The cult of PowerPoint

Raymond Chen

Recent articles on how PowerPoint contributed to failure at NASA reminded me that this is hardly a new discovery. The Department of Defense long ago discovered that PowerPoint is a great way to hide the fact that you don’t know what you’re talking about. I remember reading an article (which I of course can’t find now) of a “cult of PowerPoint”. Apparently some organizations take the built-in PowerPoint template as gospel. Every presentation must follow the structure established by the PowerPoint template. The first slide is always a title; the second is always a statement of a problem; the third slide is always summary of previous work, etc. Um, people, it’s just a template.

And before the Linux folks get all so gloaty: “Ravens Coach Brian Billick faults last week’s [October 2001] defensive breakdown on team’s switch to Linux operating system.”

Raymond Chen

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