PowerPoint paradox — facilitating communication &hampering innovation

“PowerPoint presentations too often resemble a school play — very loud, very slow, and very simple.” — Edward Tufte

Remember the days when asking someone to share their presentation almost felt like an apology? Like you were subtly borrowing their ideas without saying it. Now, it’s a whole different ball game. PowerPoint has become the go-to in the business world. It’s like we’ve decided that no conversation is complete without a PowerPoint in the background. Kind of normalizes the idea that we need these slides to communicate, doesn’t it?

Throughout my extensive career, I’ve been lauded for my creativity and knack for efficiency and great communications. Yet, most recently, I’ve found myself amidst a sea of individual types who are fixated on condensing every idea into PowerPoint slides, most often destined for the digital catacombs of their company’s document management system. These slides, more often than not, end up as forgotten relics, occasionally plundered for a slide or two, then abandoned.

As someone whose roots are more aligned with the no-nonsense, visual-frill-free environment of an engineering department, this trend irks me. It’s like watching my creativity and innovative spirit being slowly asphyxiated.

Most times, it’s painfully clear: someone’s ignorance turns into a pointless task for a bored and ignorant audience of one. This audience of one, more often than not, is just a parrot, mindlessly echoing things they don’t even grasp. PowerPoint has morphed into a crutch, a set of cue cards for speakers to jog their memory.

Nowadays, it’s nothing more than a tool for others to hijack and regurgitate someone else’s effort. But let’s not dwell on this soul-sucking facet. Instead, let’s talk about the irony: PowerPoint, meant to aid communication, has become a roadblock to genuine innovation