“You will live seven and a half minutes longer than you would have otherwise, just because you watched this talk.” This was the claim that video game designer Jane McGonigal presented to the crowd during her June 2012 TED talk. As the camera panned over the (very educated) members of the audience, their faces showed universal skepticism: was this lady serious?
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The American celebration of independence seems an appropriate time to ponder the opening line of, “Paul Revere’s Ride,” a poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. According to Longfellow, Revere raised the alarm and became a hero of the Revolutionary War. Unfortunately, this isn’t true. It’s true that he made the ride, but his role has been exaggerated.
Last month, Microsoft Office tool PowerPoint celebrated its 24th birthday, continuing its dominant run as the unquestioned King of the Presentation World. Despite a quarter-century defined by minimal improvements and denunciation by critics, PowerPoint has surprisingly retained its seat on the Bullet Point Throne, a reality the next wave of presentation tools is gunning to alter.
If we were left bleeding in a ditch like Cool Hand Luke, and were succinctly notified — what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate — we might all get a little better at communicating. There’s nothing like a painful lesson but, usually, that doesn’t happen. Most often, when communication breaks down, nothing happens. There is no message, just missage.
Ironically filed under Corporate Intelligence on the Wall Street Journal’s website is an article, Did PowerPoint Ruin GM? by Joseph B. White. It’s an opinion piece whose central thrust is that, “Chief Executive Mary Barra can start fixing her company’s management culture”
PowerPoint is an incredibly useful tool, but like a Swiss Army knife, it isn't applicable to all situations. If you would never build a house with a Swiss Army knife, why would you write a report in PowerPoint?
