The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint

Edward Tufte’s essay, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint is a strong critique of how PowerPoint weakens reasoning, corrupts statistical analysis, and is presenter-oriented rather than audience-oriented. The cover illustration of Tufte’s essay sums it up well.

Tufte uses an excerpt from Louis Gerstner’s Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? Inside IBM’s Historic Turn-Around to illustrate his thesis,

One of the first meetings I asked for was a briefing on the state of the [mainframe computer] business… with Nick Donofrio, who was then running the System /390 business. [I] found Nick, and we got started. Sort of.

At that time, the standard format of any important IBM meeting was a presentation using overhead projectors and graphics that IBMers called “foils” [projected transparencies]. Nick was on his second foil when I stepped to the table and, as politely as I could in front of his team, switched off the projector. After a long moment of awkward silence, I simply said, “Let’s just talk about your business.”

… By that afternoon an e-mail about my hitting the Off button on the overhead projector was crisscrossing the world… It was as if the President of the United States had banned the use of English at White House meetings.

Steve Jobs’ keynote at the WWDC 2003 is a fine example of a captivating technology-oriented presentation that he sustains for over 2 hours without PowerPoint. Compare Steve Jobs’ presentation to Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address imagined as a Gettysburg PowerPoint Presentation. The greatest political speakers of all time don’t use PowerPoint. Why should you?

I highly recommend all of Tufte’s books.

Related Links: Executive presents PowerPoint eulogy at mother’s funeral.