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08/09/2017

BBC Radio 4 - PowerPointless

30 years on from its launch, Ian Sansom asks: what's the real point of PowerPoint?

Armed only with an auto-content wizard, some zippy graphics and a hefty set of bullet points, Ian Sansom ventures forth to ask - what's the real point of PowerPoint?

With more than 30 million presentations being given around the world every day, PowerPoint has become the single most ubiquitous tool for presenting ideas. Yet it's the software many of us love to hate - vilified for simplifying the complex and complicating the simple. 

30 years on from its commercial launch, Ian Sansom asks, 'What's the real point of PowerPoint?' as he embarks on what surely must be a world first - a PowerPoint presentation for the radio.

How do I move this on to the next slide? There we are. Thanks. 

Armed only with an auto-content wizard, some zippy graphics and a hefty set of bullet points, Ian ventures forth to assess the true impact of this revolution in communication. He speaks with the software's pioneers, meets some of its notable detractors and asks how PowerPoint has influenced corporate life and spilled out into some improbable areas of our culture. 

As he discovers how science-fiction is helping to inform the next generation of presentation technology, Ian asks if PowerPoint has empowered the individual - or if our boardrooms, lecture halls and even our spiritual affairs are to be forever condemned to the fate that has come to be known as 'Death By PowerPoint.' 

What do I do now? Press escape? No, I want to bring it back to the start. F6 I think. Where's the remote thingy..?

Producer: Conor Garrett.

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