PowerPoint Addiction

No matter what your line of work, it’s only getting harder to avoid death by PowerPoint. Since Microsoft launched the slide show program 22 years ago, it’s been installed on no fewer than 1 billion computers; an estimated 350 PowerPoint presentations are given each second across the globe; the software’s users continue to prove that no field of human endeavor can defy its facility for reducing complexity and nuance to bullet points and big ideas to tacky clip art. On June 18, the Iranian government made the case for its highly contested nuclear program to world leaders with a 47-slide deck. (Sample slide: “In the Name of ALLAH, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful, Why Enrichment is an Inalienable and Chartered Right under the NPT?”) A few weeks later, scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced the momentous discovery of the Higgs boson, or “God particle,” using 52 PowerPoint slides in the Comic Sans font that inspired more mockery than awe. Two years back, the New York Knicks tried to woo LeBron James with a PowerPoint pitch, which may explain why James won his first NBA championship in Miami.

The new low-tech trend in high-tech sales? Salespeople at Software AG, Borland and Symantec are ditching PowerPoint and engaging with customers using a whiteboard and markers. Here's a look at Software AG's strategy.

High-tech sales pitches have historically fallen into one of two categories: not so bad or awful.

Typically, representatives from the prospective customer—clustered together on one side of a conference table—have had to endure a PowerPoint presentation delivered by a vendor salesperson who more than likely didn't write the slides; has not been a programmer or database admin in a previous life and doesn't understand the complexities of the software and how it applies to the customer's situation; and is so pressed to get through all 45 slides in 15 minutes that he has little time to actually converse with the users and IT staffers on the other side of the table.

By nixing the bullet points and PowerPoint slides from your presentation, you'll gain back your audience and make your speech more memorable.

The CIO walked on stage with every apparent confidence, relaxed and ready to tell his story. His opener was a droll little anecdote about fending off starving vendors. The audience was smiling back at him, BlackBerrys tucked away, fully engaged. Then the speaker picked up the clicker, lashed himself to the mast of an absolutely stupefying, bullet-point-riddled PowerPoint deck and sank like a stone. Sixty seconds into his slides, the BlackBerrys revved back up and the audience was gone, baby, gone.

Watching this death-by-PowerPoint scenario unfold, I imagined an intervention. I saw myself leaping on stage, snatching away that clicker and turning our hapless speaker back into a human being with a good story to tell. What a crying shame, I thought, that this executive addiction is so damn hard to break.

Each time I sign up a CIO speaker, I hopefully suggest the option of going slide-free. From the reaction I get, you'd think I suggested walking on stage pants-free.