The evil Powerpoint

Much has been written about the straightjacket Powerpoint presentations place on thinking and expression (I'm not sure if Edward Tufte's Wired article Powerpoint is Evil started the debate or simply fuelled it). I think Powerpoint's useful, when used with restraint. I guess most of us have sat through some awful Ppt presentations.

Ex-Apple marketeer, now venture capitalist, Guy Kawasaki has a succinct 10/20/30 rule for restraint in Powerpoint presentations: 10 slides long, 20 minutes max, no text less than 30 point (link from Quentin Stafford-Taylor). I might argue about the 30 pt text, but I enjoyed the user profile of the typical venture capitalist and pitch scenario he uses to justify his rule (projector won't link to laptop, people arrive late and leave early etc.). And, yes, he has a response to my sensitivity re type size: find the age of the oldest person in the audience and divide it by two (could we compromise on 2.5?).