Anti-PowerPoint Party

The Swiss Anti-PowerPoint Party has been founded to ban the use of PowerPoint: "According to the APPP, the use of presentation software costs the Swiss economy 2.1 billion Swiss francs (US$2.5 billion) annually, while across the whole of Europe, presentation software causes an economic loss of €110 billion (US$160 billion). APPP bases its calculations on unverified assumptions about the number of employees attending presentations each week, and supposes that 85 percent of those employees see no purpose in the presentations." The party's founder has -- not coincidentally -- written a book about PowerPoint's evils (he recommends flip-charts instead). (via /.)

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Anonymous

APPP bases its calculations on unverified assumptions about the number of employees attending presentations each week, and supposes that 85 percent of those employees see no purpose in the presentations.

This is rather an argument for banning presentations. Taking away tools that make it too easy to prepare bad ones is not necessarily a help to productivity if would-be presenters are willing to soldier on anyways.
Anonymous

Perhaps the Tyranny of Flipcharts can also be a lesson here. Tools can make things easier or harder, but a bad presentation comes from its design.
Roy Trumbull

Graphic information has a limit with regard to what anyone past the first 6 rows can actually see. Increasing the font size and reducing the number of lines of copy leads to more slides.
There is also a tendency of the speaker to read his slides to you.
I’d rather have a pdf of the entire paper since what is presented in a 20 minute talk is only a small portion of that paper.
Limit slides to illustrations.
I once did a major revision to a talk a half hour before giving it so such slides as I had weren’t useful. It turned out to be perhaps the best talk I’d ever given mainly because it covered a hot topic. After the session was over an number of attendees sought me out for conversation. One comment was, “Thank Gawd you didn’t do a Powerpoint.
Palomino

“A rose is a rose is a rose.”

“A slide-show is a slide-show is a slide-show”.

Yawn.

Every PowerPoint I’ve viewed in college and by employers I received a printed copy of the show “for note taking”. People learn differently and I believe PowerPoint is minimally effective to a small number of viewers.

A study should be done: The following should show that “PP attendance is not more beneficial and not a driving factor towards better understanding of the subject/idea being presented thus increasing employee production/student grades”.

1/3 Receive the PP presentation on paper and view the show too.
1/3 Receive only the printed presentation.
1/3 View only the show w/o a presentation printout.
shutz

It’s not the tool, it’s how you use it.

There’s no way flip charts (or whiteboard, or blackboard, or transparencies) are any better, except in certain marginal circumstances.

I’ve been guilty of misusing PowerPoint in the past, but I think if I were to use it now, I’d put together a much better presentation.

The only problem is that, the way it’s currently designed, PowerPoint encourages bad practices, but that doesn’t make it inherently evil.

As for people’s wasted time — well, that’s another matter entirely, and has to do more with how people conduct meetings than how PowerPoint is (mis-)used.

Also, for quickly putting together a quick poster or when you just need to position a few pictures and a small amount of text on a page, for printing, it beats a lot of other tools and is a lot easier to use than dedicated publishing or layout software.
nosehat

Yes, because flip charts will make your content sooooo much more relevant to your audience. :P

With apologies to Marshall McLuhan: It’s the message, not the medium.

And for presentations, it’s a whole raft of human presentation skills that matter a whole lot more than whatever software you might also use.
pidg

I find PowerPoint a useful and effective tool for designing slides to illustrate/enhance my presentations.

Just because most people don’t know how to use it, or lack basic presentation skills, doesn’t make PowerPoint bad…
Daemon

Good idea: get rid of powerpoint
Better idea: get rid of people who misuse powerpoint
Best idea: get rid of the meetings, and do something worthwhile, like spend time with your family or create some art
- Gyrofrog
  
  Ding! Ding! Ding! (or go outside and get some vitamin D)
inkfumes

The Swiss APPP is funded by the Swiss Flip Chart Artists Union and backed by muscle from the International Swiss Paper Manufacturing Consortium… everyone knows that!
Anonymous

Flip charts??? Ugh! Are you serious? That’s not even funny. I know, let’s draw on cave walls.

Maybe they could email me some flip chart templates to check out…no wait…you can’t email a flip chart!!!

Holy Highlighters!

Banning PowerPoint — Ridiculous.
Anonymous

The problem is 99.9% of PP users don’t know how to use it and end with 234 slides with only text and all they do is read them.
quitterjunior

Gotta say Lessig has used it to great effect. First and only, though.
Antinous / Moderator

I use PowerPoint all the time for slideshows, although in my case the slides are photos, not cheesy graphics. It’s just an easy organizing tool, plus an easy way to pop in videos. And since there’s a way to tie the text of the presentation into the slideshow, a presenter can just walk up to the podium and run the whole thing without ever having seen the speech or the slides.
Anonymous

I must say that I don’t think flipcharts are a very good alternative at all. What you need is a structure to a meeting that neither PP nor flipcharts can provide. All they do is present or create a whole load of ‘noise’ and the result is frustration and total lack of engagement.

Using carefully thought out illustrations is brilliant as not only are they the most information-efficient construct possible, but everybody is on the same page (literally!). This also creates a focus for the meeting when people inevitably go off on tangents, and allows quality outputs to be gained from all the ‘noise’.
bocomo

http://www.amazon.com/Presentation-Zen-Simple-Design-Delivery/dp/0321525655/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309924390&sr=8-1
Moriarty

I’m with them on PP being generally evil and stupid, but – even as a publicity stunt – trying to get it legally banned seems pretty evil and stupid itself.