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Don't Blame PowerPoint! It's just a vehicle

by Clear Presentation Design

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Don’t Blame PowerPoint! It’s just a vehicle Presentation Transcript

Don’t BlamePowerPointIt’s just a vehicle

Don’t BlamePowerPointIt’s just a vehicle…That is often driven poorly

In a car crash it is nearlyalways the driver who isto blame

NOT the vehicle itself

But when it comes tobad presentationspeople are quick toblame PowerPoint

Some misguided peopleeven start politicalpartiesagainst it

This is stupid.

This is stupid.Really Stupid.

A PowerPoint deck is notthe presentation

A PowerPoint deck is notthe presentationPowerPoint is a vehiclefor your visual aids

Your presentation is yourmessage and yourinformation.It takes hours of carefulcraft and consideration

Your PowerPoint is yourvehicle to communicatewell thought out andcomplementary visualaids.

PowerPoint isn’t “evil”

PowerPoint isn’t “evil”It’s neutral

We don’t think of othercontent vehicles in thesame way…

For Example…

Outlook & Gmail arenot to blame forcrappy emails

It’s your annoying Boss and his inability to be concise I write a damn fine email :-)

It wasn’t the physicalvinyl records that madethe Beatles awesome

It was their music, creativity & the hard work that went with it

George Orwell wasn’tfamous because he choseto write on paper…

It was his stories, writing style & insights

It isn’t your phone’s faultthat your conversationsucks

It’s just that your friend is a really boring guy!

Blaming the vehicle/medium in any of thesecases would be

Absurd

It is the content & howit is delivered that isimportant

NOT the vehicle usedto do it

As a presenter you need tobring your audience from

As a presenter you need tobring your audience from Mental Point A

As a presenter you need tobring your audience from Mental Point A To Mental Point B

You should use whatevervehicle works for you

The audience don’t see…

They see a screen…

Tell a good story andmake effective, thoughtfulvisuals and they won’tknow or care whatsoftware you used

Concentrating on thevehicle, rather than theroute cango badly…

What’s more…

It’s a freakingLAZY excuse

The worst thing aboutthe PowerPoint blamegame is that it distractsfrom the real issue

Laziness

By blaming thepresentation softwarewe take focus off thereal problem

Lazy Users

We absolveusers of any realresponsibility

We absolveusers of any realresponsibility Are you calling me LAZY!

Hell YEH!We absolveusers of any realresponsibility Are you calling me LAZY!

The reality is that makingbad presentations is auser-choice

Makingbulletpoint filledslides is a choice

This…

Was a choice

This was a choice

Yep…

A choice

You can use PowerPointas an autocue, butagain thatis a choice

You can choose toignore great books like

Poor usage of thevehicle is a choice.

Like with a car, you canchoose to driverecklessly

You can choose to driveto the wrong place

And you can choose toignore the maps…

But that isn’t thecar’s fault

So…

Let’s focus on what reallymatters

Let’s focus on what reallymatters the Presentation

And send the vehicleblame game to thescrapheap

If you agreethen whynot spreadthe word

Check out my site @ www.clearpreso.comOr click here to send me a tweet! @clearpreso

Francis Gagnon I have expanded in a blog post on my comment below and made a few suggestions about what Microsoft could do to improve PowerPoint in ways that support good presentation design. http://infodez.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/its-not-you-its-powerpoint/ 1 month ago

Are you sure you want to

Armando Franco at Auval @frgagnon If PowerPoint is the Reliant Robin, which program would be the Volvo of presentation software? Ironically, the Wikipedia article cited states: 'Despite the car's reputation for being unstable, a 2011 survey reported that Reliant Robin owners were statistically Britain's safest drivers.' http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2002761/Reliant-Robin-drivers-safest-road.html :-) 3 months ago

'Voltaire Gonzales', Dean at Victory Global Academy at last i saw this one..great!amazingly real 9 months ago

Francis Gagnon Given your knowledge of design, I'm surprised that you missed the basic reason why PowerPoint is largely responsible for bad presentations: it is designed for this outcome. Would you say that the design of a three-wheel Reliant Robin is not responsible for an accident? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliant_Robin That it's entirely the careless driver's fault? Then why would the most of the same maneuvers in a new Volvo not lead to an accident? Design is how it works. Good design means that, under normal use, a tool should do no harm. This cannot be said of PowerPoint. The only way to make a good presentation with it is to fight it, resist its nudges and have specialized presentation knowledge. It shouldn't have to be that way. Blaming the users misses the real potential for having a huge impact on millions of users by tweaking a single leverage point: recognizing the problem and improving PowerPoint. 9 months ago

Carolyn King, Communication consultant & designer at Credos Associates Great prezzo, thanks. Slides are meant to support the speaker, but some presenters see them as a place to dump all the content for the presentation. So to use your vehicle analogy, the slides are the vehicle that helps you along the journey from mental point A to B; they are not the destination in themselves. Unfortunately Powerpoint is a vehicle with rather garish upholstery and too many knobs to twiddle - dangerous in the hands of many drivers! 1 year ago

Bryce Christiansen, Marketing at Balanced WorkLife Company Excellent points. I especially liked your point that you can't blame outlook or gmail for crappy emails. Good work here. 1 year ago

hwasinjohn fantastic，cool 1 year ago

ingjmsalas A very smart way to analyse the responsability problem of bored presentations 1 year ago

Clear Presentation Design at Clear Presentation Design @brainslides In my opinion it is a blank canvas and to use a standard template in any software is a catastrophic decision. I could have made the presentation, or any presentation I make, in powerpoint, prezi, keynote, ms paint... I'll stick by my guns and say that the specific software is the least important factor when it comes to presentations. 1 year ago

Nathan Cashion, Blogger, Designer, Consultant at Brainslides.com I agree that it is more important to focus on presentation skills than the software, but the idea that PowerPoint is neutral is wrong. A brand new Volkswagen with airbags, power steering, and antilock brakes IS inherently SAFER than an old jalopy which offers less control for the driver. True, you can drive safely in an older car, but it is easier to be safe in a new car.
It is much more DIFFICULT to design well in PowerPoint because the default templates are ugly and urge the user to use titles, subtitles, and bullet points. 1 year ago