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Why Not Everyone Lilres PowetPoint
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Unless you're RipVanWinkle' you've likely sot through more thon your shore of Power-
Point presentotions; odds ore you've creoted some of them lf you haven't' don't worry You
willbeforegroduating,especiollyilyou'temajoringindisciplinessuchosbusiness'com- municotions,orengineeringthotpreporesstudentsfortheworkpioce'Here'wepresent twoessoysthotevo]uotethelikelyeftectsofPowerPointonhowwecommunjcote---ond howwethjnk.AjthoughGeoflreyNunbergdoesn,tc]ojmthotPowerPointmeonsthede. c,r.ne oI western civilization,he rs quick to por'nt
out some of jts (potentjol) pjtfo]ls' citingr
NASAi]investigotionoftheCo]umbicrshutt]edisosterosevidence,CliveThompsonis blunter: PowerPoint mokes you dumb'
Nunbergisoconsu,ltingprofessoroflinguisticsotstonfordUniversityondchoir oftheUsogePonelfortheAmericqnHeritogeDictionory'Theouthorofseverolbooks' mostrecentiyTheWoyWeTolkNow(200])ondTheFutureoftheBook(j996),hercgulaily jsfeoturedoniheNPFplogrlomFreshAirondpublishescommentoriesjntheNewYork
Times. The Trouble with powerpoint origino.lly oppeored in the business magazineFor-
tune, in December 1999.
CliveThompsonwriiesontechnologyfortheNewYorkTimes'Wired'ondNews' drry. In 2002,he wos o KnightScience-'lourno.hsm Fe.llow ot
M/T PowerPoint Mckes You
Dumb origino lly oppeored in the New York Times in 2003'
GEOFFREY NUNBENC
The Trouble with PowerPoint
STIDES RULE
You've got to hand it to scott McNecrly-he never misses an opportunity to try to stick it to Bill Gotes. A couple oI yecrrs ago the sun Microsystems cEO went so lcrr qs to try to ban the use oI powerpoint ct sun, cloiming thqt em- ployees were wqsting colosscl cmounts oI time using the Microsolt soltwcrre to prepcre slides.
It wos q dromatic gesture, but this is one tide thct isn't qbout to roll bock on commqnd. PowerPoint crnd other presentqtion softwqre cre de rigrueurl now wherever business people meet to communicote . . . well, I wcrs cbout to soy "fcce to face," but that isn't quite qccurqte when everybodys storing crt the screen. The technology hos even credted q new unit oI -"o",rr. for met- ing out cccess to senior mqncglement. It used to be that you got ten minutes o{ c CEOs time; now you get three slides to mqke your pitch.
The cbility to prepcrre c slide presentotion hcrs become cn indispenscble corporote survival skill. Ronk novices cqn stqrt with the templotes thcrt come with the soltwore-"Reporting Progress" (Kcndinsky2-style blue and red rec_ tongles) or "communiccting Bad News" (c suggestive shade of brown). But most mcncrgers hqve come to realize thot slides crre too importont to pick off the rack. So managers hqve come up to speed-remcrrkcbly quickly.
Corporcte types whose interest in mediq aesthetics wcs once limited to wctching siskel cnd Ebert hcrve now become crdept crt discussing the use of ((rcqne Iilmic effects like builds, dissolves, ond wipes. or if you're too busy or loo old to leqrn those new tricks, you can use the postmodern ploy of qppro- priotion-cr strctegy fqvored by senior mqncrgers. Employees with cr portlolio ,l good slides con find themselves cs much in demcnd as o kid with c Nolcn llyon rookie card.
whct is the eflect oI oll this? some soy the presentction soltwcrre explo- s rion is port oI a genercl decline in public speaking-os Stcnford prolessor ,[ communicqtions cliff Noss puts it, "Try to imcgine the'I hove q dreqm,
I de rigueur indlspensobie, compulsory, required (French). I Wcssily Kcndinsky (1866-1g44) Russion-born obstroct pornter whose work oJten feotures l,r, Jht colors ond geometric shopes.
r Chopter 3: Technology ond (versus?) Longucrge
speech in PowerPoint." But then, it isn't os if public specrking was exactly flourishing in pre-PowerPoint corporations. And you hcrve to give the benelit
of the doubt to any technology thcrt promises to mcrke the overcrge corporote
speech a bit less numbing. Whot's troubling is the wcy thot slides hcrve begun to take on o life of
their own, cs if they no longer needed talking hecrds to specrk lor them. No one qsks Ior <r memo or report anymore; now it's just "send me your slides."
