PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Does PowerPoint Really Have Such a Power?

By Miguel Monteiro

Or does human idiocy have no end?

Isn’t it a fact that presentations are getting more and more important in the world of business communications? And the quantity of presentations taking place worldwide every day is probably innumerable. At the same time, following this trend, we do see a multiplication of tools available to facilitate presenters’ lives. Oddly, the most common of these tools, being by far the most efficient, is also the most unjustifiably and dumbly criticized: PowerPoint!

Ever since the visual communication “expert”, Edward Tufte growled the most unreasonable of (pre)concepts ever raised against a tool (death by PowerPoint), waves of bleats from herds of followers against the “evils” of PowerPoint seem to have no end at sight!

Image: Yay Images

From NASA’s accusation of guilt for the Columbia space shuttle accident in August 2003 to the responsibility for the unsuccessful military interventions in Afghanistan pointed by US generals in 2010 and even the birth of the ridiculous Swiss Anti PowerPoint Party, reactions to PowerPoint have often been absurd.

If that was not enough, early last month we watched top General Motors executives blaming PowerPoint for the changes in their company’s corporate culture, which resulted in its recent declaration of bankruptcy.

Has it ever occurred to anyone in their right mind to blame a bad speech on the pencil or the paper used in its writing? Tools aren’t to be blamed for its bad use, users are! A hammer and a chisel, by themselves don’t make anyone a mason or a sculptor, but these same tools in the right hands, helped Michelangelo create Pietà for the world!

Just like a hammer and a chisel, PowerPoint is only a tool, a great tool indeed, but not a magic wand which does all the job by itself — and thus may be held accountable for the end results. Due to such apparent easiness and accessibility, less attentive users have flooded the world of slides with more than doubtful presentations.

Companies, managers and other responsible professionals invest lots of time and resources, both human and financial, in the development of projects and products. When required to invest time in the fields of communication, marketing and advertising, they don’t create their content in-house, but they call upon experts such as communication and/or advertising agencies.

Oddly, very often risking those same investments, many of them act differently for a presentation! Why are they devaluing a pivotal point in any project – its presentation – to stockholders, investors, media, etc. in such a way?

What if only, due to savings, laziness, or even pure bad management, results end up going down the drain? Then, as in the cases cited above, they’ll point fingers to the tool they used so irresponsibly? And that tool, more often than not happens to be PowerPoint.

The fact is that, for those slide moments, there are also experts including presentation designers and professionals who work the contents of their clients’ presentations into more efficient pieces of communication, not just “prettier” ones.

Contrary to perception, it’s important to understand that design is not mere decoration. Design means development, shaping and optimization of a function and, as in everything else design makes the difference in presentations!

This text reflects only the personal opinions of someone who’s been a presentation designer for the last 30 years. To those who deem this class inconsistent, I hope to have, at least helped to arouse reflection, to those who deem them unreasonable. Never mind…I can always blame Microsoft Word for my words!

  Miguel Monteiro is Owner & Master Designer at TRIBE Presentations (Portugal). Miguel has been a graphic designer/illustrator, working in Advertising and Communication Design since 1978 and developing computer-based multimedia presentations since 1988, for many high-end clients. Currently, Miguel focusses on creative consultancy and project development in business multimedia presentations design, video & audio production, event and scene design, exhibitions, etc.

See Also: TRIBE Presentations: Conversation with Miguel Monteiro

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.

Filed Under: Guest Posts
Tagged as: Guest Post, Miguel Monteiro, Opinion, PowerPoint

Learn PowerPoint 2013 for Windows: Tick Marks on Chart Axes

When you look at charts on a PowerPoint slide from afar, you make out the value of a series by exploring where exactly it’s placed vis-à-vis the axis. Of course, if your chart has data labels that identify values, then this is less of an issue. So what is the solution to this problem? Tick Marks placed on the axes will help us get a better idea.

Learn about the Tick Marks, both Major and Minor on chart axes in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2013
Tagged as: Charting, PowerPoint 2013, Tutorials

PowerPoint Shapes: Stars 02

Similar to our Stars 01 series, these combine-and-use star symbols are already colored using popular colors – and since they are native PowerPoint objects, you can change their fills, lines, and effects. All the stars are contained within a sample presentation you can download. Just copy the star clip art(s) you like and paste into another PowerPoint slide, or even a Word document or Excel worksheet.

Download and use these star shapes.

Filed Under: Clip Media
Tagged as: Clip Media, Graphics, PowerPoint

Learn PowerPoint 2011 for Mac: Add, Edit, or Delete Comments

If you are the member of a group that is working on a presentation, or if you are getting your presentation designed by someone else, then you will need to give feedback, without actually editing the slides themselves. Comments are great for such scenarios — a comment is a note that you can attach to any slide object or to a whole slide. The ability to add comments into your PowerPoint presentation enables you to write important notes for particular slide object or for the slide. Once you add a comment in PowerPoint 2011, you can edit the comment and even delete the comment, as explained in the following steps.

Learn how to add, edit, or delete comments within PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2011
Tagged as: Office for Mac, PowerPoint 2011, Tutorials

Colors: Blue

On this page, we have assembled variations of the color blue. Explore any of the colors that you want, and then use it within a PowerPoint slide or also within any other program.

Explore the variations of blue along with their Hex, RGB, and HSL values.

Filed Under: Color
Tagged as: Color, Design, PowerPoint, Tutorials