Meeting Communication

Lee Gomes of the Wall Street Journal writes about the “dark side of success of the creators of the program PowerPoint”. Originally created for the Mac in 1987, it was Microsoft’s first company acquisition for $14 Million. PowerPoint has since powered it’s way to becoming a standard tool in today’s corporate meetings. It is loved and hated, but used by millions daily. Go to any corporate or hotel conference room in the world today and chances are you will find PowerPoint slides on a screen.

It is easy enough to use that anyone can make a PowerPoint presentation, but not everyone can make a presentation that will help close a billion dollar deal or change the course of history. Smart people know to go to Professional Graphic designers when they need to an important message to be communicated effectively.

The most famous criticism of PowerPoint has come from Ed Tufte. Lee Gomes addresses this with one of the creators of PowerPoint. Robert Gaskins responds with an answer I totally agree with: “Perhaps the most scathing criticism comes from the Yale graphics guru Edward Tufte, who says the software “elevates format over content, betraying an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch.” He even suggested PowerPoint played a role in the Columbia shuttle disaster, as some vital technical news was buried in an otherwise upbeat slide.
No quarrel from Mr. Gaskins: “All the things Tufte says are absolutely true. People often make very bad use of PowerPoint.”

Mr. Gaskins reminds his questioner that a PowerPoint presentation was never supposed to be the entire proposal, just a quick summary of something longer and better thought out. He cites as an example his original business plan for the program: 53 densely argued pages long. The dozen or so slides that accompanied it were but the highlights.”

Read the entire, excellent article at this WSJ link:
“PowerPoint Turns 20, As It’s Creators Ponder A Dark Side to Success”
by Lee Gomes, June 20, 2007
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118228116940840904.html

There was an article in the NY Times today about how CNN is going to have a debate where the questions are going to be asked by ordinary people through YouTube Videos. They had to come up with something to make the debates watchable by anyone other than the candidates’ relatives. The debates I’ve watched lately are a joke. I think many high school debaters could do a better job. The last one I saw, the facilitator actually asked the candidates to raise their hand in response to questions. The hand raising seems more appropriate for kindergarten than a presidential debate.

Video based questions raise some interesting questions themselves. You can do a lot with a video. A video question can be a lot more engaging and communicative than just a submitted written question. If a picture is worth a 1000 words, a moving picture is worth?

I’d like to see a debate with PowerPoint visuals. Maybe I’ll submit a video of a short PowerPoint presentation – kind of like Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth slide show. It will be called an “Inconvenient Lie – the Bush Whitehouse”.

I really enjoy a good political meeting. I go to my local town hall meeting occasionally just for the entertainment value. They should change the name of the meetings to “egohall meetings”. What ever happened to the democratic political idea of the politicians taking the time to listen to the people that voted them into office? Or maybe that’s the problem, that there are so few people that vote today, that they only need to listen to themselves (they always vote for themselves) and the few friends that voted for them? I’d write more, but I have to go work on my video submission for the debate.

“YouTube Passes Debates to a New Generation”
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Published: June 14, 2007

Click on this link to view a video of a great presentation on how NOT to use PowerPoint!

Why meetcom.com? Because meetings do not have to suck. Meetings are a critical organizational tool in almost every corporation, but when you ask people about the meetings they must attend, most people say “I hate going to meetings, they are usually a big waste of time”.

In today’s fast paced business environment time is in short supply. Add to that the google amount of information that changes as fast as you can hit “new search”, meeting communications have become more challenging and critical to the success of an organization.

Meetings are not a perfect organizational tool because the primary element of a meeting is humans. Humans are not perfect, but when you combine the brain power of an intelligent group of people in a well planned, well run, live, face to face meeting, the results can exceed creative, and innovative expectations.