{"id":10583,"date":"2011-05-24T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-24T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/2011\/05\/24\/microspeak-powerpoint-karaoke-and-the-eye-chart\/"},"modified":"2011-05-24T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-05-24T07:00:00","slug":"microspeak-powerpoint-karaoke-and-the-eye-chart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/20110524-00\/?p=10583","title":{"rendered":"Microspeak: PowerPoint Karaoke and the eye chart"},"content":{"rendered":"

The game PowerPoint-Karaoke<\/i> was invented in 2006 by Zentrale Ingelligenz Agentur<\/a>. In this game, contestants are called upon to give a PowerPoint presentation based on a slide deck they have never seen. (The German spelling uses a hyphen between the two words. When “translated” into English, the hyphen is often omitted.)\n At Microsoft, the term has been extended to refer to giving a presentation from slides prepared by somebody else, usually on short notice and therefore with little preparation.<\/p>\n

Bob is out sick today, so I’ll be giving the overview. Sorry for the PowerPoint Karaoke<\/i>. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is shorthand for “Sorry if this presentation is a bit clumsy, but I’m stepping in on short notice, and I’m not completely familiar with this slide deck.”\n In the context of PowerPoint presentations, an eye chart<\/i><\/a> is a slide so dense with text that reading it is a test of visual acuity<\/a>. The term is usually used as part of an apology for having created such a horrible slide in the first place<\/a>.\n More generally, the term eye chart<\/i> refers to any presentation of data in a ridiculously small font. For example, over in the sales\/marketing part of Microsoft, there are spreadsheets with titles like FY05 Sales Forecast Eye Chart<\/i>. Here’s what one of them might look like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Region<\/th>\nJul 2005<\/th>\n <\/th>\nAug 2005<\/th>\n <\/th>\nSep 2005<\/th>\n <\/th>\nQ1<\/th>\n <\/th>\nOct 2005<\/th>\n <\/th>\nNov 2005<\/th>\n <\/th>\nDec 2005<\/th>\n <\/th>\nQ2<\/th>\n…<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
FY05 Fcst<\/th>\nFY04<\/th>\nY-Y<\/th>\nFY05 Fcst<\/th>\nFY04<\/th>\nY-Y<\/th>\nFY05 Fcst<\/th>\nFY04<\/th>\nY-Y<\/th>\nFY05 Fcst<\/th>\nFY04<\/th>\nY-Y<\/th>\nFY05 Fcst<\/th>\nFY04<\/th>\nY-Y<\/th>\nFY05 Fcst<\/th>\nFY04<\/th>\nY-Y<\/th>\nFY05 Fcst<\/th>\nFY04<\/th>\nY-Y<\/th>\nFY05 Fcst<\/th>\nFY04<\/th>\nY-Y<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Northeast<\/td>\nWidgets<\/td>\n57<\/td>\n57<\/td>\n0%<\/td>\n<\/td>\n74<\/td>\n61<\/td>\n22%<\/td>\n<\/td>\n85<\/td>\n92<\/td>\n−8%<\/td>\n<\/td>\n216<\/td>\n209<\/td>\n3%<\/td>\n<\/td>\n71<\/td>\n70<\/td>\n2%<\/td>\n<\/td>\n53<\/td>\n59<\/td>\n−11%<\/td>\n<\/td>\n90<\/td>\n89<\/td>\n1%<\/td>\n<\/td>\n215<\/td>\n218<\/td>\n−2%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Doodads<\/td>\n41<\/td>\n52<\/td>\n−22%<\/td>\n79<\/td>\n81<\/td>\n−3%<\/td>\n100<\/td>\n85<\/td>\n18%<\/td>\n219<\/td>\n218<\/td>\n1%<\/td>\n49<\/td>\n52<\/td>\n−7%<\/td>\n93<\/td>\n84<\/td>\n12%<\/td>\n87<\/td>\n79<\/td>\n10%<\/td>\n229<\/td>\n214<\/td>\n7%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Gizmos<\/td>\n64<\/td>\n55<\/td>\n16%<\/td>\n95<\/td>\n88<\/td>\n7%<\/td>\n56<\/td>\n67<\/td>\n−16%<\/td>\n215<\/td>\n211<\/td>\n2%<\/td>\n59<\/td>\n79<\/td>\n−25%<\/td>\n58<\/td>\n69<\/td>\n−16%<\/td>\n68<\/td>\n83<\/td>\n−18%<\/td>\n186<\/td>\n231<\/td>\n−20%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Northeast Total<\/td>\n159<\/td>\n157<\/td>\n2%<\/td>\n138<\/td>\n168<\/td>\n−18%<\/td>\n170<\/td>\n212<\/td>\n−20%<\/td>\n467<\/td>\n537<\/td>\n−13%<\/td>\n205<\/td>\n224<\/td>\n−8%<\/td>\n209<\/td>\n177<\/td>\n18%<\/td>\n194<\/td>\n244<\/td>\n−21%<\/td>\n608<\/td>\n645<\/td>\n−6%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Southeast<\/td>\nWidgets<\/td>\n80<\/td>\n70<\/td>\n15%<\/td>\n<\/td>\n75<\/td>\n82<\/td>\n-8%<\/td>\n<\/td>\n57<\/td>\n60<\/td>\n-5%<\/td>\n<\/td>\n212<\/td>\n212<\/td>\n0%<\/td>\n<\/td>\n63<\/td>\n83<\/td>\n-24%<\/td>\n<\/td>\n49<\/td>\n53<\/td>\n-8%<\/td>\n<\/td>\n92<\/td>\n75<\/td>\n23%<\/td>\n<\/td>\n204<\/td>\n211<\/td>\n-3%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Doodads<\/td>\n59<\/td>\n69<\/td>\n-14%<\/td>\n60<\/td>\n73<\/td>\n-17%<\/td>\n67<\/td>\n68<\/td>\n-1%<\/td>\n187<\/td>\n210<\/td>\n-11%<\/td>\n54<\/td>\n70<\/td>\n-23%<\/td>\n98<\/td>\n86<\/td>\n14%<\/td>\n58<\/td>\n50<\/td>\n16%<\/td>\n210<\/td>\n206<\/td>\n2%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Gizmos<\/td>\n75<\/td>\n89<\/td>\n-15%<\/td>\n59<\/td>\n61<\/td>\n-3%<\/td>\n124<\/td>\n100<\/td>\n24%<\/td>\n259<\/td>\n250<\/td>\n3%<\/td>\n80<\/td>\n89<\/td>\n-10%<\/td>\n84<\/td>\n96<\/td>\n-13%<\/td>\n40<\/td>\n52<\/td>\n-23%<\/td>\n204<\/td>\n237<\/td>\n-14%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Southeast Total<\/td>\n204<\/td>\n239<\/td>\n-15%<\/td>\n220<\/td>\n189<\/td>\n17%<\/td>\n151<\/td>\n187<\/td>\n-19%<\/td>\n576<\/td>\n615<\/td>\n-6%<\/td>\n172<\/td>\n175<\/td>\n-2%<\/td>\n168<\/td>\n210<\/td>\n-20%<\/td>\n122<\/td>\n152<\/td>\n-20%<\/td>\n462<\/td>\n538<\/td>\n-14%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
… etc for about a bajillion more rows …<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

