Study Hall over Powerpoint?

[downtown]

Most of us have either been in a staff meeting or some sort of class presentation based on powerpoint. The presenter throws up his bullet points, maybe you get some notes to go along with the deck, people interrupt, etc. It's super easy for the presenter, and maybe if you actually pay attention to your notes, it can be kinda useful. Tons of organizations do this.

Except for Amazon apparently. Instead of powerpoints, they use a 6-page memo and a half hour of silent reading time for their meetings.

All meetings are structured around a 6 page memo

“When you have to write your ideas out in complete sentences, complete paragraphs it forces a deeper clarity.”

Why don’t you read the memos in advance?

“Time doesnt come from nowhere. This way you know everyone has the time. The author gets the nice warm feeling of seeing their hard work being read.”

“If you have a traditional ppt presentation, executives interrupt. If you read the whole 6 page memo, on page 2 you have a question but on on page 4 that question is answered.”

And so that is what we do, we just sit and read.

http://conorneill.com/2012/11/30/amazon-staff-meetings-no-powerpoint/

I can certainly see the appeal of forcing the presenter to actually write everything out in detailed paragraphs (and with sources), but I'm not sure if I'd want to dedicate that much time to every one of my meetings.

Would you prefer if your classes/business operated on this model, or do you like powerpoint?

 

[Antilogic]

I don't mind powerpoint if it is done well. Half the time the crummy presenters are already throwing paragraphs of text up on their slides, so I guess they are splitting the difference.

I'm assuming that the memo reading is the first part of this meeting, and there is some sort of discussion afterwards, right? So some of the simple questions are answered by page 4, but if they aren't you can still talk to the author?

 

[Ajidica]

Powerpoints done well are very handy. They let you know where the speaker is going, what he will be talking about, and important information.

Poorly done powerpoints are the worst, as they are frequently accompanied by speakers who have no idea what they are doing.

 

[warpus]

I don't mind powerpoint, but it has to be used right. The absolutely wrong way to use it is to stand there and read every single bullet point and every single word on the slides that you show. That's bad.. very bad. I'm already sitting there reading the crap, I don't need another voice reading the same thing as me. Expand on your points, or go home. The powerpoint shoudl be a summary of your presentation, no more. If your'e just going to read the whole thing and that's it, we don't really need you there, now do we?

 

[Mise]

I literally always write out at least a 2 pager on even minor proposals and email it around before hand, print it out ready for the meeting, and refer back to it during the meeting. The 2 pager serves as the map, and with that I hope to drive the meeting without having to actually say or do anything at all. If you go in with a 2, 4 or 6 page document with your thoughts then that'll carry a hell of a lot more weight than some dumb forgettable powerpoint.

 

[Antilogic]

Sending a brief abstract/executive summary/whatever-you-want-to-call-it of your presentation around before the presentation is a great idea. I also like receiving them because I scan over it beforehand, and look up and bring any relevant materials to the meeting. That way, instead of saying "I know I read a paper somewhere that is vaguely relevant to this, I'll have to get back to you later..." I can say "Here's a paper by so-and-so that is relevant because..."

The real use for Powerpoint is not in text but in animating figures that explain more difficult concepts. A memo can't do that unless you have a sequence of figures showing the individual steps.

 

[Zelig]

I don't like the Amazon approach, I read faster than people, so I'd just be twiddling my thumbs waiting for everyone else to finish.

I can't imagine using a powerpoint slide for a staff meeting - if I'm in a staff meeting about anything important it's almost certainly <5 people and informal. If it's stuff that needs to be distributed to more people, I can do it via computer and I don't need to be present.

I don't mind powerpoint, but it has to be used right. The absolutely wrong way to use it is to stand there and read every single bullet point and every single word on the slides that you show. That's bad.. very bad. I'm already sitting there reading the crap, I don't need another voice reading the same thing as me. Expand on your points, or go home. The powerpoint shoudl be a summary of your presentation, no more. If your'e just going to read the whole thing and that's it, we don't really need you there, now do we?

Yes. My powerpoint bullets are one or two words, just to remind me what to talk about, with a preference for charts or images when appropriate.

 

[galdre]

I'd prefer the amazon approach. Ppt presentations bore the heck out of me, and I absorb more reading than listening to someone.

 

[Farm Boy]

I loathe Powerpoint, almost anything else would be better. Heck, strap me to a chair and throw water balloons at me while shouting your presentation. About 2 minutes after the lights dim, the Powerpoint goes up, and the droning hits a rhythm, I'm going to be falling asleep. Doesn't matter if I have coffee, doesn't matter if I'm not tired, doen't matter if it's important. It's still game over for me.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

In my case, with the powerpoint presentation, I sort of have to split the focus between the speaking and the powerpoint itself, and it's a little harder for me to understand human speech than the average person, so I end up missing bits of it. With the memo I can read the memo.

