10 people in a room, guy at the front dishes out 20 page handouts, he has each page of the handout as a slide which he then proceeds to read out to us through in a dull monotone voice. Excuse me while I yawn every 5 minutes or so.
(the handout is good for covering my face while I do this)

meanwhile, somewhere else in the world and in my head…..

every minute is a minute closer to death, so many better things I could be doing.

200 pages of unnecessary printing – why not just project it from a laptop or something and bore you that way?

You could roll your copy in to a cone shape and use it as a loud speaker to tell him how much he’s boring you.

he has each page of the handout as a slide which he then proceeds to read out to us

I feel your pain, that kind of thing really makes my shit itch.

I had an A-level maths teacher who used to copy passages out of the text book on to the blackboard, which we were then to copy into our workbooks. Really adding value, she was.

Is it a reading lesson? Otherwise it sounds like you should just state that you can read and leave.

Like you say, there are better things you could be doing with your time!

The older I get the more I just do what I think is productive with my time.
If I’m in a meeting that really has nothing important for me and has just been called by a project managed because he/she has nothing better to do with their time other than call meetings, I quite often get an important “text or call”. I politely excuse myself saying something critical has come up and to call me if there is anything specific they need from me.

I go back to my desk, get on with my actual “work” and leave at a reasonable time, instead of staying late and trying to catch up with stuff because I’ve had an hour or two of my time wasted….

From past experience I feel your pain.

Death by powerpoint….aaaaargh

I just don’t go to meetings. Seems to solve all sorts of problems….

I see some pretty high powered folk (NHS, Police, Government agencies) doing really crap presentations these days. Some teachers can’t be much better as the kids coming in are doing the same. I was taught in the minimal steve jobs style.

A 72 slide monster is the current tedium award winner.

We had sound disabled or every computer in the entire office bar one of the big meeting rooms where someone was presenting one of the dullest PowerPoint thing in a while except every transition had a random noise, bullet ricochet, ping, car driving off etc. He called it a day after 6 slides when some of us were crying with laughter. We then had to go back the week later and actually listen to it all.

Some teachers can’t be much better as the kids coming in are doing the same.

This I agree with, however I suggest teachers have not been trained in using IT enough, and certainly not in teaching it.

I actually interrupted someone before Christmas in a room full of 100+ people (all teachers, at an event about teaching standards), and pointed out that:

a) no-one can see 12pt black font on purple background, 100+ words a page.

The chap on the table next to me then laid in with:

b) the organisers of the event (the presenter of whom was boss) should consider the hypocrisy of an event about teaching standards, new ideas in learning and preparing our kids for the world of work, by starting with a 2hr PowerPoint marathon…

Most of the room went for an early, unannounced coffee break… 😆

Death by PowerPoint. 😆

2 things:

Personally I do my presentations without rehearsing because it’s exciting for me as it will be for you, sometimes leads to a few comedy mistakes which I can inject humor into, and IMO comes across better. I do however have the luxury if being a 20 year experienced SME which makes that much easier.

The second – if anyone tries to train you with a presentation leave immediately. “Presenting” is not training – it’s reading a script to you. Training is hands on interactive work which YOU perform so that you learn it. You should reach the end if your training course being able to do what it is you’ve learned. If not, it’s a waste of time.

Various organisations have tried banning/reducing meetings, email free days etc to increase productivity: has anyone ever worked anywhere that’s banned Powerpoint?

Kryton has it right, powerpoint != training. Best presentation I’ve ever given was for a job interview: topic was “What’s the point of (job I was applying for)”, had ten minutes and a flipchart, kept me nice and focussed.

When the Snowden stuff came out I was less disappointed by the spying than by the horrible 90’s style Powerpoint: I had imagined the NSA had some kind of Minority Report style holographic projection system, not a deck of nasty clipart!

Favourite Scott Adams quote from one of his books:

“It is not possible to die of boredom, no matter how much you wish.”

I’m in the middle of two days training. Interesting new product, and a room full of intelligent people grilling the presenter who can handle it. I like my job sometimes 🙂

Banning powerpoint is probably a good idea actually. I’ve never used it, and I never read people’s slides either. I need to listen to the speaker otherwise I forget it all.

has anyone ever worked anywhere that’s banned Powerpoint?

Yep, it’s completely banned where I work.

Meetings, presentations and training are definitely things I don’t miss from when I had a real job – the number of useless ring binders I ended up with you wouldn’t believe.

I use power point for my training courses, it’s not a script it’s a collection of information that I can give to the people there. Most are happy to have the slides after to use as a reference (electronically) only one lot (a university) wanted them up front and organised to get 10 copies printed and bound and handed round and they just used it as a notebook as we went through.

In reality it’s a nice bit of software that lets me put together a lot of info that I can present. If it wasn’t there I’d have a collection of pictures, drawings, screenshots and text blocks that I would need to pull up as needed to show and illustrate stuff. Sounds counter productive really as there is a tool that lets me put all that together into something that works. I still use white boards, showing the software and going through live examples.

It’s not the tool thats the problem it’s the tool using the tool in most cases.

I too rarely use PP – and I spend at least two days a week leading training. As someone said above, presenting is not training.

We use PP to deliver lessons in the training school where I work. “However” it’s not relied on completely. PP is a good tool, but some folk do it to death.

Only use it as a way of collating a shed load of plots and tables in a format that’s convenient.
Presentation is to explain “interesting features” in those charts.
Nobody gets a copy beforehand, and all get a pdf after.

EDIT: and NONE ever have Comic Sans, ever!

We complained big time on a uni course. Lectures by one prof. were reading out the pre-printed slides. As an absolute minimum I’d like some kind of explanation of why the words were there, or an animated diagram drawing on acetate. So when I write notes, they contain additional words to those pre-printed.

Check out the link
Death by PowerPoint

A 72 slide monster is the current tedium award winner.

CEO of my employer called several hundred of the most senior managers into one place and gave a four hour 150 slide PowerPoint presentation.

Was never so glad to be a peon.

Powerpoint? Seriously, doesn’t everyone use Prezi to bore colleagues and clients with now?

I teach at a university, and have taught in a Further Education college, for about a year I gave up powerpoint completely, where I needed to express complex information, I wrote short essays (1-2000) words and handed them out to students in advance, in class, I discussed them, got them to do stuff and where it required it, drew stuff on a white board.

Students asked if there would be powerpoint slides available at some point.

I like Tufte’s view of powerpoint: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_pp really interesting, as is Garr Reynolds http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/

Power point doesn’t have to be a script, and it doesn’t have to be crap, but the fact it is easy to fall into the trap of it being crap, suggests that there should be some kind of license to allow people to use it.

Keynote you fascists!!

Powerpoint is a nightmare, I agree, so best to intersperse the slides with either Blackadder clips (essential in the Army), holiday photos or funny pictures of cats.

I had some actual good training at work the other week- which yes did include a powerpoint presentation but, get this, the trainer wasn’t just reading the words off the screen! Krazee.

olddog – Member
Powerpoint? Seriously, doesn’t everyone use Prezi to bore colleagues and clients with now?

willard – Member
Keynote you fascists!!

Powerpoint is a nightmare, I agree, so best to intersperse the slides with either Blackadder clips (essential in the Army), holiday photos or funny pictures of cats.

It’s the user not the tool that are the issue.