We have all had our run ins with PowerPoint, either been asked to put a presentation together at the last minute or had to sit through a relentless set of coma inducing slides presented by someone else.
If you have an aversion to PowerPoint, turns out you are in good, or rather strong company.
US Marine General James N. Mattis declared that “PowerPoint makes us stupid” at a military conference in North Carolina in April 2010. A subsequent New York Times article (worth a read) went into more detail on how that particular presentation method was embedded in the US military.
The then head of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley A. McChrystal, went so far as to suggest that PowerPoint had become the U.S. Army’s principal enemy, and they have a few enemies. It was felt that such was its confusing and ineffective display of important information, serious errors could result.
The nature of PowerPoint layout led to condensing of evidence and clarifications, a singular hierarchical explanation structure and a tendency to spend too much effort on logos and branding.
The next time you are doing your best to figure out a ream of slides or trying to avoid nodding off, think it could be worse, you could be in Kabul. On a more serious point, maybe it is time to think of other ways of doing presentations, if nothing else, just to be different and perhaps a little bit more effective
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