Robert Scoble

On my talk on Friday I told my audience that I would never use Powerpoint again because I had worked at Microsoft. That got a HUGE laugh. And I'm serious. Even with tools that make PowerPoint more useful, like this one, I just hate what it's done for presenters. Most use it badly. The ones who use it well are really great, though. It's just that I've sat through so many bad presentations that I'd rather not encourage anyone. - Robert Scoble

I agree, but I think the problem has more to do with a presenter's inability to understand the theater behind what they're doing. PPT does make people lazy, but I have a feeling even if their design department put together a kick ass Flash animation for it, they'd still end up just reading the bullet points. - Ciaoenrico

So what do you use Robert? - Brad Nickel

Brad: I stand up in front of the audience and talk off of an outline and I demo things when appropriate. If I had to use PowerPoint I'd do it like Larry Lessig does it. Lots of photos, very few words. Tell a story with visuals. - Robert Scoble

I moved to images and one thought per slide about 2 years ago. Works beautifully, but your method reminds me of my debate / extemp days. May have to think about going back there. Why do I need an image for every thought, when I am a persuasive public speaker, eh? Thanks. - Brad Nickel

Seriously. Since when did it become okay or useful to paraphrase what you're going to present and then project it on a screen while you present? My company has an Acceptable Usage policy for the Internet; we need one for PowerPoint. - Tim Harding

few tech guys know theater, or story-telling, or art ... all of which need to be part of a visual presentation ... otherwise, just speak, hand out notes. - Gregory Lent

Yes, use PP in a manner that it doesn't look like PP. Like Paul Isakson's well-known presentation: http://tinyurl.com/37sbht. - Marko Bon

Look at Steve Jobs presentations. He has everything, including the theater. - Roberto Bonini

@Brad Nickel I like to think of the visuals as emotional buoys. Your speaking is the navigation but the reefs, as well as the moorings, need to be given some prominence. - Christopher Harley

I use Powerpoint to keep the flow of information going and to be sure I don't skip something important. Otherwise I might talk the whole hour and a half - being engaging and entertaining - but neglecting some key points.(I teach branding/marketing workshops for small hair salons) - Aura Mae

slides are *not* a script. if you need reminding about what you planned to say, a: use the presenters notes feature and b: this means you need to rehearse more. if you don't know your material inside and out how can you hope to get your message across to the audience? - h1ro

Yeah. I use SlideRocket now, with one eye-popping image and a few words of text per slide. If I have an important set of data to present, I'll put that on a slide--in a recent presentation on the workflow for my podcast, one slide listed all the software I use. But generally it's just an image and a thought. - Brent Newhall

Wonder how Edward Tufte feels about this update? He was always one to rail on PowerPoint (and especially the presentation style that it fostered.) Does this move presentation style in the right direction, or wrong direction? (I understand it allows you to "drill into" a slide to show information contributing to that slide... which is hard to do ad-hoc with linear slides.) - Wade Dorrell

Presenters notes only work if you are standing at your computer. For a workshop where the presenter is moving about the crowd, they are useless. Moving to the next slide is the cue to move to the next topic. Perhaps a workshop (interacting with the audience) is different than a speech which could be memorized? (I can rehearse my content, but it is hard to rehearse the unexpected input from each audience.) - Aura Mae

I still think LaTeX is the best for presentations: writing one couldn't be quickier, and the result, without being a "show", is accessible, readable, good looking and professional. - ☂Marcos Marado via fftogo

this is like blaming wordpress for sucky blog postings and spam blogs. just because it is the most used software does not make it the reason for sucky presentations. (btw I just ordered the office 2007 although i despise the ribbon and what it does to my productivity. it is just that everything other offering of office software is so not on par with needed features for smart working. then again i am a power user who knows what she is doing.) - Nicole Simon

@aura you can never anticipate every possible audience interaction but depending on the content, you can use questions or interactions in an adaptive manner in order to bring the conversation back to your main talking points. you are on stage - you are in control of the conversation. if you are giving a presentation not a workshop. if it's a workshop style event then the rules change. if it's a presentation, you are there to move the audience to understand what you are trying to share - h1ro

@marcos the tool shouldn't matter - i think that people should practice talking with no props or visual aids at all like @robertscoble was mentioning. if you can't tell a story without a 50ft visual aid you might want to rethink your strategy :) - h1ro

@Nicole it doesn't make PowerPoint the reason for bad presentations, but whether the gravity it exerts as popular software has a bad (or good, or no) effect on presentation as a whole is a debate we can have. - Wade Dorrell

+1 h1ro. amen to that. ppt is a crutch. - .LAG

I agree. I enjoy using PowerPoint for instructional pres but I never use it alone, its usually in connection with Camtasia or Impatica. But I've noticed that I will hear people say "O, yeah, I can do PowerPoint" and then you do see what they mean: It's every thing that Edward Tufte warns against and more. It just seems to me that they are not enjoying what you can do with the tool. They don't even explore it. And yes, most importantly you have to have a story to tell. You've got to storyboard. - Melanie Reed

Robert's talk at the New Media Expo was far more engaging because he *didn't* use PPT. - Chris Luckhardt

@Chris Luckhardt ...because Robert didn't use any presentation software at all, or because he did use software but it wasn't PPT? - Wade Dorrell

Wade: I didn't use any presentation software at all. Right. - Robert Scoble

@Robert Unclear whether the "Right" was sarcasm or affirmation. Thanks for the reply. Anyway, do you use any kind of resource to share data spoken & unspoken? (For example, do you have a person post to FF the data/URLs during a presentation? Do you do premeditated handouts of some of the data/URLs you think you'll mention?) Certainly someone in the audience can capture this for you, if it's a big enough audience or an important enough talk it's almost guarenteed... but then that person is a stenographer, not a conversation participant. - Wade Dorrell

but it is a MS only solution and not applicable for Mac Office 2008 :-( - Torsten Eckert