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.
To me, they look like a twitchy pair of flaccid peace signs; sometimes they remind me of devious little bunny ears. Usually when people use air quotes these days, they’re doing it to be funny. Occasionally, though, I’ll catch someone using the air quote seriously, without even a hint of irony, which, of course, just makes me want to snicker even more.
Today the boys and I rode our bikes down to Colin’s school to check out the classroom assignments. The lists weren’t posted yet when we got there, so we hung around a bit. The kids played in the playground, and I struck up some conversations with the moms of Colin’s classmates from last year.
song that he claimed to have written for both Kenny Chesney and Hank Williams Junior, I had a mini-flash back.
boys were already awake. They were parked on the sofa watching cartoons and looked up when they heard me coming down the stairs. The night before we had talked about my upcoming birthday, and, after explaining that there would be no birthday party, no bouncy castle, no magician, I told them that the only thing I really wanted from them was a hug and a kiss… and for them to listen to me so that I wouldn’t have to repeat myself for one whole day.
important structure to lives that might otherwise become unmanageable. And yet…
eleven bee 
