The Problem With PowerPoint Is You!


Speakers, lecturers, professors, proselytizers, marketers, whoever you are, pay careful attention to your use of PowerPoint – otherwise, it’s useless!

Here comes Inc.com Contributing Editor Geoffrey James saying, “PowerPoint Makes Us Stupid. Here Are 3 Smarter Alternatives” (03 February 2020, Inc[1]). My quick reply to that is in these 17 words:

No, Mr James, it is not your PowerPoint presentation that makes you look stupid – it is you!

Mr James, just look at the image above being presented to grab the attention of the reader – it does not grab anyone. Undramatic, boring. But I’m creative, so it gives me another idea – a microphone does not grab the audience; it is the speaker who does! Or does not!

More than 4 years ago, 07 October 2015, I wrote against those against this app: “PowerPoint: Blaming The Program, Not The Pro[2].” I was responding to Andrew Smith of The Guardian complaining "How PowerPoint Is Killing Critical Thought." (23 September 2015, theguardian.com). Mr Smith was killing critical thought! (Why are the American and British journalists complaining?!)

Mr James, it is not the app killing critical thinking – it is the user of the app!

You enumerate 3 different “techniques that work better than PowerPoint” for 3 different meetings, and I quote:

1. If you need to discuss and decide, use a briefing document.
2. If you must instruct or train, create interactive experiences.
3. If you want to entertain or inspire, give a speech.

Mr James, if you bothered yourself at all, you can use PowerPoint to create your briefing document – and open people’s eyes in a meeting. And you can use PowerPoint to create interactive experiences. And you can use PowerPoint to entertain and/or inspire!

If the PowerPoint presentation fails, it is the thinker who has failed; it is the tinkerer who has not done enough tinkering with his presentation.

Yes, Mr James, I have not seen a PowerPoint presentation that grabs the audience, and I have been in and out of the academe and conferences in the last 20 years.

My PowerPoint advice is, Mr James, only 1 sentence made up of only 7 words:

Get your damn message out at once!

Immediately, right away, right on the first slide – then you can expect your audience to pay attention to you throughout your presentation, no matter how long. Guaranteed.

Otherwise, I repeat:

No, Mr James, it is not your PowerPoint presentation that makes you look stupid – it is you!

You quote one of my idols: “As Steve Jobs once said, 'People who know what they are talking about don't need PowerPoint.'” Geniuses can be wrong too!

I quote Mr Jobs again: “People who know what they are talking about don't need PowerPoint.” Mr James, the lesson there is that, in the first place, you should know what you’re talking about. This genius is telling you, Mr James, immediately with PowerPoint:

Get your main message out right away!

The literal meaning of “PowerPoint” is to make a point with power – and that is what all users have failed all these years.@517





[1] https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/sick-of-powerpoint-heres-what-to-use-instead.html?cid=sf01002&fbclid=IwAR0MurqO5SrVzoJuirXcnMTuRxWiZKiZjh8ucqdPT5eiWRhYjtbliesp24o
[2] https://frankahilario.blogspot.com/2015/10/powerpoint-blaming-program-not-pro.html

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