PowerPoint Turns 25, Still Boring Everyone

Terry Olaes

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
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August 14th marked the 25th anniversary of PowerPoint, the bane of meetings around the world. BBC has an article that talks about the problems with PowerPoint presentations and has a quick slide show detailing the history of the program.

In the past 25 years, I've asked hundreds of people how many PowerPoint presentations they've seen that came across as really inspiring and enthusiastic. Most struggle to come up with a single example, and the most optimistic answer I've heard was "two".
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Its the meetings themselves that are boring, not the tools used in the meetings.
 
I dunno, I have been known to make some pretty slick looking presentations in PP 2k7. Hell, Apples Keynote makes some really nice ones.
 
PowerPoint is 1 year younger than me. I'm not sure how to feel about that.
 
I just fell asleep reading about it. :p

"Really inspiring and enthusiastic" is a pretty high bar to set. PP has largely replaced overhead projectors/transparencies, and is only meant to be informative. Bad presentations are still bad no matter what media is used.
 
Even if used properly, PowerPoint puts you to sleep. Meetings are boring. PowerPoint doesn't help.
 
PowerPoint is a tool; it's supposed to be boring just like Word.

I shudder when I think of people trying to make PP presentations 'fun' by adding blinking elements, flying text, transition effects, etc. - basically nothing that contributes to the actual presentation.
 
The biggest crime is putting everything into the presentation instead of using PP as a supplement.
 
The sight of Powerpoint makes me want to go to sleep while sitting up. It's like the bell making the dog drool.
 
powerpoint presentations would be interesting if the subjects being covered were interesting.
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GJSNeptune said:
The biggest crime is putting everything into the presentation instead of using PP as a supplement.
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I disagree. To me, the biggest problem is when the presenter reads the slides instead of using the slides as a highlight to the spoken content. I'm so glad I'm working remotely when I'm in those kinds of presentations.
 
Terry Olaes said:
I disagree. To me, the biggest problem is when the presenter reads the slides instead of using the slides as a highlight to the spoken content. I'm so glad I'm working remotely when I'm in those kinds of presentations.
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That's similar to what I mentioned. Either they put all their information into the presentation, or they read straight from it, rather than use it to supplement what they present.
 
Powerpoint is not boring, allow me to elaborate in the following 28 slide powerpoint presentation.
 
Ugh I really hate those nauseating PPT transitions. I really wish MS would update PPT to be more competitive with Keynote.
 
well I liked boring presentations will lots of info on the powerpoint, less notes I need to write or even skip the lecture all together
 
Ugh. So many people don't know how to use PowerPoint effectively. Don't read from the slides; I can do that myself. Don't put a bunch of special effects and transitions in that distract me from the information you're trying to convey. Don't think a good PowerPoint can even begin to make up for a boring speaker. And for God's sake, please, please remember this:

  • Don't get carried away with bullet lists
    • Don't start a whole sublevel for one bullet
      • That's annoying

Let me repeat that: do not start a new sublevel unless it contains at least two bullets! Thank you.
 
Although the SmartArt feature in PPT 2007 can be quite effective if used correctly. It really makes a slide show look much more interesting than a simple bullet list. Several times I've gotten complements about how I must have taken hours to make my PowerPoint look that good, when all I did was use SmartArt instead of a bullet list.
 
Hey guys you know what this presentation could use!? Some cool transitions and funny sounds!!!! Look at those letters! They are yellow! And there's a graphic of a cow! And it goes "moo"! This is going to be the best presentation ever!
 
I love it when the presenter actually explains the joke on the slide. Kill me now, please.
 
HOCP4ME said:
Ugh. So many people don't know how to use PowerPoint effectively. Don't read from the slides; I can do that myself. Don't put a bunch of special effects and transitions in that distract me from the information you're trying to convey. Don't think a good PowerPoint can even begin to make up for a boring speaker. And for God's sake, please, please remember this:

  • Don't get carried away with bullet lists
    • Don't start a whole sublevel for one bullet
      • That's annoying

Let me repeat that: do not start a new sublevel unless it contains at least two bullets! Thank you.
Click to expand...

  • Pew
    • Pew
      • Pew
        • I
          • shoot
            • you
              • with
                • bullets!
 
Terry Olaes said:
August 14th marked the 25th anniversary of PowerPoint, the bane of meetings around the world. BBC has an article that talks about the problems with PowerPoint presentations and has a quick slide show detailing the history of the program.
Click to expand...

That's because the presenter does not have creativity. I had a boss once who decided to put me even more work because of the level of detail of my PowerPoints. You Go figure.
BTW, I hope those presenters aren't in the entertainment business.
 
did nobody else lol when they saw that the site detailing the problems with power point was using a slideshow?
 
What? Didn't know PowerPoint was this old already, or that it was actually first released for a Mac.
 
R0N1 said:
What? Didn't know PowerPoint was this old already, or that it was actually first released for a Mac.
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Yea, back in 1984 the Mac was king of everything WYSIWYG. PC's just sucked at it until 1990 with the release of Windows 3.0, who's 20th is coming up next year.

Windows 3.0 is still my pick of the most influential piece of software in history.
 
Nospunosaj said:
This presentation isn't too bad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njuo1puB1lg

280 slides :D
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That's an excellent presentation as silly as '280 slides' sounds. He says why he intentionally made it fast with so many slides but moreover it shows that slide presentations should serve as a basic foundation for points which are expanded upon in speaking not slides that have all the info already.

The content is quite interesting as well.
 
HOCP4ME said:
Although the SmartArt feature in PPT 2007 can be quite effective if used correctly. It really makes a slide show look much more interesting than a simple bullet list. Several times I've gotten complements about how I must have taken hours to make my PowerPoint look that good, when all I did was use SmartArt instead of a bullet list.
Click to expand...

Completely agree. In fact, PowerPoint can be extremely effective as a teaching tool if you maximize the use of transitions, animations and interactions. And use audio only when necessary. Kind of the opposite of using bullets to summarize speech.

This demonstration uses a total of 20 slides. Only the splash page was done in Flash. Everything else was developed in PowerPoint 2007:
http://www.articulate.com/community/guru/2009/CPR/

(Articulate provides a navigational wrapper around the presentation and converts the whole thing to Flash for web delivery or integration with Learning Management Systems. However, everything you see and click inside the slides would work natively in PowerPoint.)
 
PowerPoint isn't really boring people, it's the people boring people :)

If you have a good enough speaker it doesn't matter what's on the screen behind you.
 
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