Monday, November 30, 2009

How not to use PowerPoint

I suspect that everyone who has worked in a technical field has seen this kind of person. You know, the kind of clown who prepares a PowerPoint presentation, and then liberally reads the content of the slides out loud to the public. That's just sheer buffoonery, and it's an insult to the intelligence of one's listeners.

People like that typically lack common sense. They fail to realize that the audience is perfectly capable of reading the slides for themselves, thank you very much.

I would cut people slack when they're not college educated and haven't worked in industry before. After all, I understand that public speaking is an acquired skill. I also understand that some people are very uncomfortable when it comes to public speaking. If one is in the position of giving such talks on a regular basis though, then one should really know better.

This article might be beneficial to these folks. It talks about the reasons why PowerPoint is not a teleprompter.