I have been alerted that my recent post on PowerPoint and its failings would have been richer had it referenced the earlier work on the subject by Seth Godin. He’s been trying to help PowerPoint people help themselves for years. His e-book on the subject, reproduced here on his blog, is called Really Bad PowerPoint. As with many good ideas, Godin got there well before the rest of us.
Search This Blog
- Previous Post:The FREAKest Links: Happiness, Gaming, and Congestion Edition
- Next Post:And Today Is…
About Freakonomics
Stephen J. Dubner is an author and journalist who lives in New York City.
Steven D. Levitt is a professor of economics at the University of Chicago.
Their book Freakonomics has sold 3 million copies worldwide. This blog, begun in 2005, is meant to keep the conversation going. Recurring guest bloggers include Ian Ayres, Daniel Hamermesh, Sudhir Venkatesh, and Justin Wolfers.
Annika Mengisen is the site editor.
FREAK Shots:
Comments of the Moment
Naked Self-Promotion
Detroit Lions left guard Edwin Mulitalo is on a winless team, but maybe that's not all bad, as he can afford to spend the off season reading his favorites: self-help books and Freakonomics.
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Stuff We Weren't Paid to Endorse
Shopsin's (120 Essex Street) is a New York institution, a restaurant that began as a grocery store; its owner, Kenny Shopsin, is colorful, irascible, and talented. Shopsin's is famous for breakfast but also for its vast, unusual, common-sense menu. Shopsin has just written a book that is half cookbook and half memoir, entirely fascinating. I had never sat down and read a cookbook from cover to cover but that is what happened with Shopsin's book (co-written with Carolynn Carreno). It is called Eat Me. The introduction is a reprint of a New Yorker article by Calvin (Bud) Trillin, a Shopsin's regular. If you do go to the restaurant, do pay attention to Shopsin's idiosyncrasies, because he allegedly has a Soup-Nazi-like intolerance that may earn you permanent exile from his restaurant. (SJD)
I recently took the kids to see a performance by Jim Dale, the longtime British stage actor (he won a Tony for Barnum) who is best known these days as the wildly entertaining reader of the Harry Potter books on tape. He was reading an adaptation of a Eudora Welty story called “The Shoe Bird,” which he recently recorded with the Seattle Symphony. (It was wonderful, and I encourage you to give it a listen.) Afterward, Dale took questions from the audience -- which, predictably, were about the Harry Potter series. Items of interest that emerged: Dale was given only 100 pages of manuscript at a time to read and then record, so he never knew what was coming; and in order to keep track of the 146 voices he’d created for all the characters, he often pre-recorded a bit of the characters’ voices and then held a tape recorder up to his ear in the studio to remind himself. (SJD)
If you live in or are visiting New York and have children, do everything you can to take in one of the Young People's Concerts at the New York Philharmonic. Even if you don’t love the music on that day’s program -- we recently attended “Ravel’s Paris,” not my favorite by a long shot -- all the extras in the program are terrific: the dancers, composers, instrumentalists, and explainers who are paraded out by conductor Delta David Gier to put the music in context for the kids. (SJD)
Archive
Recent Posts
January 08
(30 comments)
The Tennessee Coal-Ash Spill, in Pictures
I was stirring the syrup for a pecan pie when the phone rang. My friend Brenda Boozer called to tell me there had been a massive environmental disaster close to home, and could I possibly get away to take photographs?
January 08
(10 comments)
Our Daily Bleg: Got Any Legal Quotes That Top Lamenting the Demise of Dueling?
Last week’s quotation bleg, asking for suggestions of notable recent U.S. Supreme Court quotes, elicited this response from Jerry E. Stephens, quoting now retired U.S. District Judge Wayne Alley (Western District of Oklahoma):
January 08
(51 comments)
Why You’ll Love Paying for Roads That Used to Be Free, Part Two
In my prior post, I blogged about introducing variable tolls on America’s highways. The basic idea: fight congestion by imposing tolls that vary in response to traffic levels. When roads are too crowded, hike the tolls, keep some drivers out, and thus keep traffic free flowing at all times.
January 08
(15 comments)
Medical Info Overload?
We recently ran a bleg about dealing with too much data.
That bleg prompted the following note from a reader named Geoff Barry:
I had a thought on when it can be truly negative — even unhealthy.
