Culture

Culture

by Mike Masnick




Companies Understand Themselves By Powerpoint

from the just-a-little-bit-scary... dept

While there are some who still believe Powerpoint is evil, it's become a standard necessity in every day business life. In fact, David Weinberger suggests that Powerpoint is how companies understand themselves. It's replaced the company story and has become "the company myth," so that employees themselves can understand the organization they belong to. Even in creating a sales pitch, companies focus on creating the Powerpoint slides - mostly because it reinforces their own understanding of the company they work for. While there are both good and bad results that come out of this, I think it's also a statement on corporate culture. Who gets to write the official version? While you can make changes on your own, you tend to leave the corporate story alone. While I'm not sure it's for everyone, I'd think that more "bottom up" style corporations would be better off using something like a wiki to define the corporate story. If you're building a story around the corporate culture, shouldn't those participating be a part of writing the story as well?

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  1. Apr 11th, 2004 @ 2:56am

    No Subject Given

    by egoloco

    I'll try to write this comment in a powerpoint fashion.
    - Powerpoint is not standard: that slims the domain of readers.
    - Powerpoint is evocative: so it is also ambiguos
    - Powerpoint has macros: so it's dangerous

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. Apr 11th, 2004 @ 7:28am

    Re: No Subject Given

    by Anonymous Coward

    Powerpoint allows anyone to convey ideas.
    Without actually doing the work.
    Or even knowing how the work *can* be done.
    (next slide)

    This allows managers to present ideas
    from their employees.
    Without sharing the credit.
    (end of slide show, click to exit)

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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