Frank, I was the best at PowerPoints. Microsoft, creator of the thing, ran on them. The effort that went into big exec review presentations was stupendous. Then, if the Trump in the room took the conversation sideways-which happened a lot-all your slides with graphs and data and pretty pictures and animations, were for naught. The slides were guardrails really, to try to guide the conversation to the conclusion you wanted from the boss.
At Amazon slides were verboten. While I never worked for Bezos, there was a lot of back-and-forth of Microsoft and Amazon employees and the lore was a written report was distributed at the beginning of meetings and there was 10 minutes of silence at the beginning of the meeting while everybody read it. I have no idea how the meeting was conducted after that, but it sounds like chaos.
Thanks for the view from high places. I can appreciate the effort that went into those projects. As a graphic designer who was also the Manager of Business Communications for a defense contractor, I laid down guidelines for how slides should look. Still, I had no control over scope and pacing.
A slide show’s success was a hit-or-miss affair depending on at least two things: the creator’s authoring skill (can they tell a story?) and their speaking skills. Numerous presenters read the words everyone could see —or couldn’t see—because they’d used small fonts as if empty space was the enemy.
PowerPoint should have had a “Use With Caution” label!
Frank, I was the best at PowerPoints. Microsoft, creator of the thing, ran on them. The effort that went into big exec review presentations was stupendous. Then, if the Trump in the room took the conversation sideways-which happened a lot-all your slides with graphs and data and pretty pictures and animations, were for naught. The slides were guardrails really, to try to guide the conversation to the conclusion you wanted from the boss.
At Amazon slides were verboten. While I never worked for Bezos, there was a lot of back-and-forth of Microsoft and Amazon employees and the lore was a written report was distributed at the beginning of meetings and there was 10 minutes of silence at the beginning of the meeting while everybody read it. I have no idea how the meeting was conducted after that, but it sounds like chaos.
Thanks for the view from high places. I can appreciate the effort that went into those projects. As a graphic designer who was also the Manager of Business Communications for a defense contractor, I laid down guidelines for how slides should look. Still, I had no control over scope and pacing.
A slide show’s success was a hit-or-miss affair depending on at least two things: the creator’s authoring skill (can they tell a story?) and their speaking skills. Numerous presenters read the words everyone could see —or couldn’t see—because they’d used small fonts as if empty space was the enemy.
PowerPoint should have had a “Use With Caution” label!