http://www.pptfaq.com
Click to expand...
<<snip>>
 
Tony,

Some good points:

"When I think of the most memorable presentations I ever saw, I remember a
person talking. A dialogue. A human connection. A little imperfection even"

--
Regards,

Glen Millar
Microsoft PPT MVP
http://www.powerpointworkbench.com/
Please tell us your ppt version, and get back to us here
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