More about PowerPoint

4 June 2007 0 By Viv McWaters

The article in the Melbourne Age that Sascha referred to was called “The PowerPoint of no return” by Christopher Scanlon of RMIT University.

Technologies…shape what we think about, how we think about it, and, more importantly, how we relate to the world around us.

The book referred to is The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint by Edward Tufte – and interestlngly, Tufte suggests that PowerPoint affects the way we think also, something I hadn’t really considered before.

For the naive bullet lists may create the appearance of hard-headed organised thought. But in the reality of day-to-day practice, the PowerPoint cognitive style is faux-analytical. Bullet outlines can make us stupid, says Tufte.

A couple of other good sources re powerpoint are Seth Godwin’s on-line mag How to avoid really bad powerpoint and Cliff Atkinson’s book Beyond Bullet Points.