Evil Tools or Evil Uses?

I've noticed a slowly growing trend in the marketplace, and I think it's time it's questioned.

It has become quite in vogue to bad-mouth and shun the use of Powerpoint in presentations.

I was first exposed to this stance in a presentation by Edward Tufte (author of several fantastic books on information visualization and communication).  He made a mark for himself by declaring that "Powerpoint is Evil", both in a WIRED article and in a longer whitepaper.

More recently, Elliot Masie dubbed his newly minted "Learning 200X" conferences to be "PPT-free Zones", instructing presenters to leave their slides at home in hopes that it would foster greater discussion and interaction amongst attendees (and this underlying objective may have been accomplished, as the sessions *did* move from being lectures to conversations).

Just last week I spent a terrific day in Washington DC talking about Stories and Conversations at an event hosted by the Smithsonian Associates.  One of the great speakers that presented was Larry Prusak of IBM KM fame.  I really enjoyed his talk, which was PPT-free, but instead of simply quietly adopting that presentation stance and moving ahead, he made a pointed announcement of his disdain of Powerpoint.  He even went so far as to say that he uninstalled the app from the MS Office Suite on his computer.

Finally (and completely serendipitously), this month's 'Big Question' on the Learning Curcuits Blog is precisely on this topic - the What/When/Why of PPT.  The BQ seems to have been prompted by an Austrailian press article that uses Dr. John Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory to explain why most PPTs are so head-droppingly awful (and the link makes terrific sense to me).

In all of these cases (and the dozens I haven't mentioned, some of which are here), I can't help but think that the primary flag-wavers of the Anti-Powerpoint movement are projecting their disgust and anger in the wrong direction.  Powerpoint is simply a tool, like a hammer, or a lawnmower.  In and of itself, it's not really something that can be deemed "evil".  It is the way the tool is leveraged that gives it "value" (good or bad).

Don't get me wrong - I've been the victim (and... umm... the perpetrator) of more than a few AWFUL powerpoint presentations.  You know the ones - where the audience is given a live (often monotone) narration of (text-laden) slides that are linearly displayed.  I am in no way defending this embarrassment of communication - I'm simply pointing out that the fault sits with the *presenter*, not the tool (despite the fact that the tool may make it easy for the lazy to use it in bone-headed ways).

Just because a hammer can be used to both frame a house for the victims of a natural disaster and murder someone, that doesn't make it inherently "evil" or "good".  Those value-laden terms can only be reasonably used to describe the users of the tool based on what they chose to do with it.  When Larry said he had removed Powerpoint from his computer, for its nature of promoting one-way communication, I wanted to ask him if he had also removed Word?  According to the logic of his argument for uninstalling Powerpoint, any word processor should also be shunned - after all, documents are monologues, not dialogs, right?

I'm reminded of a email exchange I recently had with Geetha Krishnan, a colleague at TIS. In our exchange, I was reminded of an old argument Socrates made against the adoption of books:

Socrates: ….If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is not true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing, and as men filled, not with wisdom, but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellows."

Phaedrus: . . . I agree that the man of Thebes is right in what he said about writing.

Socrates: Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise anyone who takes it over from him, on the supposition that such writing will provide something reliable and permanent, must be exceedingly simple-minded; he must really be ignorant of Ammon's utterance, if he imagines that written words can do anything more than remind one who knows that which the writing is concerned with.

Phaedrus: Very true.

Socrates: You know, Phaedrus, that's the strange thing about writing, which makes it truly analogous to painting. The painter's products stand before us as though they were alive, but if you question them, they maintain a most majestic silence. It is the same with written words; they seem to talk to you as though they were intelligent, but if you ask them anything about what they say, from a desire to be instructed, they go on telling you just the same thing forever. And once a thing is put in writing, the composition, whatever it may be, drifts all over the place, getting into the hands not only of those who understand it, but equally of those who have no business with it; it doesn't know how to address the right people, and not address the wrong. And when it is ill-treated and unfairly abused it always needs its parent to come to its help, being unable to defend or help itself.

Phaedrus: Once again you are perfectly right.

(from The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Eds. Edith Hamilton and H. Cairns. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1963. pp. 520-21. 274D-276B.)

A presentation can be given effectively or ineffectively using the same tool (or without a tool at all). It's time to focus on the actual source of the problem and stop making simple-minded arguments against red herring causes.

Those who create and deliver Powerpoint presentations with packed paragraphs of 10-point text, meaningless clip-art, and irritating spinning and flashing animations should be sent to a class on effective presentations. Simply taking the (abused) tools away leaves these culprits none-the-wiser to the error of their ways, and discounts the communicative power that Powerpoint can render when placed in the right hands.

Just as Socrates threw the baby out with the bathwater regarding the power and benefit of the written word, I think those who argue that Powerpoint should be nuked are making a similar error. This suggestion is analogous to saying that duiring your next presentation, you should require the audience to close their eyes as you speak - to turn off one of the primary means of informational reception. 