Too much medical information at a layman’s fingertips can actually be detrimental, both for the doctor treating the patient and for [...]
January 08
(2 comments)
The FREAK-est Links
The Economist’s open debate: Is the world getting smarter or not?
Look who got listed as an “amazing resource” for small businesses looking to cut costs.
Instead of just deleting old computer documents, dispose of them with The Unloader. (HT: Kevin Allen Jr.)
The top 2008 news articles that nobody cares about now. (Earlier)
From the Opinion Blogs
Stanley Fish
Roland Burris and St. Augustine
In determining the fate of the Burris appointment, politicians might want to consult Thomas Hobbes, St. Augustine and the crown’s lawyers of the late 16th century.
Feeds
10 Comments
Compared with Seth Godin, my “take” hardly rates, but I live this stuff, and doing it right really matters. So my 2 cents on “blame the tool:”
http://gpmb.wordpress.com/2007/06/13/ditch-how-you-use-powerpoint/
http://gpmb.wordpress.com/2007/05/18/absolute/
and other good stuff, filed under “PowerPuke”
— Laura Athavale FittonDo not want.
Also don’t want haikus for business cases, interprative dance for sales presentations, or creative accounting.
Stick to facts, I have to GBTW.
— 711buddhaThe unfortunate thing is that so often it’s expected that you have to have really bland, wordy, bulleted slides because the slides live on as a document after the presentation. Yes, you could create separate handouts, but that often adds to the confusion and is additional work. Yes, I’m lazy, but when 90% of my presentations are for 10-minutes forgetable status blurbings, why make the extra effort? The advice makes more sense for important, in-depth presentations where keeping the audience engaged is key.
— econ2econSix word max per slide? Hmm how about
Take Power Point and Shove It.
— JSNReading something as bad as “six words per slide” instantly makes me lose respect for the author. I have had numerous professors with degrees in English and communications tell me otherwise. If any rule can be set, it is on the order of no more than five bullet points with five or less words. It is not possible to convey any useful knowledge with only six words per slide. Using the 5:5 rule, though, nothing should be phrased as sentence as you want the audience to be listening to the speaker, not reading the slides. The slides are meant to convey a predictable structure and specific facts that quickly clarify and support the speaker’s presentation. Without a doubt, there are more ways to do it wrong than right, but there’s not even a point with only six words.
— drinkmorejavaSteve Jobs should take over MS after the unfortunate fall of Bill Gates from the presidency of the company.
I mean, with that much cash you could buy back Alaska from the US and donate it to France or sumtn. I hate to say this, but Gates is to Jobs what the British pound is to the gold standard after too many Canadian dollars.
But hey I’m just being a bloke here. Good luck there now.
.lermit
— lermitA Power Point Parody
— jeffreyspeharThe Gettysburg Address as a Power Point show. By Peter Norvig.
http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/index.htm
Seth liked my slightly tongue-in-cheeky response to his repost on ‘Bad PowerPoint’ earlier this year. Thought you might enjoy it http://fortifyservices.blogspot.com/2007/01/really-bad-powerpoint-seth-godin-idea.html
— Rowan ManahanThe confessions of a CIA secret prison detainee….
“They made us watch PowerPoint after PowerPoint about the benefits of Democracy vs. the limiting factors of Islamism. After the 29th slide, bullet #2 on the same stars and stripes fading gradient background overlayed with a bald eagle, I prayed for death.”
— gradys_kitchenFROM ONE STEVE TO ANOTHER:
I recently received an e-mail from a reader (I publish a B2B e-Zine with 135,000 subscribers) espousing the benefits and yes, even absolute
necessity, of using PowerPoint slides during sales presentations (see see below).
“Steve! No way you can give a sales presentation without PowerPoint. Business people expect it … demand it! You must be a marketing bonehead!”
So, to defend my honor (or lack thereof) I devised a self-inflicted, self-scoring test that covered the 5 Archetypal perspective PowerPoint Personalities one was likely to encounter in the “Complex Sale” business environment.
If you can pass it you’ll be eligible for the PROFESSIONAL POWERPOINT PRESENTER HALL OF FAME
Currently there are no members …. you’d be the first.
THE TEST -http://skbigm.googlepages.com/powerpointproofofpuddingtest
— Steve Kayser