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One thing that often gets missed with PowerPoint is that it’s a fundamentally different mode of communication than writing, but people don’t treat it that way.

One thing that often gets missed with PowerPoint is that it’s a fundamentally different mode of communication than writing, but people don’t treat it that way. One of the reasons it’s so hated is because people are trained to write essays and emails, and they try to build ppts in the same way. Done well, slides can be incredibly informative (link below). Because it’s visual, you can present the shape of an argument well before having to articulate the details, a tremendously powerful tool for communicating complex ideas. Because it’s nonlinear, you can include a level of detail that would be tedious in a document. Yes, these benefits often enable people to spout half-understood BS. But the medium itself is sticky for good reason - it’s powerful. Edit: link https://medium.com/the-mission/the-greatest-sales-deck-ive-ever-seen-4f4ef3391ba0 https://medium.com/the-mission/the-greatest-sales-deck-ive-e...

MengerSponge 6y ago
People spend far more time learning to put together "reports" in powerpoint. A slide deck is a sales tool. If you're selling a product, sure, make a deck. If you're communicating any nuance or subtlety, you will be hampered if you attempt to make it out of powerpoint. Bad powerpoints lead to bad decisions, and Edward Tufte addressed this years ago. https://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001yB https://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=... You could probably find an even worse ppt that justified the Iraq invasion, but nobody thinks they're dumber than the DoD. What about NASA though? Incredibly smart, hardworking, technically savvy engineers saw their recommendations get ground to dust by powerpoint. They couldn't write a good technical powerpoint. You can't either. Write the whitepaper instead. Use powerpoint for pretty pictures and graphs.
- bumby 6y ago
  > What about NASA though? Incredibly smart, hardworking, technically savvy engineers saw their recommendations get ground to dust by powerpoint. The problem this didn’t address though is when in-depth white papers are often written, they may not be read (or only read in a cursory fashion) because the audience may be stretched too thin on time. PowerPoints abbreviated style is both a strength and weakness.
  - MengerSponge 6y ago
    If making the document faster to read is all it took, we'd see 140 character technical reports. The difficult thing is understanding. Powerpoint masks this, so readers don't go looking for extra time to comprehend. Powerpoint also encourages poor communication (eg auto-resizing text blocks as you add more/longer entries) so the writer doesn't think deeply about the document they're making. It's a strength in some fields, and a weakness in others. Your boss asks for a deck? Sure, make the best damn deck you can. We've all got to earn a living. But one day, when you get to set the meeting agenda, be better to your reports than your boss was to you.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - bumby 6y ago
      >If making the document faster to read is all it took, we'd see 140 character technical reports. I suspect we’d then see the same hate talking about how all these executive summaries hamper understanding by glossing over nuanced details. Granted, PowerPoint is often misused. But just because I try to hunt with a shotgun at 300 meters doesn’t make the shotgun a piece of shyte. I just misapplied the tool. I can say, if you have a busy boss and constantly give them heaps of white papers as your communication tool, it’s a good way to ensure your concerns are rarely heard let alone addressed. I think there’s a natural dichotomy between limited bandwidth and understanding complex topics. I personally don’t think white papers solve that problem.
      - MengerSponge 6y ago
        White papers don't have to be 10 pages each. Some things are two pagers, some need 5, and some really beefy topics need more. The problem is that in addition to the clay thrower, the shotgun comes equipped with a scope and a 300 meter paper target. Yes people are fools for misapplying the tool, but the manufacturer is to blame for misleading their customers to the tool's capabilities. The problem is that bad writing is immediately obvious to fluent speakers, but bad powerpoints are not. Powerpoints are also susceptible to institutional styling (look up the face-melters that the American DoD designs). I would wager that a busy boss will pay more attention to your ideas if they're presented as a tight page or two. Good writing is hard to do, and takes time for almost everyone. Presenting topics in a way that makes their complexity evident helps people allocate their attention correctly. White papers don't solve the problem, but at least they don't make it worse.
quyleanh 6y ago
Totally agree. In some cases, explanation technically is much more effective when using PowerPoint or any kind of visual presentation rather than a wall of text.

MengerSponge 6y ago

People spend far more time learning to put together "reports" in powerpoint. A slide deck is a sales tool. If you're selling a product, sure, make a deck. If you're communicating any nuance or subtlety, you will be hampered if you attempt to make it out of powerpoint. Bad powerpoints lead to bad decisions, and Edward Tufte addressed this years ago. https://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001yB https://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=... You could probably find an even worse ppt that justified the Iraq invasion, but nobody thinks they're dumber than the DoD. What about NASA though? Incredibly smart, hardworking, technically savvy engineers saw their recommendations get ground to dust by powerpoint. They couldn't write a good technical powerpoint. You can't either. Write the whitepaper instead. Use powerpoint for pretty pictures and graphs.

bumby 6y ago
> What about NASA though? Incredibly smart, hardworking, technically savvy engineers saw their recommendations get ground to dust by powerpoint. The problem this didn’t address though is when in-depth white papers are often written, they may not be read (or only read in a cursory fashion) because the audience may be stretched too thin on time. PowerPoints abbreviated style is both a strength and weakness.
- MengerSponge 6y ago
  If making the document faster to read is all it took, we'd see 140 character technical reports. The difficult thing is understanding. Powerpoint masks this, so readers don't go looking for extra time to comprehend. Powerpoint also encourages poor communication (eg auto-resizing text blocks as you add more/longer entries) so the writer doesn't think deeply about the document they're making. It's a strength in some fields, and a weakness in others. Your boss asks for a deck? Sure, make the best damn deck you can. We've all got to earn a living. But one day, when you get to set the meeting agenda, be better to your reports than your boss was to you.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - bumby 6y ago
    >If making the document faster to read is all it took, we'd see 140 character technical reports. I suspect we’d then see the same hate talking about how all these executive summaries hamper understanding by glossing over nuanced details. Granted, PowerPoint is often misused. But just because I try to hunt with a shotgun at 300 meters doesn’t make the shotgun a piece of shyte. I just misapplied the tool. I can say, if you have a busy boss and constantly give them heaps of white papers as your communication tool, it’s a good way to ensure your concerns are rarely heard let alone addressed. I think there’s a natural dichotomy between limited bandwidth and understanding complex topics. I personally don’t think white papers solve that problem.
    - MengerSponge 6y ago
      White papers don't have to be 10 pages each. Some things are two pagers, some need 5, and some really beefy topics need more. The problem is that in addition to the clay thrower, the shotgun comes equipped with a scope and a 300 meter paper target. Yes people are fools for misapplying the tool, but the manufacturer is to blame for misleading their customers to the tool's capabilities. The problem is that bad writing is immediately obvious to fluent speakers, but bad powerpoints are not. Powerpoints are also susceptible to institutional styling (look up the face-melters that the American DoD designs). I would wager that a busy boss will pay more attention to your ideas if they're presented as a tight page or two. Good writing is hard to do, and takes time for almost everyone. Presenting topics in a way that makes their complexity evident helps people allocate their attention correctly. White papers don't solve the problem, but at least they don't make it worse.

quyleanh 6y ago

Totally agree. In some cases, explanation technically is much more effective when using PowerPoint or any kind of visual presentation rather than a wall of text.