PowerPoint Doesn’t Have to Suck

Twice this week I got into conversations about the merits of PowerPoint. First with WSJ reporter Charlie Wells, then with social media agency CEO Jason Stein. Here’s the debate with Jason. https://mobile.twitter.com/ericfranchi/status/380320221929549824?screen_name=ericfranchi. Both questioned whether PowerPoint was an effective tool at all.

Frankly I can’t argue with either of them. Most PowerPoints that I see are bad. But they don’t have to be. I think death by PowerPoint can be avoided. There are two solvable issues:

Design: There are FAR too many options in PowerPoint. I think it stems from the fact that it’s used in so many different ways - for presentations, webinars, training documentation, instructional materials, etc. In my opinion Microsoft’s customers will be well served if they created a version of PowerPoint for presentation-use only that stripped out a lot of the options...