Power Point Waste
Computers were supposed to save on paper, anyone using a computer knows that is not true. I would like to see someone do a study on the amount of paper wasted in today's working environment. A few people may have a shock. At least someone has the common sense to notice things are not right. (See article below from Feedblitz)
An article that got some attention in Japan last week was this one (in Japanese), which says the Toyota Motor Corporation CEO Katsuaki Watanabe urged employees to show self-restraint and stop the wasteful practice of using PowerPoint for the creation of documents (what I call slideuments). The CEO made this statement while talking about the need to reduce costs at Toyota. He is reminding employees to be cost conscious and he used the practice of using PowerPoint as an example of waste. Watanabe said that (in the good old days?) they used to use one piece of paper to make a clear point or proposal, or to summarize an issue, but now everything is in PowerPoint, he says, which uses many sheets of paper and expensive colors...but it's a waste. The CEO is not saying that PowerPoint is necessarily harmful (he does not mention its use for actual presentations), but he is saying printed "documents" made with the presentation tool tend to have less content, less clarity, and yet use more paper/ink and take more time. In the context of a challenging economy and an atmosphere of reducing costs, what would you say of any business practice that (1) takes more time, (2) costs more money, and yet (3) appears to be less effective? In the spirit of kaizen (continuous improvement), even if the waste is small, it must be eliminated.
Watanabe's sentiments are nothing new to you. You understand what many people do not: that visuals projected on a screen in support of a live talk are very different from material that is to be printed and read and/or analyzed. You understand that the term "PowerPoint presentation" is antiquated and meaningless for it suggests that there is but one way to make a presentation with the aid of slideware or other multimedia (i.e., the typical death-by-PowerPoint way with a projector or the practice of printing out reams of tiny slides which lack depth ). Many people misunderstood Watanabe's comments to mean he banned the use of PowerPoint. The problem is that in Japan—like other places in the world—there is often no distinction made between documents (slideuments made in PowerPoint) and presentation slides prepared for projection. They are often interchangeable. Sounds efficient, right? And it would be funny if it was not so inefficient, wasteful, and unproductive. The slideuments produced in Japan make understanding and precision harder when printed, and when used for projected slides in a darkened conference room, they are the country's number one cure for insomnia. Again, the Toyota CEO did not say anything you do not already know about the ineffective use of PowerPoint, but given his high stature and credibility we can hope that more people will come to realize that the printed slideument or docu-point is a scourge that must be eliminated from the business world and academia. I was happy to read Watanabe's comments, but my fear is that because people have not been exposed to many effective methods of using PowerPoint (or Keynote, etc.) for live talks, there may be a push to ban the use of the tools themselves. Slideware, however, is not a method, it's simply a kind of tool. A kind of tool that can be used effectively or ineffectively. It all depends on your approach and your method.
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