With “Say No to PowerPoint” week looming on the Gregorian horizon, I decided it was an opportune time to describe exactly why everyone should take the D.A.R.E approach to Microsoft’s slide ware. My explanations aren’t shaded by Apple fanboy rhetoric or anything connected to the ongoing battle between Mac- and PC-lovers everywhere. These are legitimate, analytically based reasons you should dump your PowerPoint folder into whatever receptacle your computer uses to delete unwanted material.
PowerPoint is…
1. Outdated
When PowerPoint was first developed in 1987, most computers still had green and amber screens. The most common method of presenting material in business meetings and during college lectures was through slideshows and overhead transparencies. All PowerPoint was designed to do was digitize those methods. Twenty-five years later—in an era with touchscreens and universally computer-literate children—the most popular method of delivering information is exactly the same as before. Continuing to use PowerPoint ignores decades of innovation.
2. Stagnant
Even prolific PowerPoint users can’t break out of the monotonous uniformity of slide templates. Diverge from the overall themes and you risk creating an eclectic mix of slide backgrounds that distract from your presentation rather than diversify it. Most presentations are either jarring or feel like driving along that stretch of highway between Wyoming and Nebraska—flat, dull, and mind numbing.
3. Less Conversational
Presenters using PowerPoint are also bound by what’s on the slide behind them. When people ask questions, they’re obligated to deflect them to slides that are more relevant. “Can we wait to address that until the next couple of slides? I’ve got one that kind of touches on what you’re thinking.” This dependence stunts discourse about the topic at hand and stymies participation overall.
4. An Information Crutch
College students procrastinate. It’s a fact of life, and PowerPoint is an enabler in that process. Why actually study the subject that you have to report on the next day when you can just slap all the material you need onto a few slides? Your professor’s atrocious lectures have set the precedent for lackluster performance in front of the class, so no one bats an eye when you turn your back to the crowd and read off everything you were supposed to become an expert in. Add the fact that PowerPoint encourages bullets over complete sentences and it’s no wonder this generation struggles to communicate.
5. Insincere
While reading slides might work at your community college, not committing your presentation to memory, which PowerPoint facilitates, destroys your “expert” status in business meetings. On the converse end, rattling off the stats and figures that our colleagues have printed in front of them is an impressive way to demonstrate your knowhow on the subject. Sure you can memorize your presentation and still use a PowerPoint, but turning to look at the screen rather than at your peers gives a muted impression of your prowess.
6. Fickle
All of PowerPoint’s negative qualities can only haunt you when it’s actually working. Unfortunately, its benefits operate the same way. Technical issues abound when you’re dependent on technology and are nonexistent when you don’t. I’m not advocating an Amish approach to digital aides, but if you don’t need them for a particular presentation, don’t use them. This prevents incompatibility snafus and the inevitable time wasting that follows.
7. Confined
How often have you heard, “You might not be able to read this…” when your presenter pulled up a slide with some indecipherable table. Real estate on a PowerPoint slide is limited, and sometimes the information contained in a particular figure is vast. Surprisingly, vast and limited aren’t very compatible, and neither are PowerPoint and 90% of the figures you try to upload.
8. For Designers
Have you ever heard of trapped white space? The Golden Triangle? Complementary Colors? The Rule of Thirds? If you answered “no” to more than one of these questions, odds are your presentations are subconsciously pissing your audience off (or very consciously depending on how bad you are at design). Sins against the aforementioned guidelines are common among left-brainers, who also happen to comprise the majority of people giving presentations.
9. Linear
Returning to the genetic underpinnings of PowerPoint explains the linear nature of presentations utilizing the program. Rather than develop something that can demonstrate the interconnectedness of a particular subject, every topic is treated in a hierarchical manner. Slideware can only operate on one plane, traveling one slide at a time backwards and forwards. So much for the big picture.
10. Boring
The most entertaining aspects of PowerPoint presentations have nothing to do with the slideshow itself. It’s always some embedded video from YouTube or a funny picture or interesting headline. Any one of these things could be presented to the audience through a different, equally effective medium, so what makes PowerPoint interesting? The person using it, and according to most PowerPoint presentations, most people are boring.
About the Author
Greg Buckskin is a tech enthusiast, in-house SEO, and writer at CableTV.com. Check out his profile to see more of Greg’s posts around the web.
