Is there something wrong with PowerPoint?
In any case, the program has a dubious reputation.
For example, there is the expression ‘death by PowerPoint’. It occurs when you’re in a musty room listening to someone who monotonously reads slides full of boring walls of text.
Switzerland even has an Anti PowerPoint Party. The aim of the APPP is to ban PowerPoint through a referendum.
According to the party, in 95% of the cases PowerPoint leads to poorer presentations. With major economic damage as a result. (The solution? Flip charts.)
A third and final example of the resistance that PowerPoint provokes comes from Belgium. It’s from the comedian Arnout (sic) van den Bossche.
In a skit (in Dutch) he shows a PowerPoint version of Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech. Including agenda, inimitable 3D bar charts, spinning text, moving arrows and action plan.
Very funny.
According to Van den Bossche, PowerPoint takes the soul out of a presentation. Because people start with the technology and not with the story.
Does that make PowerPoint intrinsically bad?
I don’t think so. I actually like working with it myself.
If you know and avoid the pitfalls, PowerPoint is a fine tool.
If you don’t, it turns into a murder weapon.
Regards,
Arnaud