hightext

Bigtext

Some useful links on slideware presentations, from Business Bricks, including one to an explanation of the Takahashi Method.
I wish more Japanese presentations used this. I noticed last time I was in Japan that there were plenty of How To PPT books in the business bookshelves of bookshops, so there is hope.

PowerPoint has its uses

I've blogged before about the misuse of PowerPoint but I'm coming to realise that PowerPoint is sometimes used in a positive way in cross cultural business contexts. Twice now I have come across a situation where two teams from different countries, both non-native speakers of English, have used PowerPoint as a way of drafting proposals for mutual discussion. PowerPoint works in this context because it is OK for the English to be ungrammatical and short, and it is easier for non-native speakers to get to grips with than a long memo or e-mail.

Breaking up by PowerPoint

More on a recurring theme of this blog - the misuse of PowerPoint - if you're thinking of breaking up with your girlfriend, here are some slides already prepared for you! You might want to change the background colour scheme however and maybe the font, and the name, obviously. The charts are quite good though. Thanks to Michael Brooke at Mischievous Constructions, who also links to past stories on doing it by text, e-mail and fax.

PowerPoint is evil - and funny

I've been doing a lot of work on intercultural presentation skills, and making a lot of PowerPoint slides recently, despite my better judgement. I came across this, which I realise has been linked to extensively already, but it does show how the plain but still beautifully constructed 267 words of the Gettysburg address (which I was using in a training session to illustrate American directness in speech), can be made turgid with PowerPoint. Actually I think Norvig missed a trick with "of/by/for the people". The slashes are hideous, but it could also have been an opportunity for a meaningless graphic with a blob for "the people" and various arrows shooting around - preferably phased per mouse click.

Here's a better use of PowerPoint, sort of, with Clinton's autobiography reduced from 957 pages to five slides by Daniel Radosh at Slate magazine. Clinton seems to have skipped the plain and direct aspects of American communication skills - not even enough 'show and tell' to titillate judging by the reviews.

PowerPoint - not just evil but also monocultural (4)

An article by Julia Keller in the Chicago Tribune last year called 'Is PowerPoint the Devil?' has extensive quotations from Sherry Turkle, professor at MIT and director of MIT's Initiative on Technology and Self.

"We have a technology that is encouraging us to see things in black and white - but is this a time when we need to see things in black and white?"

"PowerPoint doesn't teach children to make an argument. It teaches them to make a point, which is quite a different thing. It encourages presentation, not conversation. Students grow accustomed to not being challenged. A strong presentation is designed to close down debate, rather than open it up."

"It's part of a general trend. It's one element among others that keep us from complexity. We face a very complex world. History is quite complex. Current events and literature are complex."

Other people quoted in the article give the counter argument (which I usually agree with) that technology is not inherently good or bad. Only its usage can be labeled that way.

And then the article quotes from Neil Postman, a professor at New York University who wrote the anti-TV book 'Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business'. "To be unaware that a technology comes equipped with a program for social change, to maintain that technology is neutral, to make the assumption that technology is always a friend to culture is, at this late hour, stupidly plain and simple."

I use PowerPoint in intercultural training sometimes, but more as a jumping off point for discussion - especially by including photographs in the slides, but also to give people comfort (including myself) that there is a structure, and the handouts give them something to scribble on and take home with them. And in intercultural situations, it is necessary to be aware, as I've mentioned before, that many high context cultures are going to find a PowerPoint presentation reductive and untrustworthy. But the level of debate and interactivity seems to depend more on the layout of the room and the people present than PowerPoint itself.

Clearly I need to add Sherry Turkle's book 'Life on the Screen: Identity in the age of the Internet' to my wishlist. Not so sure about the Neil Postman one though, as Amazon tells me that people who bought his books also bought books by George 'Moonbat' Monbiot and Michael Moore - shudder.

PowerPoint - not just evil but also monocultural (3)

I had more confirmation last week of my assertion that PowerPoint doesn't work in high context cultures from a Japanese manager in a German/US chemicals company. He said he views PowerPoint presentations as "smokescreens" and always feels that the presenter is trying to deceive him in some way.

PowerPoint is evil (2)

Some British research scientists from a client of mine (Large German Chemicals Company) who work with their Japanese counterparts on R&D, confirmed on Friday my previous assertion that PowerPoint doesn't work with high context cultures like Japan. Past attempts to wow their colleagues with snazzy presentations were greeted with indifference verging on hostility, and when they visit Japanese customers who actually make projectors, like Epson, they have to order the projector for the meeting room well in advance, because there are so few of them in the office. They have found the best solution is to reformat the slide presentation as a report, and circulate it to participants before the meeting takes place.

PowerPoint - not just evil but also monocultural?

I've just been re-doing a PowerPoint presentation that was originally created by a Japanese businessman. I couldn't see it working with a British audience so I replaced the dark blue swirling background with plain white, made all the fonts the same (arial - sans serif seems to be the best for a British audience?), cut down the number of colours used and dropped some of the less necessary text.

So I wonder, is it just me applying my own aesthetics or is this a crosscultural difference between Japanese and British taste in slides? When I was working for a Japanese company in Japan a few years ago, we hardly ever used PowerPoint - I got the impression such presentations were regarded with suspicion. Rightly, Edward Tufte would say.

Maybe high context cultures like Japan find slide presentations too unsubtle - they give lots of low context information and therefore not the real story. And perhaps I am appealing to the high context side of British nature, by ensuring that the presentation is aesthetically pleasing (subtext to the presentation is therefore - I'm intelligent and a person of taste and education, so you can trust my products).