I guess we are pretty much on the same page Fred--only that I'd like to say that I hate what people do with PowerPoint rather than I hate the programme itself. I also think, that other presentation media suffer from the same kind of abuse: regular writing style even :-)

PowerPoint did in many ways democratize presentations, and that makes us look at a lot of not so good presentations, but any democratization comes at a price.

But--in the end--I guess we're on the same page. It's all a matter of wording--here goes for regular writing style :-)

I would forward the premise that the problem isn't with .ppt but with the people that have no clue how to use it. I started my freshly minted MBA life with IBM consulting and the single greatest thing - no joke - that I took from there were PowerPoint skills. One of the first things that I did after starting the job was to go to a consulting "bootcamp" where a good chunk of time was spent basically learning the McKinsey/Zelazny method that is covered in one of my fav biz books of all time "Say it with Charts".

Please people, please stop:
- using animated icons to "jazz things up"
- using 8 point fonts to write a 500 word paragraph in .ppt - if you want us to read that content then give it to us in a word doc/memo.
- making a list of bullets 15 or 20 items long and then READ it to us.....we can read faster then you can talk
- by all that is holy, don't use fancy/busy backgrounds, it makes it impossible to read.
- by all that is holy part 2, stop having the slides do those funky "fly in/fly out" things...it's annoying and not cute!

Here's an idea - use the 'pixel' format that comes standard in MS PPT, it's simple, clean and easy to read.

Enough .ppt ranting for one day ;)

rob

Brad, I called you Fred in my comment. Sorry. Was browsing Fred Wilson's blog in the other tab and had you guys mixed up.

Good tips, but I'm curious: co you think you've ever *not* done a deal because the presentation was bad? Conversely, how many deals have you done *in spite of* the bad presentation?

I've never done a deal because of a bad ppt. However, I'm sure I've quickly turned off early in the process because of a bad ppt, although that was probably symptomatic of other issues (e.g. lousy idea, poorly organized thoughts)

I also don't think I've ever done a deal "in spite of" a bad ppt. The ppt is the first impression - I've done plenty of deals that had a crummy ppt, but it's because of other characteristics of the deal (great idea, great entrepreneurs, something I was excited about) and not "in spite of a bad ppt."

I've accepted that bad PowerPoint is a way of entrepreneurial life. That doesn't mean I have to like it!

Another good resource (if you are interested in not boring your audience to death) is www.presentationzen.com. Great techniques, thoughts, and styles are covered on the blog.

I actually *like* presenting with powerpoint since stumbling on the site.