Guangming Daily article: Reflections triggered by PPT
One of the inventors of PowerPoint, Dennis Austin, recently passed away in California, USA at the age of 76. The news of his death has sparked a review of information communication and presentation methods represented by PPT.
In 1987, this software, which combines graphics, clip art, and multiple fonts, was born. In 1990, it was released on the Windows operating system, popularizing professional presentations as easy to operate fools and further enhancing the visualization of office systems. Thirty years later today, PPT has transcended various cultures and become a symbol of workplace life. According to statistics, there are currently over 30 million PPT presentations created by users worldwide every day; Some argue that 30 million is just data from 2001, and now this number is probably astronomical.
Popularity inevitably accompanies controversy, and the criticism, criticism, complaint, and mockery of PPTs have never disappeared. One of the focal points can be called simplification of thinking. Among various ways of expressing meaning, mathematical deduction and pure textual reasoning are certainly relatively complex, and visual presentation will inevitably reduce the complexity of the problem. This trade-off made to take care of people's attention often discards key content that requires multiple logical deductions. For example, the presentation style of the PPT has been criticized for bearing some responsibility for the 2003 Columbia Space Shuttle disintegration incident, as the committee investigating the incident by NASA found that a PPT slide used "hasty" and "ambiguous" quantitative words, masking the safety issues of the spacecraft that were "life-threatening". The report states, "The widespread use of PowerPoint presentation slides instead of technical papers indicates issues with technical communication methods."
Another controversial focus can be called the templating of thinking. The key method for PPT software to enable everyone to become a creator is to provide various usage templates; With the increasing diversity of PPT formats, animations, and multimedia capabilities, providing more diverse PPT templates and materials has also formed an industry chain, echoing the increasingly convoluted PPT culture in the workplace. The key points of the content, the relationship between the key points, and the logic between the conditions and conclusions all need to be more or less subject to the template's pace of film change, presentation methods, animation effects, and attention grabbing requirements. The importance of the question depends on the level of presentation skills. In a sense, PPT thinking has become equivalent to today's "workplace thinking", "doing a good job is not as good as doing a good PPT", isn't that what it means?
Technology will inevitably bring convenience, and convenience, on the other hand, simplifies thinking. The popularity of cameras to personal computers is no exception. The above controversy is not about canceling the specific technology of PPT, but essentially asking a question: Does the technology serve us or train us? Is it to enrich "people" or to homogenize "people"? When similar technologies have entered the basic structure of social life and become the infrastructure of information communication, they can only be "iterated" and cannot be "cancelled", maintaining this kind of questioning is particularly meaningful.
Dennis Austin came up with the idea of PowerPoint presentations when he questioned existing common sense and habits, such as "only the design department can make slides," believing that "anyone who can use a computer can make slides.". Today we live in the daily life of PPT, and it seems that we should also learn from his examination of so-called "common sense", at least often reminding ourselves that PPT is not the only way of thinking in the world.
