Matthias Pöehm, a speech coach from Switzerland is trying to create a global movement: The Anti PowerPoint Party or APPP. For the time being, he is trying to establish a regular political party in Switzerland by collecting signatures. He has a point when he says that many presentations would have been much better off if no PowerPoint slides were used. Matthias is offering a book on his site with suggestions on how to present without PowerPoint.
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He says that, by not using PowerPoint, 95% of the time, the presentation would be better. Well, yes, but notice how that is the same rough estimate of how much bad PowerPoint is out there. If people used PowerPoint well, and bad PowerPoint were only 5%, then I would argue that his figure would also be roughly 5%.
He also says that using a flipchart beats using PowerPoint the same 95% of the time. Well, yes, because a flipchart offers the presenter with a blank slate while PowerPoint presents them with the standard title, bullet point, bullet point, bullet point. If flipcharts came with the same preprinted title area, bullet point, bullet point, bullet point, they would no longer beat PowerPoint by such a margin, if at all.
The problem is not PowerPoint. The problem is most people do not use PowerPoint effectively.
It strikes me that Mr. Pöehm is sort of making the same error with video. First, it isn’t very good. The camera is lower than his face leaving me feeling like a child being scolded by my parent. The room has a slight reverberation of his voice. His mic position is picking up too much of his inhalation which should have been toned down in editing. Lastly, the video halts and jumps many times. This may be due to a slow processor speed of my computer, but he should compress his video’s size so that the majority of his audience can view it as they should. All of this is a distraction from his message, and I would argue that, perhaps 95% of the time, his message would have been better without video.
The problem is not video. The problem is Mr. Pöehm not using video effectively.