·It’s overused ·It can be confusing ·It can be a crutch for insecurity ·It can be a mask for poor content ·It can be an overload on your audience ·It can put your audience automatically to sleep

Edward Tuft, who’s written several books on displaying information visually, is an advocate against PowerPoint. He believes those who rely on PP cognitive style are "simply serving up PowerPointPhluff to mask their lousy content.”

Lousy content … or insecurity. When I first started presenting I used it because it’s a crutch to rely on, and a mask to hide behind. It’s like memorizing a speech, or reading it from notes. It gives complete control because there’s no space for those disconcerting questions you can’t answer when you’re new.

Tufte writes about Lou Gerstner, on his first day as president of IBM. At a meeting, he switched off projector and said to presenter, “Let’s just talk about your business.”

If you use PowerPoint as a crutch … would this not be alarming? Suddenly you’d be called upon to know your subject well enough to just chat about it. I’m reminded of my grad school professor who said, “If you can’t explain this stuff to your next-door neighbor, you don’t know it.” I do use PowerPoint, and effectively, and I’ve seen effective use of PowerPoint, but let’s first talk about why it isn’t good to use.

·It’s overused, and expected, so we tune out. ·It’s a sensual sleepdown – whir of machine, progressing of slides … hum of voice as it reads something … zzz … ·I have never seen anyone give a fully read PowerPoint or slide presentation who wasn’t tied to their umbilical cord. When it came time for discussion, they didn’t know their subject matter. What is it good for? ·Outstanding for graphs and financial data. ·Excellent for emotion – photographs and art. A picture is worth a thousand words for emotional appeal. ·Good for a change of pace to wake your audience up suddenly. ·You can use it interactively – put questions up there that need answering. ·Variety. ·Words in another language. ·Geography.

HOW IS IT BEST PROJECTED? We’ve ruled out rote use of PP – just reading a laundry list. Here is how to use PowerPoint if you’re going to. GRAPHS AND DATA

When you do use it for graphs or data, put up your data and give them time to look at it for a moment before you slowly talk through figures. Some people know how to read a spreadsheet quickly. Others do not.

On other hand, if you want to push something over on your Board, as I’ve seen done, blitz through it, because a spreadsheet on a screen is not easy to “grasp” quickly. Beware rapid flipper of slides where data is concerned.

EMOTIONAL APPEAL

I could not have raised funds for homeless without emotional appeal of photographs. Most of us would rather not see suffering. Words are easily tuned out, and numbers are only numbers.

Your calling is that passion that you have deep inside - career that defines your purpose in life. Someone once told me if you find a job that you love you'll never have to work a day in your life. Some of us work in careers for so long that we are numb on inside and outside. We go from appointment to appointment and our days are so mundane. We hardly get any enjoyment out of what we do because it is just another 9 to 5. Have you recently said, ‘I could do this job with my eyes closed?'

People who choose a career, instead of their calling, wake up disappointed that they have to go to work. They hate facing another day. If you find your calling and pursue it, life will become an adventure and not just another 9 to 5.