Research has shown, for example, that an audience learns better when it is not being exposed to duplicated information. Atkinson pet peeve No. 1: that whole reading from a slide thing -- bad idea.
When a black-and-white, Macintosh-only version of PowerPoint was introduced in 1987, it was hailed as a giant improvement over the overhead projector. Three years later, PowerPoint became available for Windows and was integrated into the standardized buffet of applications, including Word and Excel, that made up Microsoft Office, which is used by 400 million people.
For those who have managed to avoid it, PowerPoint provides users with a template to create slides. Features include a range of bullet points, animated text and even "Auto Content," a fill-in-the-blank template that amounts to a PowerPoint for Dummies.
PowerPoint has its critics. Edward R. Tufte, a Yale professor and an internationally recognized design expert, has written several essays on how the application has negatively affected the way office workers think. The cover of one Tufte's essays shows a photo of a parade of Communist soldiers lined up beneath a statue of Stalin in Budapest, Hungary. To Tufte, PowerPoint is a dictatorship of ideas.
Atkinson has read Tufte and says he is inspired by his work. Still, he says, it is futile to rail against something that is so fully integrated into the professional culture.
"There is no organization that is going to give up PowerPoint," said Atkinson, who first encountered the program while working at a dot-com start-up in the 1990s. Immediately, he saw it as "a tool that is supposed to help us engage with one another, but it's actually keeping us from communicating."
Atkinson set out to solve the problem five years ago and won immediate fans.
"The first time I followed his methodology, it really took a leap of faith," said Lucinda Rowley, publisher of Microsoft Press, which printed Atkinson's book and has invited him to speak to employees about ways of thinking outside the traditional PowerPoint box.
Rowley said Atkinson forced her to distill her message to an idea, to "focus on the message. It's a little intimidating the first time because you feel like it's so different. It's not just a bunch of boring words on the slide."
The next step, per Atkinson, is to sketch out a diagram of how the action will develop during a presentation. Stick to simple images and small amounts of information, he says, and arrange points in discrete sections or acts, so the audience can digest one concept at a time.
