A Brief History of the Corporate Presentation (technologyreview.com) 26
PowerPoint dominates presentations, utilized everywhere from sermons to weddings. In 2010, Microsoft revealed it was on over a billion computers. Before PowerPoint, 35-millimeter film slides reigned for impactful CEO presentations. These "multi-image" shows needed producers, photographers, and a production team to execute. MIT Technology Review has a rundown of the corporate presentation history.
Death by Power Point (Don McMillan) (Score:2)
And the Life after the Death by Power Point:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/@donmc... [youtube.com]
https://technicallyfunny.com/ [technicallyfunny.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
The first video I showed every intern/newbie that needed to create a presentation with Power Point - and I think Don saved many sane minds from going insane by insanely bad Power Point Presentations.
And basically from that sketch you can derive how to make presentations ranging from good to excellent and n
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Thankfully (Score:2)
I used to make presentations in Harvard Graphics (Score:2)
Non-corporate 35 mm Slide Presentation Methods (Score:2)
Gettysburg powerpoint (Score:2)
Continental Army Used PowerPoint (Score:2)
America was founded on PowerPoint. I'm pretty sure the founders had the Continental Army use PP when devising plans to take over the airports.
I used to work in Multi-Image (Score:2)
I was a technical photographer, animator and producer/programmer.
The motion control animation stands we used were awesome. My favorite was the Marron 1600. Big 400-foot film magazines like Mickey Mouse ears, computer driven compound, in-camera matting, the works.
When it came to programming shows, the languages (at least the couple-three I used: Clearlight and a couple flavors of AVL) were, in my opinion, ass.
I talked to the guy that wrote one of those languages once and he said, "yeah, one of these days I'm
I miss hand-drawn overheads (Score:3)
In the 1990s we used to use overhead projectors to display transparencies onto a screen. It was just as effective at transmitting information but took a lot less time to prepare, as no one cared about production values.
When you needed something special, you could make transparencies in a copy machine or printer, but it was great making slides with a pen.
Rumor has it that... (Score:2)
Robert Noyce entered a conference room at Intel in 1990 where there was no overhead projector, and promptly had the heart attack that killed him. He was clutching his foils until the end. Speculation is that Andy Grove had the projector removed.
Re: I miss hand-drawn overheads (Score:2)
Along with professional 35 mm slides and PPT slides, there was a tradition of laser-printed acetate slides...
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In the 1990s we used to use overhead projectors to display transparencies onto a screen. It was just as effective at transmitting information but took a lot less time to prepare, as no one cared about production values.
When you needed something special, you could make transparencies in a copy machine or printer, but it was great making slides with a pen.
Production value is a peacock's tail. It doesn't matter in some settings, but if you're a company presenting to another company the production value is critical.
It's basically a sign that "our organization is well run, competent, and profitable enough that we had time to put together this really slick looking presentation".
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It can also be a red flag: "We're better at presenting then we are at "
I've seen lots of really great slide decks about software that doesn't work...
Don't forget the classic... (Score:1)
I ordered a pile of these for the office where I used to work. But this is a fantastic analysis of the shortcomings/limitations of PowerPoint and slide ware in general.
From the cover art:
Giggle (Score:2)
I can't read something like this without thinking about the absolute gems that popped out during the war in Afghanistan.
e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/0... [nytimes.com] (SFW, WebP image of a powerpoint slide showing the stakeholders and assets in the war's political landscape.)
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Don't blame the medium (Score:4, Insightful)
However, the PPT format itself needs to die a death ASAP. It only works with proprietary software & cannot be shown in a web browser; Wouldn't it be great if you could upload your slides so that people can view them online on any device without installing any additional software? PDF is more convenient than PPT in that respect.
Also, your slides shouldn't be the presentation. They're only there to support the presentation. If I hear one more presenter reading the text off their slides or paraphrasing it, or if I even see whole sentences of text on slides, I'm gonna publicly call out the presenter for wasting our time (well, probably not; I'll just feel like doing it). For info about how/why this is a bad idea see: https://www.cambridge.org/core... [cambridge.org]
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I generally like to do slides in Beamer which is a bunch of Latex for producing slides...when I'm forced into doing slides.
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I've done several presentations using Libreoffice Impress - PPT compatible but otherwise it works fine on its own too. Ran one recent show in my computer (much higher performance than the ancient house computer) using LO, but saved as PPT for the proceedings. No complaints from either me or the audience. And yes, DON'T JUST READ THE SLIDES. They're an outline, they're not the whole show!
Overheads with paper covering the bottom half (Score:2)
Oops, the paper slid off, revealing the last few points too early!
Not great for a large audience (Score:2)
PowerPoint is great for a small audience, but if you have 1,000 or more in the room, it just doesn't cut it For that size audience, you want something a little more polished, with a dedicated operator. Software like ProPresenter is popular with venues with larger audiences, such as concerts or large churches. These systems allow for text over video in real time, or IMAG--showing the speaker live on a big screen, with text on the lower third. PowerPoint has come a long way, but it hasn't fully "grown up" to
Death by PowerPoint: the deadly slide (Score:3)
The slide that killed seven people: https://mcdreeamiemusings.com/... [mcdreeamiemusings.com]
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Also https://www.edwardtufte.com/bb... [edwardtufte.com]
I don't see anything wrong (Score:1)
PowerPoint wasn't the first or the best (Score:2)
1983 - GraphPlan
...
1984 - Graphstation
1984 - Overhead Express
1985 - IBM Storyboard
1985 - Slidewrite
1986 - Harvard Graphics
1987 - PowerPoint