Last year I had a bit of a rant about Christmas circulars and the rise of undisciplined writing in the digital age.Working with clients since then, I've become increasingly concerned by the way in which more and more companies and organisations are abandoning the use of MS Word to write conventional prose in favour of using MS PowerPoint for preparing reports, proposals, internal and external corporate communications, etc. (for more on which, see HERE and HERE).
As the latest of this year's circulars fluttered to the floor from today's delivery of Christmas cards, I realised that this trend has yet to spread from the professional world of work to the domestic world of communication between friends and relations.
Christmas competition 2010
Readers are therefore invited to pioneer a new kind of Christmas circular.
Forget Word, forget prose, and forget about buying paper, envelopes and stamps.
All you have to do is to design a PowerPoint show for posting online to keep all your friends and relations up to date on the wondrous achievements of your children, the latest antics of your cats and dogs, your exotic holidays, etc., etc., etc. Whether you stick to the truth or tell a pack of lies is entirely up to you.
How to enter
Entries should be emailed to me via the link at 'View my complete profile' in the left-hand column before 24 December 2010. If your entry is made up nothing but bullet points, you may prefer to enter it in the comments section below.
Prizes
The winner will receive a copy of Lend Me Your Ears signed by the author. The runner-up will receive a copy of Speech-making and Presentation Made Easy, also signed by the author.
Access to the winning entries (and any other startling contributions) will be made available online some time after Christmas.
2 comments:
Hmm. I've produced enough PowerPoint that I try to avoid it, even in jest!
In the spirit of producing work in a specific format, purely due to arbitrary standards (competition entry) and fashion (everybody's doing it these days), let me give you a bonus PowerPoint + haiku entry in bullet points. Imagine someone succumbing to the constant pressure to use corporate templates (me, circa 2006). Not very Christmassy, I'll grant you.
- Form now takes over
- Meaning and substance and style
- Finally I yield
al.
not clear about the criteria for winning; will the best clean, engaging and insightful PPT win, or rather the worst, busiest, horribly laid out PPT?
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