A recent New York Times article about how PowerPoint presentations are a major problem in the military contains an example of an actual PowerPoint slide used last summer in Kabul meant to portray the complexity of American military strategy. The slide is so comical, it’s gone viral on the internet.
The problem has gotten so severe that some military officers have gone so far as to ban the PowerPoint application entirely. Thomas Hammes, a retired Marine colonel, referred to news media sessions using PowerPoint slides as so mind-numbing that it is like “hypnotizing chickens.”
And comedians are getting in on the act as seen here in this wildly popular stand up routine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORxFwBR4smE&feature=player_embedded
Even Dr. Edward Tufte of Yale University, an expert on information presentation who has participated in the accident investigation of both Space Shuttles, wrote extensively on the misuse of PowerPoint slides in NASA during the accident investigation board.
I once sat in a district-wide, start-of-school-year meeting in which the presenter (with a Ph.D. behind her name) told us how to make classroom learning more interesting. She presented her material using PowerPoint and read it to us verbatim. Talk about irony!
But aren’t we blaming the instrument, instead of the conductor? PowerPoint isn’t what’s broken; what’s broken is how we use it. PowerPoint is a tool, and when used effectively, can be valuable in communicating your message, whether that message be in the form of charts, words, images, diagrams, etc. How? First, identify your audience. Tailor your message to speak to them. Be creative, and that doesn’t mean using animation so your slide does cartwheels across the screen. It does mean thinking about the best way to communicate the information. It could very well be a chart, a table, or list; it could be a diagram, or just text. PowerPoint is not providing the message -- you are. Don’t use it if it doesn’t help you communicate something better than you can do alone. PowerPoint is meant to assist in the presentation, not BE the presentation.
