Rating: 
Summary: The "dumbing down" of corporate presentations
Review: Tufte is "spot on" with his assessment of the adverse affects that PowerPoint can have on "un-suspecting" audiences. Tufte is a master articulator. A must have for anyone who uses PowerPoint!
Rating:
Summary: To the (Power) Point
Review: Tufte's latest text is a short pamphlet on the cognitive style of PowerPoint, that is, how a rigidly hierarchical, perhaps Stalinist, piece of software shapes the thoughts of both the presenter and his or her audience. The results are not pretty. He presents his case using real and fictional examples. An reimagnition of the Gettysburg Address as a deck demonstrates how the lapidary oratory of Lincoln can be rendered a hopeless mess. The results are as amusing as they are convincing. More important is the use of NASA presentations on the Columbia disaster. Tufte illustrates how NASA's engineers and its vendors can turn critical information into a incomprehensible data junkyard. The consequences in this case illustrate the far reaching impact of the tool and its potentially tragic consequences. After reading this very persuasive piece, it's clear to me exactly how PowerPoint can be misused to deceive, confuse, and bore. The problem in almost every case is the tool itself. PowerPoint forces its totalitarian nature on the user demanding that one "shape the facts to fit the deck" by oversimplifying and thoughtless structuring. Ultimately, Tufte accepts that fact that PowerPoint is pervasive. He concludes by offering suggestions as to how to make the best of a bad situation. The design points alone are worth the price of the pamphlet.
Rating:
Summary: Savagely Brilliant
Review: Warning: Reading Cognitive Style is likely to increase your temptation to run screaming from the room when faced with corporate and military PowerPoint presentations. But if it helps you to prepare presentations that don't tempt your audiences to run screaming from the room (and it offers lots of good advice), the sacrifice will be worth it.
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