Friday, September 17, 2010

Situational Awareness


On the train the other day I sat next to a man who had a huge iPad out, preparing slides for some talk he was giving. He was talking to his companion opposite and said 'I hope it won't be more than 40 slides'.

40 slides?!! OMG... death by PowerPoint! And, sad to say, as I sneaked a look out the corner of my eye, I could see all his slides filled with text.

You can picture it, I hope. A room full of people watching the screen, trying desperately to read blocks of text and totally missing whatever he was saying. And the best bit?

Oh the best bit was when I noticed the title of one slide... 'Situational awareness'.

If you have a chance, watch this YouTube, and you'll know exactly how to murder your audience with nothing more than a set of slides...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpvgfmEU2Ck

Cartoon borrowed from http://blogs.uct.ac.za/blog/call-me-cassandra/death-by-powerpoint With acknowledgment to Alex Gregory of The New Yorker.

No comments: