In my experience at amazon, a shitty presentation never gets presented. "I won't schedule a meeting with our VP if you don't fix this" is the basic filter they use, and it works.

Why are they giving a presentation in the first place? It seems mostly habit as this point.

The article itself supports this as they don't just skip Powerpoint, they skip the presentation entirely in favour of a 6 page memo.

This is a witty point, but OTOH powerpoint has become the ubiquitous hammer of the business presentation which has everyone searching for nails.

There is a time and place for slides with a few talking points per, but in many ways it's contorted most all meetings into PR events even when there's nothing to sell.

Well said! I am in complete agreement. Why are we blaming tools when it's the presenters fault themselves for not being able to present? If your staff can't articulate his/her idea properly, train them. Not everyone knows everything right off the bat.

It's not the tool, it is the presenter. Often times, they lean on the tool rather than actually thinking about their presentation.

I would disagree at least in the part that spending endless hours on meaningless non revenue generating flair / graphics art work, could theoretically be devoted toward either improving the presentation content, or toward revenue generating activities resulting in better results contained in the powerpoint.

I would also disagree in that its a crutch for the absolute bottom of the barrel presenters, because no matter how bad awkwardly reading slides to the audience is, its better than silence / choking up / repeating themselves / skipping intermediate concepts. Being read to like a preschool child is better than not getting a presentation at all, well, at least most of the time.

i think the idea is to remove powerpoint as a crutch. it may not make a bad presenter great, but it aims to force him to articulate his points better