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Let's Delete PowerPoint from our Business Vocabulary
Letter to the Editor Inc. Magazine
from Dana Bristol-Smith
I have to take issue with the article Making Your (Power) Point for two reasons. First, business professionals must know how to deliver an effective, engaging presentation with or without PowerPoint. It’s the presenter’s skill, good content, and delivery style (rapport, body language, vocal tone, etc.,) that will keep an audience engaged – not the PowerPoint slides.
PowerPoint is not entertainment and does not make up for poor presentation skills!
Second, I want to start a campaign to remove the word PowerPoint from our collective business vocabulary. Why? Because a presentation is a presentation – a way to communicate information to a group of people, usually (though not always) in a live meeting.
PowerPoint is a tool (just a darn piece of software). It is a visual aid that allows us to arrange information in different layouts (and yes it has bells, whistles, and video). Just like Word is a tool and it allows us to communicate information to individuals or a group. We don’t say “I’d like to give a Word presentation of my project status. And, if we are using a white board to explain a concept we don’t say “I’d like to give you a whiteboard presentation.”
I’d like for us business professionals to call a presentation a presentation and take the brand name PowerPoint off of it.
Can I have your support?
Dana Bristol-Smith, President
Speak for Success
San Diego
About the Author
Dana Bristol-Smith is the founder of Speak for Success, an organization that works with companies that want their people to communicate with confidence and credibility.
You can email Dana at:dana@speakforsuccess.net
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