Switzerland's anti-PowerPoint party

Posted By Joshua Keating Tuesday, July 5, 2011 - 1:50 PM Share

Finally, a party I can get behind:

The party is called the APPP. Yes, the Anti-PowerPoint Party. It's an organization that has, at its core, the firm belief that the Microsoft presentation software is a waste of fine Swiss resources.

Indeed, it believes that PowerPoint costs Switzerland 2.1 billion Swiss Francs (about $2.5 billion) every year. You will, no doubt, be desperate to learn of its mathematical model. Well, it says 11 percent of Swiss people have to attend PowerPoint presentations on average twice a week. At each of these presentations is a minimum of 10 people.

As Tom Ricks has reported, if such a movement were imported to the United States, it would have the enthusiastic backing of some of our top military commanders. 

Hat tip: Felix Salmon

EXPLORE:THUMBS
 

ROMAN TILES

9:59 PM ET

July 5, 2011

Alrighty then

Well I don't think our teachers would appreciate that. My teachers live for using power points! O___o;;

 

ELLIOTDAVIES

1:10 AM ET

July 6, 2011

How about email?

How much time do people waste on reading emails and responding to them? I am thinking of starting an anti email party(AEP) ;)

When the humble type writer was replaced by computers everyone thought that paper use will plummet but instead it skyrocketed. Technology brings with it many benefits but there is a down side to them as well.

But the world needs loonies such as this to give us something to talk about. By the we finally have a solution to the paper waste problem. The smart phone or tablet. Since you don't need to print the document to take it with you. Since I purchased a samsung galaxy tablet earlier this year my paper use has come down dramatically.

 

NOORA77

4:56 AM ET

July 6, 2011

well, this looks at it from

well, this looks at it from one point why didn't they calculate the amount of money from the information presented??! wasting 2.5 billion dollars might be worth it!!

 

COFFIE

8:14 PM ET

July 6, 2011

I would vote for this party.

I would think that large international and national organization should take a set number of vacation days away from PowerPoint. Sort of lent, practice life without this particular technology.

The time could be justified to re-cooperate on cleaner understanding instead of ppt slide pictures. There are a lot of quotes on ppt material. Here is some links that poke fun at presentations, each in their own right:

The making of the Gettysburg Address, from Peter Norvig. In powerpoint! It starts with: "And now please welcome President Abraham Lincoln. Good morning. Just a second while I get this connection to work. Do I press this button here? Function-F7? No, that's not right. Hmmm. Maybe I'll have to reboot. ..."
you can find it at:
http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/index.htm

Here is another good one, it is from a computer science guy. His situation is not intended for the same settings as other fields. Though, his essay on how he avoids it, is definitely noteworthy.

So. Where do I sign up for this Anti-PowerPoint party? Do I bring my own beer at it? :)
www.crypto.com/blog/slideware

 

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