Re: PowerPoint is art

Subject: Re: PowerPoint is art
From: Peter <pnewman1 -at- optonline -dot- net>
To: TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 21:22:20 -0500

R. Johnson wrote:

I hate to admit this but...

I have to agree with David Byrne. Don't stone me to death;
let me give my POV first. I HATE the typical PPT
presentations that PHBs and marketing types bore us to
death with at meetings and seminars, but I have seen some
inventive uses of the application, too.

I knew one guy who was a macro-maven, and he created a PPT
CBT that rivaled anything I'd ever seen in Director or
Authorware. It was a fully interactive, multimedia
presentation that he produced on CD-ROM to train employees
at our job sites and satellite locations. It even contained
a simple testing unit that evaluated the progress of the
trainees, and reenforced what they'd learned.

For me, I find it useful for making quick mock-ups and
designs, storyboards, layouts, etc. It's a great
brainstorming/"ideation" tool that let's me create a sketch
or abstract of whatever it is I'm trying to produce,
without having to know how to draw. You can easily color,
move and resize the objects, and develop and massage your
concept with minimal effort. I do this for everything: web
sites, page layouts, GUIs, process flows, outlines,
floorplans, drawings--anything that can be represented
visually.
I wouldn't go so far as to call PPT art, but I have seen
some slides that remind me of stuff I've seen in
contemporary art spaces.

Hating PPT because it is misused is equivalent to hating pencil and paper because some people scribble with it. A PPT presentation can be entertaining and enjoyable, or it can be drab and uninteresting. I wonder if the reason some users have an aversion to RTFM can somehow be found in this thread.


--
Peter

Sisyphus had it easy





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