Re: PowerPoint considered harmful (was Re: Barely literate minutes)

[Keith Moore <[e-mail]>]

On 12/02/2012 10:03 AM, John C Klensin wrote:
>
> --On Sunday, December 02, 2012 09:53 -0500 Keith Moore
> <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>> ...
>> (Another way to put is that even if we provide such cameras in
>> meetings along with colored pens and paper, we will continue
>> to see PowerPoint being used as it is today unless there's a
>> community-wide effort to change our entrenched habits.)
> Sure.  But it is the now-entrenched habits that are the problem.
> The overuse of PowerPoint for purposes of which neither of us
> approve is merely a symptom, not, IMO, a cause (even if it
> reinforces the behaviors).
Agreed, though sometimes when changing habits it helps to focus 
attention on the most visible or tangible part of the habit.

It's always been possible, and will presumably remain possible, to build 
small PowerPoint decks that consist of only a few diagrams, to leave 
some blank slides in the middle of the deck for the purpose of typing in 
comments made at meetings, etc.  -- all for the purpose of facilitating 
discussion.  I wouldn't have a problem with PowerPoint being used in 
that way, though I suspect that it will be difficult for people to 
restrain themselves to using PowerPoint in that way as long as that's 
the tool that they're using.
>
> Anyone for incorporating a slide (!) into the Newcomer's
> Presentation (!!) that says "a presentation in a f2f meeting
> that makes extensive use of PowerPoint decks with many and/or
> dense slides brands the presenter as either a newcomer, someone
> who is trying to avoid an actual discussion, or a fool"?   :-(
Yes, but first we need to get existing WG chairs to say that to their 
participants, and to push back on people who continue to do use 
PowerPoint in that way in meetings.

Keith