How and When to Use PowerPoint

How and When to us PowerPoint (and other slide based media)

See also | Slide Shows on the KS Toolkit

Introduction

PowerPoint and other presentation media are very commonly used at meetings and to communicate ideas and information. However, there has been criticism about the medium, both about it's nature and application. This FAQ looks at how we might decide if and when to use PowerPoint, and if yes, how best to do it.

Keywords

PowerPoint presentation_software

Detailed Description

[the meat of the topic – clearly, crisply communicated summary of the topic. Where relevant, a brief story – no more than 1-2 paragraphs - of how this topic has been turned into practice, ideally from the KM4Dev archives? If the example is long, separate into a separate subsection]

KM4Dev Discussions

[Summary of the discussions on the KM4Dev list which provided source material. People who contributed to the discussions are cited at the end of the section in italics: "The following members of the KM4Dev community contributed to the discussion thread on ...: XY (launched the discussion), ...]

Examples in Application

[One or a few practical examples and references that illustrate the topic or show how it is done in practice]

• http://www.womma.org/nyc/pres/womma_womvsads_young.pdf

Related FAQs

[Insert links to related FAQs]

Further Information

• check out the Presentation Zen blog by former apple employee Gary Reynolds
• See the post about the "Lawrence Lessig method" http://tinyurl.com/jspus (see the videos on his website http://tinyurl.com/ztdoe ) - which Dick Hardt used to even more effect in his presentation on Identity 2.0 (for his new company Sxip) http://tinyurl.com/dfzxx at OSCON 2005.
• Kathy Sierra of "Creating Passonate Users" rediscover her love for slides, but not bullet points http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/04/and_one_more_th.html
• Jon Maeda's 10 rules of simplicity - as you read them, think in terms of a presentation http://lawsofsimplicity.com/category/laws?order=ASC

Original Author and Subsequent Contributors of this FAQ

• Nick Noakes
• Nancy White

Dates of First Creation and Further Revisions

• April 2006

FAQ KM4Dev Source Materials

[Raw text of email discussions on which the FAQ is based]