PowerPoint Makes Us Stupid

The NYT has an article, We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint that illustrates how ingrained PowerPoint has become in the modern military.

Why is it so popular?

Here's one reason:

Commanders say that the slides impart less information than a five-page paper can hold, and that they relieve the briefer of the need to polish writing to convey an analytic, persuasive point.

I'd add two other observations:

1. Powerpoint makes the audience look at something other than the person speaking
2. Powerpoint gives the speaker something to do
   
3. They can read the slide, word for word (my personal favorite)


4. They can refer to the slide


5. They can change slides


6. and of course, they can struggle mightily with the AV equipment and blame their inept appearance on technology.

Both of these do wonders for people who dread public speaking - yet do precisely nothing to inform the audience.

Which is the central problem with powerpoint - it converts the speaker's energy into valueless effort, and tells the audience to ignore what is being said.

Just read the slide.

How many times do you sit in a presentation where the speaker and audience read the slide in unison, with the speaker's lone distinction is that they read out loud?

Bleah.

I say this as a person who has spent the past few weeks putting together powerpoint slides for a presentation that (I was told) could decide the fate of a project I'm working on.
On the appointed day, not only were the slides not used, but I was dragged along to the meeting to answer questions when they were shown.
(There were no questions - although I did get to waste an entire morning).

Watching the presentation that did take place, it was striking to see people attempting to engage in a discussion, only to be shut down because "that's in a later slide" or "we've got a lot more slides to get through."

Of course, reining in discussion is good for any meeting, but of course the purpose of the meeting is to inform and cover the agenda. Powerpoint is not an agenda unless you treat it like one (keep it short, allot time for each item and keep people to a schedule).

What happens instead is that slides get whipped up because they're easy to make, or adapt - or because there were a lot of ideas - and suddenly there are as many agenda items as there are slides.

Madness.