Friday, February 11, 2005
PowerPoint is much maligned....
PowerPoint seems much maligned lately.
From Edward Tufte's dismissal of PowerPoint in "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint", the ensuing New York Times article, "PowerPoint Makes You Dumb" (where PowerPoint is blamed for the Columbia shuttle craft disaster, no less) to seemingly countless articles about "Death by PowerPoint" -- it would appear that PowerPoint is the program that people love to hate.
There's one problem behind this kind of hatred: it blames the tool (PowerPoint).
Do carpenters blame poor workmanship on their shoddy tools? If they do, they're bad carpenters.
Do writers blame their pens or paper for bad writing? If they do, they're hacks.
Bad presenters and bad communicators will always blame the tool.
Remember this: it's not the tool. It's never the tool.
If you give bad PowerPoint presentations....
It's you. ¶ 2/11/2005 03:35:00 PM
PowerPoint seems much maligned lately.
From Edward Tufte's dismissal of PowerPoint in "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint", the ensuing New York Times article, "PowerPoint Makes You Dumb" (where PowerPoint is blamed for the Columbia shuttle craft disaster, no less) to seemingly countless articles about "Death by PowerPoint" -- it would appear that PowerPoint is the program that people love to hate.
There's one problem behind this kind of hatred: it blames the tool (PowerPoint).
Do carpenters blame poor workmanship on their shoddy tools? If they do, they're bad carpenters.
Do writers blame their pens or paper for bad writing? If they do, they're hacks.
Bad presenters and bad communicators will always blame the tool.
Remember this: it's not the tool. It's never the tool.
If you give bad PowerPoint presentations....
It's you. ¶ 2/11/2005 03:35:00 PM
