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The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

inf.ed.ac.uk

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Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

#61

Post by plagiarist »

Angostura wrote: post #42
efitz wrote: post #7

Nobody has the patience anymore to be presented to or read in any form other than bullet points and low information density charts. I grew up before computers and learned to communicate in the absence of all the short attention span distractions that exist today. I remember the first time I picked up a Wired magazine and couldn’t tolerate the insane lack of continuity. I still cannot stand the video style of images p…

I can actualy cope quite well with the slides that have 5 words on. But typically in the organisations that I have worked for, people will cram 200 words on a slide and then droningly reads them out. No matter how often I explain that 'people can either listen to what you are saying, or read the slide - pick one' - it doesn't really sink in

A recent colleague often gave my team feedback like that. But we listened to him and all our presentations were much better afterwards. I hope I've internalized that idea somewhat.

Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

#62

Post by jncfhnb »

PaulHoule wrote: post #59
jncfhnb wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t say I agree with that. Frankly even most of the haters will dryly concede that the only thing McKinsey is good at is making powerpoints. In my experience the slide decks are pretty solid, with occasional exceptions. For whatever reason the folks that work in the financial industry seem obsessed with truly pointlessly large decks that reach over 100 pages. Otherwise I think the approach is good, clear, and con…

My partner and I were primarily targeting finance at that time. I didn't always present 100% of the "big and dense" slide decks; we could get people into a dialogue early on that would give us an idea of what to show next, a bit like a "choose your own adventure" book. (Overall our approach was super effective at getting people to talk about their business, my partner got me to read https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Que…

I do think it would differ significantly if you were trying to garner interest. Flexibility would help vs. a more structured presentation.

I can’t say I like the linked deck too much. Titles with no thesis. Visuals that don’t demonstrate anything on their own. It can work for speaking over. But it doesn’t actually convey information.

Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

#63

Post by Closi »

While this criticises PowerPoint - I don't think it sufficiently outlines an alternative.

As someone that has tried to write a decision paper before rather than a PowerPoint deck, I found the main challenge was engagement (i.e. encouraging people to read it is a challenge, while a powerpoint can be walked through together).

I could present a spreadsheet, but that only addresses the financials or numbers and won't address the business context.

And if you go into a board meeting empty handed to talk about a large investment - good luck!

I think it's probably a case of horses-for-courses: Sometimes PowerPoint is a great format, other times it might not be, and like any format it can either be used well or poorly. The issue in the Columbia example wasn't PowerPoint per-se, it was that the managers weren't clear in their communication.

And while bullet points are poor in some ways - they are great in others. Distilling ideas down and making sure your list is MECE is part of clear communication and thinking.

Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

#64

Post by parpfish »

silvestrov wrote: post #37
ipython wrote: post #11

Possibly unpopular opinion: PowerPoint is just a tool, and most people not only suck at making slides but are poor storytellers to boot. If you are a good storyteller and can effectively use the medium (as in, not just dump a bunch of bullets on a slide), you can actually convey a lot of information in a combined slide + narrative format.

I think a major part of being bad presenters is that they don't train but think that they can do well with just a quick go-over of the materials. Becoming good takes a lot of hard work, lot of redoing of stuff. Just like becoming good at soccer is more than playing games. Many successful YouTubers have learned it's hard work to make good videos. Like Penn&Teller said: The only secret of magic is that I’m willing to w…

if i'm giving a presentation, i always practice it several times and i always find flaws to fix up(there's no segue from this slide to this one, i need to reorder these so i can introduce X before talking about Y, etc).

but you have to practice the right way.

the terrible, long-winded, confusing presentations you've seen were most likely done by somebody that sees a presentations as merely "talking in front of a group" so their practice would be focused on memorizing lines/facts that want to say. they may sound polished, but it's not necessarily going to be good.

in order for your practice to actually help, you need to go through your presentation while maintaining a strong sense of empathy for the audience. you need to fight a constant battle against the 'curse of knowledge' and force yourself to honestly evaluate what you're doing from the perspective as a first-time listener.

Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

#65

Post by ghaff »

Closi wrote: post #63

While this criticises PowerPoint - I don't think it sufficiently outlines an alternative. As someone that has tried to write a decision paper before rather than a PowerPoint deck, I found the main challenge was engagement (i.e. encouraging people to read it is a challenge, while a powerpoint can be walked through together). I could present a spreadsheet, but that only addresses the financials or numbers and won't add…

I pretty much agree with all that.