 

[sophie]

Yes. My powerpoint bullets are one or two words, just to remind me what to talk about, with a preference for charts or images when appropriate.

This is pretty much how I do it. The writing in a powerpoint should be there for you the speaker, not the audience. It helps you formulate and organize your ideas so you aren't stuck reading off some 3x5 cards. Otherwise why the hell are you talking in the first place? Also people who put up blocks of text on a slide and don't refer to it are just as bad because then the listener is stuck trying to divide their time between reading the slide and hearing the other information. What a mess.

A slide should be some bulletpoints for the speaker and for the listener to segment his notes, and visual information - maps, graphs, charts, etc. which help the speaker better convey the information.

I do like the idea Amazon has, but I don't know if it would work in a College environment. Generally in an undergrad environment the topics addressed in lecture are going to mirror (in some cases almost exactly) what the assigned reading was. Giving out summaries of lectures beforehand would just give students another excuse not to show up to class (in addition to: "I have some weed", "I'm hung over", "It's nice out today", and the old standard "I just don't feel like getting out of bed today"). Just look at what putting slides up after class (a common strategy for STEM courses) does. On any given non-test day you'll see maybe 1/4 of the total enrolled class in the room.

I think it would work very well in a seminar/graduate environment though, where classes are smaller and students are much more accountable (also they are often expected to present themselves). This would help account for those who are just plain awful at giving a presentation or staying on point. Also those bad at arranging a powerpoint. So for them it would be good, but not for a generic College lecture environment.

 

[illram]

In school I liked powerpoint slides because it facilitated easier note taking. And when professors made them available outside of class it was even nicer. There is an art to an effective powerpoint though; too much info and you lose the audience. Too little and the slide is useless.

Personally I am old fashioned. I write out key issues that I need to address and I just go for it. If there is a takeaway I want people to have I maybe outline a few bullet points and hand it out at the meeting or maybe in an email before, so everyone knows the structure and we can just go down the list.

The Amazon concept is interesting, but I wonder if everyone truly digests the memo right on the spot. There is a lot that can go into a 6 page memo...

 

[_random_]

I was a bigger fan of Prezi because the cool movement captivated my audience.

 

[CaptainF]

 

[Birdjaguar]

I dislike PP and try to avoid using it. I prefer to have a single slide PP that shows the goal, purpose, or decision to be made and leave it up throughout the meeting. Then I put everything of importance on one or two sides of an 11"x 17" page. I hand those out. All charts, tables and graphs along with their explanations or conclusions are on the page for attendees to read in any order they want. I walk through the page(s) pointing out key material and answering questions. My goal is to provide enough information on the handout so the audience can ask good questions. The information is dense and a mixture of data and narrative that explains the data. When appropriate, I draw conclusions that serve the meetings purpose or goal. This works quite well.

 

[Souron]

I don't like reading 6 pages of text, any I wouldn't want people to do it for my sake. I'd much rather explain whatever it is I have to present, and get the verbal and nonverbal feedback on how well I'm understood.

Power point is a tool to aid presentation. I consider it optional, but useful. Paper handouts can also be useful, and should probably be used more than they are. Especially for tabular data.

Yes. My powerpoint bullets are one or two words, just to remind me what to talk about, with a preference for charts or images when appropriate.

If it's just to remind you, better to use notes.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

The best of two worlds is a PPT supplemented with a short document (with or without prior reading). One thing my graduate supervisor taught me is that a picture with a good narrative is worth a thousand words. If one is good at making slides, he can easily communicate an astounding amount of information that would've been otherwise impossible to go through in an equally short length of formal writing.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

So basically everything in the lecture is on the notes available? Why would I attend lecture then?

 

[Zelig]

If it's just to remind you, better to use notes.

That seems incredibly archaic and impractical.

I'd have to go buy index cards, buy a printer, figure out how to print on index-card size, and then hold a stack of index cards while I flip through them. I've got Powerpoint on my phone, at that point it would be far simpler to just flip through a PP deck on my phone than to screw around with pieces of paper - and if I'm going to do that, why not just put it up so that I can show charts and images to people?

The Amazon concept is interesting, but I wonder if everyone truly digests the memo right on the spot. There is a lot that can go into a 6 page memo...

Yeah, 6 pages is either needlessly long and could be summarized in much less space, or information-dense enough that I need my own time and resources to digest it.

My goal is to provide enough information on the handout so the audience can ask good questions.

Unless I'm selling something, my goal in pretty much every job is to avoid questions, they're generally a waste of my time.

So basically everything in the lecture is on the notes available? Why would I attend lecture then?

To ask questions about the notes.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

To ask questions about the notes.

The only questions I have are how to solve certain math and physics problems, and there are tutorials and aid centres for that.