Conferences post the slides o{ their speokels'tcrlks; prolessors post the slides
oI their lectures; the clergy post slides of their sermons on the Web.
Moking sense of such slides in isolcrtion can be like trying to reconstruct
the social lile of Pompeii3 lrom the grclliti its inhabitants IeIt behind. But thctt hosn't stopped the {ormct from spreading to other genres, like the Web. The
slide qesthetic hos even mcrde inroads in the book, the last bastion oI con- nected prose. The other dcy I went to the business section of c locol book- store crnd stqrted opening books ot random. I hcrd to do this twelve times belore I come to two lcrcing poges oI text thqt were uninterrupted by a sub-
heod, illustrction, figure, sidebor, or some other grophic distraction' And like the book qnd other communiccrtions technologies of the pcst,
this one is hcrving its ellects on the structure of thought itself. The more Power-
Point presentqtions you prepqre, the more the world seems to pockoge itsell
into slide-sized chunks, broken down into bullet items or grouped in geomet-
ric potterns that hove come to hove almost talismonic {orce. A Iriend of mine
who works Ior cr lcrge Silicon Vcrlley compqny mqintcrins thcrt no proposcl
ccrn win mcnqgement buy-in until it has been reduced to three items plcced olong the sides ol o tricrngle.
You could think oI oll this qs the New lllumination. In mqny wqys we've become the most visuql culture since the High Middle Ages. Still, we probo-
bly don't wont to toss out cll the crchievements o{ the oge o{ print. When you move from connected text to butlet items you leove some uselul communiccr-
tive tools behind-verbs, Ior excrmple. And as lively cs o good slide show can
be, some ideos are better qbsorbed in o more leisurely. considered wcy, with
the oid of older technologies like on armchoir cnd c good recrding light.
3. Pompeii o lorge Itolion city thot wos completely destroyed by the volcono Mt. Vesuvius
in 79 c.r. Becouse of the speed wiih which the eruption occurred, much ol the city wos pre-
served in osh, providing us one ol the best orcheologlcol exomples of doily urbon Romcrn
li{e o{ thot period.
CLIVE THOMPSON
PowerPoint Mokes You Dumb
T N AUGUsr, the coJumbic Accident Investigction Bocrrd at NASA releqsed I volume I ol its report on why the spoce shuttle croshed. As expected, ther ship's foqm insulqtion wcrs the mqin cquse of the disoster. But the bocrd
rrlso lingered qnother unusucrl culprit: powerpoint, Microsoft's well-known "slidewqre" progrqm.
NASA, the board orgued, hqd become too reliqnt on presenting complex rnformation via PowerPoint, instead oI by meons oI trcditioncrl ink-ond-poper lechnicol reports. when NASA engrineers crssessed possible wing domoge rluring the mission, they presented the lindings in q confusing powerpoint :;lide-so crqmmed with nested bullet points ond irregulor short forms thcrt it was neorly impossible to untcrngle. "It is eosy to understqnd how q senior ruqnqger might reod this PowerPoint slide and not realize thot it oddresses cr liie-threotening situation," the bocrd sternly noted.
PowerPoint is the world's most populor tool lor presenting informcrtion. 'l'here qre 400 million copies in circulation, qnd olmost no corporcte decision Itrkes plcce without it. But whct if Powerpoint is actuolly mcrking us rtupider?
This yeor, Edwcrd rufte-the lqmous theorist oI informction presentcr- lion-mqde precisely thct orgument in q blistering screedl colled rhe cogni- /ive sty/e of PowerPoint. In his slim 28-poge pcmphlet, Tulte clcimed thct Microsoft's ubiquitous soltwqre lorces people to mutilate dctcr beyond com- prehension. For excmple. the low resolution oI q powerpoint slide mecrns llrct it usucrlly contcins only cbout 40 words, or bcrely eight seconds o{ reqd- rrrg. PowerPoint qlso encourqgres users to rely on bulleted lists, q "Iaux qncr- lyticol" technique, Tufte wrote, thct dodges the specker's responsibility to tie lris informqtion together. And perhops worst oI all is how powerpoint renders .lrorts. Chorts in newspcpers like the WolI Street /ourncJ contqin up to 120 el- "rnents on overctge, crllowing reqders to compcrre lorge groupings o{ dctcr. lltrt, os Tufte lound, PowerPoint users typically produce chqrts with only I2 ,'lements. Ultimotely, Tulte concluded, powerpoint is infused with "on otti- lrrde oI commerciqlism thot turns everything into a scrles pitch.,,
Microsoft ofliciols, oI course, beg to differ. simon Marks, the product s rr(rnoger for PowerPoint, counters thot TuIte is q fcn of "informqtion density,,,
screed o horongue, o piece of writing thot criticizes some subject, often tediousiy
l'/',', I Chopter 3: Technology qnd (versus?) Longuoge
shoving tons oI dcto qt crn audience. You could do thcrt with PowerPoint, he scys, but it's cr mqtter o{ choice. "II people were told they were going to hcve to sit through an incredibly dense presentction," he <rdds, "they wouldn't wont it." And PowerPoint still hcrs Iqns in the highest corridors oI power: Colin PoweII used o slidewore presentcrtion in Februory when he mcrde his cose to the United Nations thct Ircq possessed wecpons of mqss destruction.
