PowerPoint Doesn't Make You Dumb

If there’s a problem with PowerPoint, it’s not that it makes you dumb, it’s that Microsoft has never taken the time to show us how it can make you smart. —Mike Gunderloy —PowerPoint Doesn’t Make You Dumb (ADT Mag)

Enough people responded ethusiastically to the NY Times article dissing PowerPoint that I thought it worthwhile to link to an opposing viewpoint.

What’s that on the home page of ADT Magazine — is that an ad for Microsoft? And what’s that on the main menu bar — a link to a whole section devoted to Microsoft’s .NET?

While Gunderloy is critical of Microsoft, his claim that people simply haven’t been trained to unlock the power of a piece of software is consistent with a marketing policy to sell training sessions (or books, or magazines) so that people will be better able to use Microsoft products.

Of course, the subject of the NYT article, Edward Tufte, is also selling his anti-PowerPoint brochure, so what’s my point?

I’m not sure… I must’ve missed that slide.

Back to my grading.

On another note… I realized that I just used the word “dissing” without quotation marks or self-conscious irony, which probably means that what coolness it once had is now officially over.