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I began using PowerPoint, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)'s iconic presentation software, a good dozen years ago. I took to it like a duck to water, never (I thought) overusing the animation tools, eventually learning that axiom of all presentations: don't put too many words on each slide. I made countless presentations over the years, to pitch loans to other banks, to pitch deals to potential clients, to explain the 401(k) program to employees, to explain a product to PR agents, to beg for money from venture capital firms. I'm a little in love with PowerPoint. Let's be honest.

Yet PowerPoint is roundly hated by the world, says Jared Sandberg in the Wall Street Journal today. Naturally, despite this abhorrence, it's roundly used 'round the world. One expert he quotes says PowerPoint presentations cost companies $252 million each day in wasted time. The anecdotal PowerPoint-haters he quotes say it's "soul-sapping," a "crutch," "it stinks."

Come on guys! It's not that bad. And if it is: it's hardly the fault of the program.

I think it's meetings that suck. Not all meetings, mind you, but the ones for which overly-animated PowerPoint presentations are prepared. I think it's presenters who suck. Not all presenters, of course, but the ones who use PowerPoint as an overly-wordy crutch. I think it's the state of public discourse that sucks; so many people today don't properly prepare really compelling things to say to one another. It's writing that sucks; so few people today are properly trained in how to craft a few sentences to make them sing around their sparse and lovely bullet points.

Don't hate the game, Jared! Hate the players. And Microsoft's laughing at both of us, all the way to its cash position on its prodigious balance sheet. I wonder how much Microsoft makes each day in this love-hate relationship?

PowerPoint: it's not that bad! originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 14 Nov 2006 08:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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