Visuals play a powerful role in communications, so why would anyone make a broad-brush suggestion that there's benefit in prohibiting them?  Can you imagine speaking about Art without visuals?  How about good User Interface Design?  How about long-horizon trends in any one of a variety of domains?  Images often instantly 'say' more than is able to be easily enunciated in words or text.

"A picture is worth a thousand words" isn't just a meaningless phrase, you know...

(Jon Revelos is Director - Story Based Learning at TATA Interactive Systems)

Comments

[Rupalli Thacker]

Hi Jon,

A few days before the conference on stroytelling by Smithsonian Associates, I was thinking about conversations as learning tools, due to my interest in informal learning. Is there a way we could talk about it? What would you recommend?
Thanks,
Rupalli

[Anil]

I'm inclined to agree with you insofar as the responsibility with making Power Point work rests with the presenter.

However, the flip side is, there is a tendency to use PP as a vehicle for too much jargon not in the least because it helps the presenter remember them which otherwise they would not have without the PP crutch. As if it somehow pressures the presenter into making the PP count in terms of 'substance' pasted into it, under the mistaken belief that it somehow confers upon the presenter a self-importance of sorts.

Conversations, and stories are far powerful analogies, and besides, they encourage participative learning.

There is nothing like an 'Anti-PP' movement, it's just that folks who dislike the blandness that most PP presentations invariably are, are merely giving vent to their feelings. I see no point in seeing a concerted organisation in this where none exists, and Anil, I'm sure you have sat through enough PP horrors youself to understand the intense dislike that folks have for PP presentations, even if it were the presenter who's at fault.

[jrevelos]

Rupalli-
I share your interests in the links amongst storytelling, conversations, and informal learning. I'd welcome a discussion anytime, but for those who might read this and not have the inclination to speak aloud, here are a few resources that were shared at the workshop:

- Bohm, D. : On Diaglogue; 1996
- Burke, K. : The Art of Conversation; 1993
- Cohen, D. & Prusak, L. : In Good Company-How Social Captial Makes Organizations Work; 2003
- Denning, S. : The Secret Language of Leadership-How Leaders Inspire Action Through Narrative; coming Sept 2007
- Dixon, N. : Dialogue at Work-Making Talk Developmental for People and Organizations; 1996
- Isaacs, W. : Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together; 1999
- Tannen, D. : various
- Wenger, E. : Communities of Practice; 1999
- Yankelovich, D. : The Magic of Dialgoue-Transforming Conflict into Cooperation; 1999

- Brown, J. et al : Conversations as a core business process (www.theworldcafe.com/articles/CCCBP.pdf)
- Brown, J. et al : Asking big questions (www.theworldcafe.com/articles/askingbig.pdf)

[jrevelos]

Anil-
Thanks for the thoughtful response. I'm not sure I entirely agree, however...

While I wholeheartedly agree that conversations, stories, and participatory learning are much more powerful than fact-based lectures, it's your opening and closing I struggle with.

Your "flip side" could just as easily argue against Word or 3x5 index cards as "crutches". I see it as being in the same vein as Socrates' arguement against the book, whereas the true problem still sits squarely with the presenter. I can't entirely dismiss the spirit of your stance, however, because I do agree that there is something to criticize about how easy PP makes it to misuse it.

(I just can't seem to dig deep enough in my mind to reconcile these two opposing stances... Is it a design flaw to make a tool easy to misuse? Or would 'preventative design' end up frustrating responsible users? Think how irrating 'Grammar Check' is in MS Word - now apply that to PP in the form of feedback like, "you have too much/too small text on this slide", "this slide doesn't include a graphic", "for the amount of time you have for this presentation, you have too many slides", etc.)

I also agree that the venting we see is clearly related to the PP horrors that are inflicted upon us daily. There may not be a full-fledged 'movement', but there is clearly a trend that accepts those who bad-mouth PP as being 'in the know', and I disagree with it. The 'point' of calling attention to this emerging trend is so we, as a community, stop pointing fingers to red herring scapegoats (tools) and begin to take responsibility for our role in not adding to the pile of boring, dense, script-driven presentations.

It means more work and effort, which will immediately thin the ranks of those who accept this challenge, but the term 'excellence' can't be applied to the masses without losing its meaning, right?

[jrevelos]

On the other hand....

I just ran across this interesting take (on a different, but related subject) by Ernie Schenck in his "Another Inconvenient Truth" column for Communication Arts magazine (see: www.commarts.com/ca/colad/ernS_342.html)

"Microsoft, Industrial Light & Magic and Adobe aren’t exactly Skynet, but the effect that PowerPoint, digital film effects, Photoshop and other creative arts technologies have had on the human imagination is corrosive. What were meant to be tools have become crutches, slowly but surely undermining innovation to the point that the power of story has become the power of eye candy. Technology was meant to serve creativity, but instead it threatens to enslave it."

As Anil alluded, there are always two sides to every coin...

Hmmmmm...... (Jon shifts in his seat, pondering the meaning and ramifications...)

[Rupalli Thacker]

Jon,

Thanks much for the list of resources. i have just started reading Jay Cross's informal learning, and with your list, this is a great repository of information.