If you haven't heard yet, PowerPoint is dying. I know, this is the sort of news one would expect to cause widespread panic in the streets and make innocent children weep into their sugar puffs. But it's not happening that way. In fact, I expect it will take many years for the number of people who even realize that PowerPoint is ill to reach a meaningful critical mass. This phenomenon is known in professional circles as the "Microsoft Business Plan."

What ails PowerPoint?

When I heard the news, I too was momentarily stunned. But I've come to accept the inevitable, and now that PowerPoint is in such poor health, I feel compelled to defend it. Maligning PowerPoint has become a popular sport among presenters in recent years, and I, for one, am appalled at the lack of respect this poor program has received from ungrateful public speakers the world over.

To be sure, we presenters are mostly to blame for the crisis currently facing PowerPoint. And confusion about what PowerPoint is – and is not – is what's killing it. What PowerPoint is, is a quick, easy, efficient way to get certain types of information onto a computer screen. What PowerPoint is not, is an entertainment medium. This may sound like a childishly obvious distinction for many readers of Presentations magazine, because we beat this particular drum all the time (September's cover story, "Three good reasons to stop using PowerPoint," and Creative Techniques column, "True creativity involves more than just pretty slides," are just two examples). Yet there are millions of PowerPoint users and abusers out there – a few of whom may even subscribe to this magazine – who don't seem to recognize or appreciate the difference. For those of you who don't get it yet, let's review:

Repeat after me

If you are among the dissatisfied hordes who ridicule PowerPoint's shortcomings at every mouse-click, remember this: PowerPoint was created, first and foremost, as a convenient solution to a widespread business problem. The problem in the old days (way back in the 1980s) was that too many people were spending the night before their Big Presentation pulling all-nighters at Kinko's or trying to jimmy the lock at the graphics bureau to get their overhead transparencies made. The solution was PowerPoint, which gave presenters the freedom to pull all-nighters in the relative comfort of their office, home or hotel room.

Understand, it would have been a relatively easy matter to create a computer program that did in minutes what a teen-ager on the graveyard shift at Kinko's could barely do in eight hours. But that would not have fulfilled PowerPoint's other key function, which is to eat up as much time as possible before a presentation, so that the presenter has a handy excuse when his or her presentation bombs. Presenters everywhere save face and deflect criticism by blaming PowerPoint for their poor performance, and to this day, succumbing to the ghosts of PowerPoint is one of the only professionally acceptable ways to fail. In that sense, PowerPoint does its job fairly well – but, as I've said, there's always room for improvement.

That's not entertainment

The other point of confusion over PowerPoint, which I will never understand, is the insistence by so many people that it entertain, as well as inform, audiences. PowerPoint was never intended to entertain anyone. Its primary function was, and still is, to give presenters a way to deliver facts, research and data in as dull and emotionally detached a way as possible. Bill Gates isn't an idiot. He knows that if PowerPoint had the capacity to entertain as well as inform people, presenters everywhere, including himself, would run the risk of having audiences perk up and pay attention to what is being said, which would be a disaster for those who rely on PowerPoint's more narcotic effects.

Let PP RIP

As much of a godsend as PowerPoint has been to procrastinating presenters, however, there are still thousands of people out there who keep burdening it with their petty demands. These are the sorts of disgruntled people who keep clamoring for more transitions, special effects, animation options and graphics capabilities – the ones who want to turn PowerPoint into a playground for Spielberg wannabes and creatively frustrated liberal-arts majors.

I know you all mean well, but none of this really helps. If you want more flexible, interesting, professional-looking graphics, there are other programs to choose from. But please, let's have the decency to leave PowerPoint alone. It's done so much for us that the least we can do is let it die a quiet, dignified death.


Tad Simons is editor-in-chief of Presentations magazine. Write to him at tsimons@presentations.com.



Originally published in the September 2002 issue of Presentations magazine. Copyright 2002, VNU Business Media.