If you want to test a man's character give him power*point

http://www.outoftheborders.com/2009/12/if-you-want-to-test-mans-character-give.html

by mbriyo • 17 years ago

6 9 17 years ago

7 rules for effective presentations from slide:ology

Kliment4• 17 years ago

Terrible. The assumption that powerpoint or any other slideware is an effective way of transmitting information is flawed. See Edward Tufte's "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint" for a good analysis of the problems this brings (http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/powerpoint ).

ubernostrum2• 17 years ago

I've not read the essay (and, with no obvious way to purchase any version other than dead-tree, I likely will not), but the blurb concludes:

"What is the problem with PowerPoint? And how can we improve our presentations?"

This seems to imply that the opposite assumption you seem to be making -- slides can never effectively transmit information -- is also flawed.

Kliment4• 17 years ago

On the contrary. A part of the essay is available online, from the linked page. Tufte is very clear that it is possible to have informative presentations - but slideware does not help towards this goal. He argues that slides have a terrible bandwidth, and do not help anyone but the worst 5% of presenters, where they help by imposing structure - any structure at all - on the presentation. All other presenters, he states, would be better off without slides, and should rather just talk, or, better, give their audience their ideas in written form, as sentences made of words rather than slides made of points, and talk about them once they have been read and understood.

mbriyo2• 17 years ago

Interesting comment. But then again saying "terrible" is easy. On the other hand, how do YOU present ideas, concepts and information to your clients and audience? I am open to suggestions.

Kliment4• 17 years ago

Indeed. Negatives are much easier to throw around than positives, and much less useful. I'll try to answer your question as well as I can. (given it's 7 am and I am barely awake)

When presenting a method or a program to students, I try to start from as scratch as reasonable. I recently prepared an experiment for a student of ours, and essentially wrote the program in front of him, running it at intermediate stages so he could see it evolve. He felt comfortable changing the functionality afterwards, so I expect the information transfer worked. I've done the same before with small student groups, creating something minimal, but perfectly understood.

For negotiation situations, I prefer doing them in person or at the very least over the phone, but preferably so that I have all the data in front of me. At that point, I want the other person's attention focused on me, not on the projection screen.

When showing a thing, like a program or a concept, I like to show the thing rather than showing something that shows the thing. I'd explain it and demonstrate it rather than showing slides about it. I might show photos of it being used in situations I can't directly reproduce.

In all of these situations, slideware would not have noticeably improved things. And it's always a timesink, for me at least.

If you want to test a man's character give him power*point

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