After writing this post about bad PowerPoint, I read Seth Godin's post about really bad PowerPoint. Enjoy.
By the way, I'm speaking at a conference this summer where all the presenters are required to use PowerPoint. This seems like a bad idea, but it's an even worse idea when the presenters are not professional speakers. It's a trade show in the food industry and, while these people know their stuff about their industry, many of them are not seasoned presenters.
I don't know why this conference requires PowerPoint (maybe I should ask). Maybe it's because of the size of the room and the number of attendees. Perhaps they fear smaller visuals like flip charts getting lost in the space.
Whatever the reason, it's dangerous to require speakers to use a medium that most are probably not comfortable with. I expect lots of bullet points, dense paragraphs of text, and obscure charts and tables.
Really nice post Lisa and Seth, as always, hits the mark. You should check out Rowan Manahan's 'Appalling Presenter Manifesto' that he wrote in response to Seth's piece (Seth commented on it and seemed to like it) as he expresses so much common belief and thinking with you.
ReplyDeleteHere it is: the Appalling Presenter Manifesto. Very funny!
ReplyDelete