Charley gave a presentation today to an audience of about 250. When I got home after a long and weird day at work, he asked me if I wanted to see his powerpoint. And no, that’s not code for anything fun. But I’m only human, so of course I said yes. Recreational powerpoint? Sign me up!
The last presentation I made as a city planner was at the Railvolution conference in San Francisco almost one year ago, where I put together a powerpoint presentation arguing against the overuse and abuse of powerpoint. Death by powerpoint is no urban myth.
The other day I went to a meeting at work where someone who is relatively high up the food chain made a presentation to the group of us worker bees. There were roughly 50 of us crammed into the lunch room, seated on uncomfortable plastic chairs, squinting up at the wall mounted flat screen TV. “I’m showing you the same presentation that I showed the CEO last week,” he explained. “Some people would have ‘dumbed’ this down to show you. But I’m not going to. Because I think it’s important that you see the same information.” He looked around the room to see if we were getting his point. “Because I respect you that much.”
Of course the screen was too small for the size of the group he was addressing, the slides were too dense, too text heavy, with too much jargon. And all I could think was, “You showed the CEO that?”
So I was pleasantly surprised when I saw what Charley had put together. Images that helped to convey a message, with a very strategic use of appropriately sized text. He had struck just the right balance, creating visual cues to support the words that he was saying. Most people these days hide behind powerpoint, hope that it will take some of the attention off of them. That’s just weak. But not my guy. Nuh uh.
Plus he ended his presentation with that fabulous chunky bacon image from above there. Apparently it’s actually a reference to the programming language that he’s been championing for his company. Whatever. I just think it’s hysterical.
eleven bee 