InFocus “What Not to Present” Contest

InFocus, the projector people, is hosting a “What Not to Present” contest and is looking for the worst single presentation slide you’ve ever seen.

For more info and to enter via Twitter, go here. 

It didn’t take long for me to decide what my entry should be. No, it’s not the “How to Fix Afghanistan” monstrosity, or even one of Bill Gates’ old cringe-inducing slides.

For me, the worst slide is one that has led to more bad “PowerPoints” and bad presentation design than any other: Microsoft’s default template:

PowerPoint is the only software program that I know of that tells its user the type of content to insert in the default empty view. Word and Excel don’t tell you what kind of text or numbers to start with—they just give you blank pages. Photoshop doesn’t even specify the color of its blank page lest Adobe bias the user against using a hot pink background. But PowerPoint not so gently nudges you, exclaiming: Use a header and then bulleted text, dummy!

The reality is that PowerPoint is simply a container and a tool for almost any type of content, laid out in just about any way you like. If you wanted to, you could actually lay out the New York Times in PowerPoint. Sure, it would be difficult, but it’s possible. (Bonus points for anyone who knew that PowerPoint actually allows for columned paragraphs…) 

But this unfortunate default view has created “PowerPointThink” and a mindset of overly wordy slides with redundant or non-essential header bars and far, far too many slide-uments and PowerPoint train wrecks. By the way, if you think a slide needs a header bar, read this.

Of course, with a simple click, you can start with a completely blank template and let the world of possibilities await you. But simple clicks are time-consuming in the grand scheme of business. And the result has been decades of Death by Powerpoint. 

I’m anxious to see to the submissions InFocus receives!