[TIPS] Everyone's a critic

You can't swing a cat without hitting on an article that will either condem PowerPoint, make fun of it, or tell you how everyone abuses it and nobody does it right. So, when you're faced with having to use it and you've been reading those articles, you might tend to panic - as I did. OK... No bullets. Fine. No goofy animations - no problem. The message is the point. Less is better. The slides support your point - they don't beat your audience about the head with it. DON'T YOU KNOW?? ARRRGHHHHHH!

 

At last year's NECC conference, Nicholas Negropante made the off-hand comment, "I hate powerpoint" - and the audience applauded. EVERYONE hates it! But, truth be told, 95% of those folks use PowerPoint, and if we had the audience rate each other's powerpoints, I'd be shocked if more than 10% of them would have passed muster. The larger point is that when you have to give a presentation to a group of learned tech folks, the pressure is ON. Everyone is going to be looking at this PPT with the notion (in the back of their minid, at least) that, "Here's another guy who doesn't know how to make a good powerpoint." No matter what we did, it would likely meet with geers and sneers from a large group who "knows" that it wasn't good, although they may not be able to make a better one.

 

So, I'm going to admit up front that I only know what I know. I THINK that my powerpoints only have that which is necessary to support my talk. I THINK that it's void of the bullet traps, and the animation traps, and the ugly colors traps. I THINK I'm getting better. The one I had for NECC last year embarasses me when I think of it,but I THINK I'm getting better.

 

Bottom line, if you are at a presentation of mine where I use a Powerpoint (Keynote, actually) and you think it was awful, PLEASE tell me how to improve it. Give specifics. Take the talk and YOU make the slides. Then we'll run it by a dozen people and see how many agree that YOUR version is not only better but a model for presentations everywhere. I don't think it'll happen. Everyone's a critic.