NAME: Barbara S. Smith
SECTOR: Independent training consultant focusing on disability and health issues.
Email: bssmith@mac.com
Barbara Smith is a writer and training development consultant currently living in Miami ,Florida. Ms. Smith worked at the University of Iowa for over twenty years, implementing training and social marketing efforts to promote the inclusion of people with disabilities in community life. She has a BA in literature from Brown University and a master’s degree in educational psychology from Southern Illinois University. While working at the University of Iowa, she attended CVA DACUM facilitator and program development training in Winnipeg. She has used the approach extensively in her consulting work, which has included developing training for staff in special education, foster care and public health.
CVA Report – February 2010
PowerPoint Compulsive Disorder—Is someone you love afflicted? Are you?
Barbara Smith, M.S. Topic Sentence Services
It took a psychologist—I’ll call him Al--to label it for me. I had been hired to organize a two-day training for the staff of his large health care organization. Important competencies had been identified, and knowledgeable people found to guide staff learning. I prepped all of these experts extensively: Don’t lecture, leave plenty of time for questions. I even provided them with real case studies from the staff. Interact, ask about their experiences. I reminded them of all the adult learning principles.
But there we were, a minute left before break, the expert was still going, racing through the text on her PowerPoint slides.
“Can’t you stop her?” Al whispered to me fiercely. I tried. I put a note on the podium. “People have questions!!” I wrote. She barely glanced at it.
“I just have a couple more slides,” she said, as the waiters came in to set the lunch tables, and staff drifted out, checking their cell phones.
“PPCD,” Al muttered. “PowerPoint Compulsive Disorder.”
“Before there were presentations, there were conversations,” writes Ian Parker. (Absolute Powerpoint: Can a software package edit our thoughts? New Yorker, May 28, 2001). “Which were a little like conversations, but used fewer bullet points and no one had to dim the lights.” Parker’s history of PowerPoint continues to be written. We would be startled, today, by a presenter who stood up alone and vulnerable, sans slideshow and pointer. We have become addicted to the flying text, the fade, the animations. We engage in what Parker calls the “sin of triple delivery”: The same text on the slide, read out loud and provided in handouts. Is Parker right? Are we letting PowerPoint (or its imitators) shape our thoughts to fit conveniently into seven bullet points per page? Are we letting the security (and fun!) of creating a polished presentation overwhelm the messy process of good teaching?
This may be a question each of us to meditate upon privately, or with a trained professional. But if you have PPCD, be prepared. There is a growing awareness, and irritation, with the condition.
I was at a conference recently, which included an after dinner presentation. Granted, alcohol was being served, perhaps too freely. But as the speaker began reading from his 30th slide, someone leaned over and pulled the plug on the projector and the room went dark. There was some giggling and cautious hand clapping.
So, in the manner of Alcoholics Anonymous, let us start the meeting. My name is Barbara, and I use PowerPoint.
