By now, you have certainly seen some presentations done with PowerPoint or other presentation software. You know how to create such a presentation yourself. But understanding how to create a presentation and how to use the program are not all that is required for creating a good presentation. What makes the best presentations? Your goal as a communicator is always to provide the most useful and informative communication that you can. Is PowerPoint part of that communication? Opinions on whether the frequent appearance of PowerPoint has helped improve the quality of talks vary. Here’s a frequently cited opinion from The Australian Financial Review: “Presentations are one of those ubiquitous rituals of modern corporate life that have attained iconic status. But with their tendency to bore more often than they entertain or persuade, you can't help wondering about the wisdom of our slavish reliance on this wee piece of technology. So pervasive is this dependence, that anyone who turns up to do a talk without a nicely turned out set of slides gives the impression of being under prepared or a bit of a dinosaur. The reasons for the success of Microsoft's PowerPoint presentation software are by no means obvious. In fact, those old enough to recall the horror of the once popular after-dinner slide show, when living room walls became impromptu screens, must marvel at the triumph of its modern corporate equivalent. This triumph is all the more surprising because PowerPoint mixes the least interesting varieties of written, verbal and visual communications in ways that simply don't work. In reality, this mediocre mixture does little more than download information, often slowly and with condescension.” (Trevor Cook, Death By Slides: What do you think? Is PowerPoint a useful tool, or a dumbing down of intelligent presentations? I have found several key articles on PowerPoint, please read the information on the following links. PowerPoint Editorial: Interesting article on "How PowerPoint is Like Melvin", " How PowerPoint Makes You Dumb", and "Why did the Shuttle crash? Because PowerPoint makes you dumb" If Lincoln had PowerPoint: Lincolns Gettysburg Address:
By now, you have certainly seen some presentations done with PowerPoint or other presentation software. You know how to create such a presentation yourself. But understanding how to create a presentation and how to use the program are not all that is required for creating a good presentation. What makes the best presentations? Your goal as a communicator is always to provide the most useful and informative communication that you can. Is PowerPoint part of that communication? Opinions on whether the frequent appearance of PowerPoint has helped improve the quality of talks vary. Here’s a frequently cited opinion from The Australian Financial Review: “Presentations are one of those ubiquitous rituals of modern corporate life that have attained iconic status. But with their tendency to bore more often than they entertain or persuade, you can't help wondering about the wisdom of our slavish reliance on this wee piece of technology. So pervasive is this dependence, that anyone who turns up to do a talk without a nicely turned out set of slides gives the impression of being under prepared or a bit of a dinosaur. The reasons for the success of Microsoft's PowerPoint presentation software are by no means obvious. In fact, those old enough to recall the horror of the once popular after-dinner slide show, when living room walls became impromptu screens, must marvel at the triumph of its modern corporate equivalent. This triumph is all the more surprising because PowerPoint mixes the least interesting varieties of written, verbal and visual communications in ways that simply don't work. In reality, this mediocre mixture does little more than download information, often slowly and with condescension.” (Trevor Cook, Death By Slides: What do you think? Is PowerPoint a useful tool, or a dumbing down of intelligent presentations? I have found several key articles on PowerPoint, please read the information on the following links. PowerPoint Editorial: Interesting article on "How PowerPoint is Like Melvin", " How PowerPoint Makes You Dumb", and "Why did the Shuttle crash? Because PowerPoint makes you dumb" If Lincoln had PowerPoint: Lincolns Gettysburg Address: