ABSTRACT
Not so long ago, audiences knew they were in for a long and boring session when a presenter fired up the trusty overhead projector and proudly displayed the first of many text-filled, hard-to-read transparencies. Nowadays a new player dominates this field: Microsoft’s PowerPoint or one of its presentation software relatives. Audiences are greeted by the dimming of lights which places the focus on a screen rather than on the speaker. One of PowerPoint’s familiar backgrounds appears, followed by a sequence of displays sporting billets, graphs, and charts. At one time a novelty whose features were enough to hold audience attention, the PowerPoint presentation is often now an occasion for inward or outward groans of boredom. This all-toofrequent occurrence was highlighted in a well-known Dilbert cartoon that may have coined the phrase “PowerPoint poisoning,” in which an audience member keels over after seeing too many slides.
