Re: PowerPoint advice

[John Fleming <johntwrl -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

On Tue, 27 May 2003 08:56:56 -0600, in bit.listserv.techwr-l
Shauna I wrote:

> $I've noticed something in practice that doesn't seem to have appeared in
> $this thread:  The use of Powerpoint presentations as online presentations
> $(e.g., through an intranet), _in_lieu_ of a spoken presentation.

I think that had to do with the question being about live
presentations given by a speaker using PowerPoint as a crutch.

Same tool--different audience.

> $I'm not expressing an opinion here on the use and abuse of Powerpoint,
> $just making an observation in the hope of seeing whether anyone else has
> $noticed this practice, what they think of it, and how they believe it
> $would affect the usage guidelines expressed here so far.

While I am aware that PowerPoint does have this capablility, it
is a use of PowerPoint I have never had the opportunity to
explore.  

> $For example: 
> $Over the years I've found that a significant number of business users
> $don't even know the Speaker's Notes exist, let alone how they are to be
> $used*. If these folks are just viewing a Powerpoint presentation via the
> $intranet, and are not writing one, is it reasonable to expect the users to
> $have the technical aptitude with the presentation medium to know to look
> $for speaker's notes?

There are, I believe, a lot of features in any software package
that the typical user is not aware of, much less how to use them.

This is unfortunate because many of these tools would make their
jobs much easier.

As an example, I once noticed someone updateing footnotes in a
Word document.  Fine, except he wasn't using the footnote feature
in Word.  He was manually placing his footnotes at the foot of
the page (much as we used to do in the days of the IBM Selectic)
and manually placing the numbers in the text.  Sure, it did the
job, but he spent hours updating footnotes when he needed to
insert a new one.

--
John Fleming
Technical Writer
Edmonton, Alberta

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