Seth Godin’s blog post, “Really Bad Powerpoint,”[sic] has some information in common with Yale professor emeritus Edward Tufte’s writings about PowerPoint, and I think it likely that Godin used Tufte’s book, Beautiful Evidence (Graphics Press, Cheshire, CT: 2006) as an information source. Godin is kinder in his assessment of PowerPoint than Tufte is. Godin says, “Powerpoint could be the most powerful tool on your computer,” and goes on to provide tips for using PowerPoint effectively.
Tufte devotes an entire chapter of Beautiful Evidence to PowerPoint. I think the title of this chapter, “The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within,”indicates his assessment of this tool. Pages 172-173 display a print version of The Gettysburg PowerPoint Presentation by Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, Inc. The presentation is a parody and shows how PowerPoint’s native features guide, or dictate, writing style.
I believe that PowerPoint can be useful, following the guidelines that Godin provided.
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