Re: Death by Powerpoint (literally)

I would complain about the logic in your article about Powerpoint. You  
fall into a trap set by the New York Times in that your central  
complaint appears to be about the "Spaghetti Graphic" about the war in  
Afghanistan. As the Times noted, the purpose of this was "meant to  
portray the complexity of American military strategy". Whether the  
content is meaningless or not, that is precisely what it does.

It seems to me that one of the central problems about Powerpoint is  
that unlike good and clear writing, which develops ideas and derives  
conclusions, the basic nature of the "Bullet Point" is that is  
presents every statement as a foregone conclusion or accepted fact. It  
therefore allow blatant lies to be presented with the same weight as  
universally accepted truths. This fundamentally devalues reasoning and  
logic in an argument, and replaces it with mere summation and statement.

It seems to me that the popularity of Powerpoint stems from the fact  
that it allows people who can't really write or reason to create what  
looks like (to the lazy or ignorant) an interesting or persuasive  
argument.

I further very much disagree with the statement that presentation  
should simply recapitulate the messages from the presentation, and  
"should be almost meaningless". Luckily, in my life I have been called  
upon to make very few Powerpoint presentations, but as a teacher at a  
design college I have very often given slide lectures, which I  
consider to be a very effective teaching tool. In those cases, as in  
the few really effective (and affective) Powerpoint-type presentations  
I have seen, the images and slides have been central and memorable,  
and the talking that goes on around them is at best explanatory and  
incidental. One good image, or one good graph with important  
statistics, is much more persuasive than a thousand eloquently stated  
beliefs.

-- Randal


On May 4, 2010, at 1:49 PM, David Farbey wrote:

> I've been inspired to comment on this on my blog:
> http://www.farbey.co.uk/index.php/2010/05/lies-death-and-powerpoint/
>
> David
>
> On 1 May 2010 10:17, Conrad Taylor <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Aha, Weapons of Mass Confusion.
>> Thanks for that, Randal!
>> Conrad
>>
>> On 30 Apr 2010, at 23:49, Randal wrote:
>>
>> Somewhat cogent article on how Powerpoint makes us stupid:
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/world/27powerpoint.html
>> The most interesting thing to me was this:
>> "Last year when a military Web site, Company Command, asked an Army  
>> platoon
>> leader in Iraq, Lt. Sam Nuxoll, how he spent most of his time, he  
>> responded,
>> “Making PowerPoint slides.” When pressed, he said he was serious. "
>>
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>
>
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