I was invited to attend a seminar on Change Management, hosted by the Project Management Institute in Switzerland. PMI meetings are basically a PowerPoint orgy for PMs looking to get more CEUs (Continuing Education Units) to make sure they can actually keep the title of "PMP certified" on their CV. Depending on the subject of the presentation, it's a battle to stay awake. Usually the most redeeming part of any of these presentations is the ability to network after the event, over free drinks preferably.
The presentation was ridiculous. The presenter was American, spoke way too fast, and never answered a direct question with a direct answer. It was amazingly frustrating to sit through 30 PowerPoint slides with a look of feigned interest.
The nadir of the presentation had to be a drawing that encompassed 15 different elements on a jam-packed slide. Now I'm no PowerPoint jedi, but hell - this guy might as well have come in speaking like Ross Perot and pointing to a picture of a DNA-histone protein complex. The native English speakers called bullshit early and started to pepper questions like clusterbombs. Watching this guy dance around the answers was like watching NASCAR: you feel guilty for thinking it, but at some point in time, you just want the guy to crash and burn.
Good article on the good and the bad of PowerPoint here.
Hilarious take on the Gettysburg Address - PowerPoint remix here.
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