Of course, given thot the weopons still haven't been found, maybe Tulte is onto something. Perhops PowerPoint is uniquely suited to our modern crge ol obfuscotion-where mcrnipuloting Iocts is os important os presenting them clearly. If you hove nothing to soy, moybe you need just the right tool to help you not scry it.
5. Go to <norvig.com/Gettysburg> ond explore ihe porody PowerPoint presentotion given there. Whot ore the chcrllenges of dlstilling prose into slide form? Whot is golned or lost? Choose onother fomous text, moke your own PowerPoint presentotion of it, ond show it in class. Did ony of the presentotions improve on the originol text? Why or why not?
i --for \{,rtttng 1 7. You've probobly seen q few PowerPoint pre-
sentotions in your clcrsses. Do you find them helpful? Interesting? Hove they mode leorn-
Why Not Everyone Likes PowerPoint u lTll
ing eosier? Why or why not? Is there o <lil ference between using them to introdutxr new moteriql ond using them to review or summorize fomilior moteriol? Jot down yoru impressions of PowerPoint presentotions. List their negotlve ond positive chorocteliri tics. Write q letter to o foculty committee orr clossroom technology in which you ossel;li the leorning vqlue of PowerPoint presenkr tions in your closses. Evoluote PowerPoirrt qs on instructionol tool qnd moke recom- mendotlons obout when it should (or shorrl, I not) be used.
| ;boultt'e i&6 1 l. In writing for o business oudience, Nunberg
criticrzes the use of PowerPoint ln business presentotlons. Might he Ieel the some woy obout ocodemic presentotions (closs lec- tures, student presentotions, etc.)? Why or why not? How might he olter his orgument {or on ocodemic oudience? Whot evldence would he likely present?
2. Nunberg quotes cr Stonford pro{essor who osks people to "try to imogrne thcrt 'l hove o dreom' speech in PowerPoint" (porogroph 5). Is thot o reosoncrble chollenge given the context of this essoy? Why or why not? Whcrt srmilorities ond differences ore there be- tween orotory such crs Mortin Luther Klng Jr.'s 1963 speech ond ihe business presento- tions torgeted in Nunberg's essoy?
3. 'fhompson's essoy concludes with the exom- ple of Coiin Powell employing PowerPoint. I Iovr does Thompson use this excrmple to rncrke hrs finol point? Whot is thot point? To rvhcrt extent do you ogree wtth his clcrim? i'ixploin your recrsoning.
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4. How does PowerPoint shope the woys 1on- guoge is used? How does it constroin whcrt is possible? How does it oller new woys of orgonizlng ond presenting lnformotion? Why do Nunberg crnd Thompson cloim thot it moy be infiuencing the woy we represent knowledge-thot is, the woy we think?
5. Nunberg ond Thompson oren't olone in thelr dislike of PowerPoint. Edwcrrd Tufte, o professor ot Yole University, who hos written criticolly obout the inlluence of PowerPoint on informotion design ond presentotion. Go to Tufte's Web site ot <edwordtufte.com/tufte/powerpoint>, the ccrrtooned photo thcrt you see of Soviet troops morching before o stotue ol Stolin il- lustrcrtes on essoy which is criticol of Power- Point. Anolyze the cortoon ond its messoge. Whot is Tufte soying obout PowerPolnt? How does he use visuol elements to moke his crrgument? Whot do Stolin ond his ormy hove to do with PowerPoint? Why might Tufte hove chosen thls imcrge to illustrote his ideos?