DIY Librarian

Last week, after a presentation I gave using PowerPoint slides, someone mentioned that it was a bit odd to see me use PowerPoint after all the negative things I’ve said about PowerPoint on this blog.

Hi, my name is Tara and I’m a PowerPoint user.

I think that PowerPoint does a good job of allowing people to quickly and easily create and display electronic “slides”. It is surely not the only method of creating digital slides, but it’s familiar to users of Word and it’s widely available. I think it does a lousy job of helping people organize and write presentations.

When I prepared the presentation in question, I first jotted down a list of key points I wanted to make. These don’t necessarily correspond to slides. For example, when I’m introducing myself and telling the audience what the focus of my presentation will be, I want them focusing on me, not on a slide. (Did you know that if you press the “b” key during your presentation, the screen will go black? Pressing “b” again will bring your slide back.) If I started working on my presentation in PowerPoint, though, the natural tendency would be to make a slide for each talking point. In fact, the “outline” in PowerPoint is taken directly from the slides.

Then, I wrote out a draft of what I planned to say.

After all that, I looked at my draft and selected a few points that could use a visual—an example, a figure, or a summary of points made so far. I think it went well, and the audience seemed interested and responsive.

I don’t get excited when speakers post slides from a talk they’ve given. To me, it’s like getting the illustrations from a picture book without the words. PowerPoint can be a tool for good when it’s used to enhance a talk. But when it is allowed to take over the talk, I think it because a tool for evil.