Anti-PowerPoint Party

Despite a haggard look caused by disease, Apple CEO Steve Jobs maintains his charisma. In a March presentation in San Francisco for Apple’s iPad2 tablet computer, Jobs mesmerized the audience with his key messages with humor and blistering comments against a simple but strong screen showing visual slides. BusinessWeek magazine said the secret of Jobs’ presentation lies in that no matter how natural he looks, he rehearses a presentation aloud for many hours.

Government officials spend many rigorous hours making PowerPoint slides before giving important presentations. Professors complain that making PowerPoint slides is more difficult than preparing lectures. The Anti-PowerPoint Party has been established in Switzerland for such people. Matthias Poehm, a former software engineer who is now a lecturer, founded the party in May to campaign for a world without PowerPoint. The party says ubiquitous PowerPoint presentations keep the audience from paying attention to speakers and that the presentation software is ineffective because it oversimplifies issues. The U.K. daily Financial Times reported that 35 million euros is wasted in PowerPoint presentations every year.

When U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal was presented with an extremely complex PowerPoint slide on U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan at a briefing in Kabul in 2009, he jokingly said, "When we understand that slide, we`ll have won the war.” He said so not just because of the complexity of the slide. PowerPoint critics say the software gives the illusion that people fully understand their situations, preventing them from engaging in critical thinking and making discreet decisions. Others say young and intelligent military officers are wasting their time in wrestling with making PowerPoint slides. U.S. Gen. Herbert Raymond McMaster, who carried out a successful military strategy in northeastern Iraq in 2005, banned the use of PowerPoint in presentations.

PowerPoint undoubtedly enhances the efficiency of presentations and lectures. When the light goes out, however, many in the audience doze off. Why should they have to be attentive when they have the PowerPoint slides saved in their computers? Would it be fair for government officials to be lauded by their superiors not because of the substance of their presentations but because of their showy slides? Korea might also need an anti-PowerPoint movement.

Editorial Writer Kim Sun-deok (yuri@donga.com)