The Problem With Presentations: "Which brings me to PowerPoint.
First, I've got to say I love PowerPoint, just like I used to love Persuasion, and before that I loved MORE, which was the original presentation program. In fact, I'm one of those guys for whom no software ever got in the way of anything other than the time I should spend away from the computer.
But I do hate how it gets in the way, because it has this fascist wrongheadedness about what a presentation is supposed to be. To me the PowerPoint 'Wizard' is this Nazi interrogator who says 'Vee haff vays uff making you talk.'
Of course, PowerPoint is a little more West Coast than that: its wizard is like a tour guide on a magic bus: 'Your presentation is already well underway,' it says, two mouse clicks into your creative process. 'Click 'finish' to complete your presentation.' But it's not your presentation. It's your version of a PowerPoint presentation, which is not about what you want to say, but about how you say it. To quote the manual, 'To create presentations, you write and design slides.'
Wrong. Presentations are as much about slides as poetry is about handwriting. Again, David Ogilvy: 'What you say is more important than how you say it.'"