I'd add that you tend to need a presentation and a leave-behind format. And, in the real world, it's mostly not realistic to expect people to create both formats. Mostly. I've actually given a presentation and wrote a book on the topic. But I'm not going to do that routinely.

Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

#66

Post by PaulHoule »

jncfhnb wrote: post #62
PaulHoule wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My partner and I were primarily targeting finance at that time. I didn't always present 100% of the "big and dense" slide decks; we could get people into a dialogue early on that would give us an idea of what to show next, a bit like a "choose your own adventure" book. (Overall our approach was super effective at getting people to talk about their business, my partner got me to read https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Que…

I do think it would differ significantly if you were trying to garner interest. Flexibility would help vs. a more structured presentation. I can’t say I like the linked deck too much. Titles with no thesis. Visuals that don’t demonstrate anything on their own. It can work for speaking over. But it doesn’t actually convey information.

It's not centered on a goal (other than getting more invitations to speak at conferences.) I'm not trying to persuade people to take a particular course of action unlike a consultant.

Somebody is going to go a talk like that and receive a bit more than they can absorb. They'll walk out with something that really sticks for them. It won't promote the feeling that "I took four days and spent $X to go to a conference and didn't get my money's worth."

Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

#67

Post by nwhatt »

Closi wrote: post #63

While this criticises PowerPoint - I don't think it sufficiently outlines an alternative. As someone that has tried to write a decision paper before rather than a PowerPoint deck, I found the main challenge was engagement (i.e. encouraging people to read it is a challenge, while a powerpoint can be walked through together). I could present a spreadsheet, but that only addresses the financials or numbers and won't add…

I once had a great presentation about this very topic!

The presenter gave us both the Tufte book and a detailed handout.

The idea is that you use the PowerPoint like you would an overhead projector, details that would otherwise be on slides are better as a handout that people can read/annotate as they want.

This was part of a summer REU and focused on academic talks, and this all falls apart in a remote setting - but I think there are ways to capture the essence of this style on Zoom.

Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

#68

Post by ssivark »

jasdi wrote: post #25
efitz wrote: post #7

Nobody has the patience anymore to be presented to or read in any form other than bullet points and low information density charts. I grew up before computers and learned to communicate in the absence of all the short attention span distractions that exist today. I remember the first time I picked up a Wired magazine and couldn’t tolerate the insane lack of continuity. I still cannot stand the video style of images p…

Its not that they want to be spoon fed, that is the ever decreasing bandwidth available as info and complexity in environment keeps exploding. As the saying goes "glue people" just need to know a little bit more about coding than the sales guy, and a little more sales than the coder, little more accounting than the lawyer and a little more law than the accountant etc etc.

Could it be that such increasing specialization (sales, accounting, coder, glue…) is driven in part by decreasing attention spans and ability to focus? Maybe nobody is able to exert significant deliberate cognitive processing on anything beyond a narrow slice that they are already comfortable with.

Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

#69

Post by ssivark »

mkleczek wrote: post #48
funcDropShadow wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the age of LLMs there is no point in writing long prose. The more content is generated ... Wow, do you really equate long prose with "generated content"? Long prose is novels, deep non-fiction books, long letters, and much more. You can like them or not. In comparison "generated content" is sugar-coated garbage, like way too many social media posts. There was never any point in reading such "generated content".

I wasn't clear enough and I agree: art cannot be replaced by LLM (although this is heavy disputed by AI believers). Consuming art also precludes reading summaries generated by LLMs. My comment was about "utility" texts (this is a context of this discussion, I suppose) - my prediction is that we are going to write shorter and more condensed texts to avoid overhead of LLMs use in generating and summarising text.

But why should there be two polar opposites: utility & art? Even when reading comments on HN I appreciate a a well written narrative with clarity and cohesion, instead of an assorted stack of bullet points.

The idea is that good writing actually makes you think clearer (both writer & reader); it’s not just a nice to have.

Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

#70

Post by ssivark »

Closi wrote: post #63

While this criticises PowerPoint - I don't think it sufficiently outlines an alternative. As someone that has tried to write a decision paper before rather than a PowerPoint deck, I found the main challenge was engagement (i.e. encouraging people to read it is a challenge, while a powerpoint can be walked through together). I could present a spreadsheet, but that only addresses the financials or numbers and won't add…

How about Amazon style meetings with 4-6 page memos?
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