09. Amazon Has Banned PowerPoint. Here's What We Think About That Decision.

Let's talk about PowerPoint! It's episode nine of The Presentation Boss Podcast! Visual communication is an important consideration for any presentation. So naturally we've been drawn to this conversation (at times heated) about whether or not this headline about Jeff Bezos banning PowerPoint in Amazon Management meetings is admirable or a potential mistake. Having listened closely to many podcasts, read loads of articles and stayed across the arguments, thoughts and information we have our own belief about how PowerPoint should be used and not used in presentations. We even include a few tips and a bit of psychology that we know to be true too. What You'll Learn • Jeff Bezos has banned PowerPoint and what he expects to happen instead and why • Why stories and narrative work so strongly and how they can benefit presentations • Can PowerPoint be used to help tell a story? • The three pillars of rhetoric; what they are and why you must consider them • Bullet points don't work - but who out there disagrees and uses them anyway • The redundancy effect and how it can work against you, or work for you • What is the practical definition of 'death by PowerPoint' • The reason PowerPoint gets used poorly • Why banning PowerPoint verges on homogenisation of presentations and begins to remove expression of personality • The emotional impact of visual communication in presentations • Appealing to learning styles in meetings Resources and Links • Presentation Boss on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/presentationboss/ • Presentation Boss on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/presentation-boss • Kate on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-norris/ • Thomas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-krafft/ • The Presentation Boss Podcast: https://presentationboss.com.au/podcast/ • Email us! podcast@presentationboss.com.au Quotes From This Episode • "This is about understanding that you're communicating with humans, who have emotions" • "We are a visual creature and visuals are much more powerful than text or language alone" • "Storytelling is king.. and bullet points suck" • "PowerPoint doesn't suck, bad PowerPoint sucks!" • "You've still got the same driver behind the wheel, so the outcome is going to be the same" • "Don't ban the software, educate your people on how to use it better" • "A presentation without PowerPoint is oftentimes less tolerable than a presentation with PowerPoint" • "Making you stand out more and having a better delivered message could come from having a brilliant, well thought out, mindful PowerPoint that's just simply better than the standard PowerPoint" • "PowerPoint exists to do some of the work for you" • "As presenters we can say words, we need to show the audience what we can't say" • "There's a holistic view here on how do we best serve the team's learning styles"