(The abbreviation Y-Y<\/a> is being used correctly for once. Writing the program to generate all this fake data took far, far longer than writing the rest of this posting! It got a lot easier once I realized that, since this is just fake data, the totals don’t have to add up<\/i>.)\n Giving the spreadsheet the title Eye Chart<\/i> lets people know that this is the spreadsheet crammed with data to the point of information overload. If that’s what you’re looking for.\n I wouldn’t be surprised if these uses of the terms PowerPoint Karaoke<\/i> and eye chart<\/i> are also popular at other companies.<\/p>\n

Bonus chatter<\/b>: Last year, I was asked to give a repeat of a presentation I hadn’t given in several months. I had only a little bit of time to prepare, and there were times where I lost my place and had to refer to my notes (which I thankfully remembered to keep). It’s embarrassing to find yourself playing PowerPoint Karaoke to your own slide deck<\/i>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The game PowerPoint-Karaoke was invented in 2006 by Zentrale Ingelligenz Agentur. In this game, contestants are called upon to give a PowerPoint presentation based on a slide deck they have never seen. (The German spelling uses a hyphen between the two words. When “translated” into English, the hyphen is often omitted.) At Microsoft, the term […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1069,"featured_media":111744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[105,103],"class_list":["post-10583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oldnewthing","tag-microspeak","tag-non-computer"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

The game PowerPoint-Karaoke was invented in 2006 by Zentrale Ingelligenz Agentur. In this game, contestants are called upon to give a PowerPoint presentation based on a slide deck they have never seen. (The German spelling uses a hyphen between the two words. When “translated” into English, the hyphen is often omitted.) At Microsoft, the term […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}