Should we ban PowerPoint?

Garr Reynolds at PresentationZen.com has reported that the Toyota CEO has suggested banning PowerPoint.

I was thinking about doing so for presentations and what the result would be. My expectation is that we would go back to the “good old days” of overhead projectors (OHPs). What happened then? Two possible scenarios (I was in University when these were last used):

1. the “presenter” writes directly on the OHP slide

2. the presenter prepares an OHP slide full of bullet points which he uncovers one by one

So Garr is completely right, PPT is just a tool, presentation skills need to be understood first; and most importantly how the audience reacts to a presentation. I learnt most from my university professors who wrote the least or used the fewest slides.

I remember one course on Thermodynamics (!) where all the slides were just pairs of graphs illustrating the necessary point. Little text, few notes, but I understood it and remembered it better than other courses. Moreover, I was able to take the understanding and apply it to other fields in a creative fashion.

Take aways:

A good logical story and visuals to back up your subject are essential to a successful presentation