One thing that often gets missed with PowerPoint is that it’s a fundamentally different mode of communication than writing, but people don’t treat it that way. One of the reasons it’s so hated is because people are trained to write essays and emails, and they try to build ppts in the same way.
Done well, slides can be incredibly informative (link below). Because it’s visual, you can present the shape of an argument well before having to articulate the details, a tremendously powerful tool for communicating complex ideas. Because it’s nonlinear, you can include a level of detail that would be tedious in a document.
Yes, these benefits often enable people to spout half-understood BS. But the medium itself is sticky for good reason - it’s powerful.
People spend far more time learning to put together "reports" in powerpoint. A slide deck is a sales tool. If you're selling a product, sure, make a deck. If you're communicating any nuance or subtlety, you will be hampered if you attempt to make it out of powerpoint.
You could probably find an even worse ppt that justified the Iraq invasion, but nobody thinks they're dumber than the DoD. What about NASA though? Incredibly smart, hardworking, technically savvy engineers saw their recommendations get ground to dust by powerpoint. They couldn't write a good technical powerpoint. You can't either. Write the whitepaper instead. Use powerpoint for pretty pictures and graphs.
> What about NASA though? Incredibly smart, hardworking, technically savvy engineers saw their recommendations get ground to dust by powerpoint.
The problem this didn’t address though is when in-depth white papers are often written, they may not be read (or only read in a cursory fashion) because the audience may be stretched too thin on time.
PowerPoints abbreviated style is both a strength and weakness.
If making the document faster to read is all it took, we'd see 140 character technical reports.
The difficult thing is understanding. Powerpoint masks this, so readers don't go looking for extra time to comprehend. Powerpoint also encourages poor communication (eg auto-resizing text blocks as you add more/longer entries) so the writer doesn't think deeply about the document they're making. It's a strength in some fields, and a weakness in others.
Your boss asks for a deck? Sure, make the best damn deck you can. We've all got to earn a living. But one day, when you get to set the meeting agenda, be better to your reports than your boss was to you.
>If making the document faster to read is all it took, we'd see 140 character technical reports.
I suspect we’d then see the same hate talking about how all these executive summaries hamper understanding by glossing over nuanced details.
Granted, PowerPoint is often misused. But just because I try to hunt with a shotgun at 300 meters doesn’t make the shotgun a piece of shyte. I just misapplied the tool.
I can say, if you have a busy boss and constantly give them heaps of white papers as your communication tool, it’s a good way to ensure your concerns are rarely heard let alone addressed.
I think there’s a natural dichotomy between limited bandwidth and understanding complex topics. I personally don’t think white papers solve that problem.
White papers don't have to be 10 pages each. Some things are two pagers, some need 5, and some really beefy topics need more.
The problem is that in addition to the clay thrower, the shotgun comes equipped with a scope and a 300 meter paper target. Yes people are fools for misapplying the tool, but the manufacturer is to blame for misleading their customers to the tool's capabilities.
The problem is that bad writing is immediately obvious to fluent speakers, but bad powerpoints are not. Powerpoints are also susceptible to institutional styling (look up the face-melters that the American DoD designs).
I would wager that a busy boss will pay more attention to your ideas if they're presented as a tight page or two. Good writing is hard to do, and takes time for almost everyone. Presenting topics in a way that makes their complexity evident helps people allocate their attention correctly.
White papers don't solve the problem, but at least they don't make it worse.
If I had to guess, I think the difference in the way you and I are looking at this issue is that I do not think Powerpoint should be used to replace reports, as they both have a distinct purpose. Rather than display report-like information, I think their best use is to supplement discussion, where the discussion is intended to portray more nuanced information.
We're really of the same mind here, but the problem is that people read "powerpoint is best used to supplement discussion" and think "I'm using powerpoint in a discussion, so I'm ok"
I should have probably started with a disclaimer: I'm a PhD scientist at a major American R1 university. I collaborate with researchers and business partners around the world. I regularly write/share powerpoint decks, because it's the right tool for the job when I have figures and pictures of my work to share. When I post design documents, calculations, etc, I always write long-form, typically using the Tufte-handout class.
Totally agree. In some cases, explanation technically is much more effective when using PowerPoint or any kind of visual presentation rather than a wall of text.
Done well, slides can be incredibly informative (link below). Because it’s visual, you can present the shape of an argument well before having to articulate the details, a tremendously powerful tool for communicating complex ideas. Because it’s nonlinear, you can include a level of detail that would be tedious in a document.
Yes, these benefits often enable people to spout half-understood BS. But the medium itself is sticky for good reason - it’s powerful.
Edit: link https://medium.com/the-mission/the-greatest-sales-deck-ive-e...