Swiss Political Party Seeks To Ban PowerPoint

... and conference rooms everywhere let out a hearty cheer.

But it's not just a morale-saving move -- it will also save money too:

"According to the APPP, the use of presentation software costs the Swiss economy 2.1 billion Swiss francs (US$2.5 billion) annually, while across the whole of Europe, presentation software causes an economic loss of 110 billion (US$160 billion). APPP bases its calculations on unverified assumptions about the number of employees attending presentations each week, and supposes that 85 percent of those employees see no purpose in the presentations."

Sounds like they need some rigor around collaboration and project management as well.

The article also gives a quick hat tip to this great NY Times article on the US military's use of incomprehensible PowerPoint slides to describe its strategy: We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint.

And I'm also reminded of the hilarious rendition of the slideware for the Gettysburg Address.

http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/img003.gif

"Function-F7? No, that's not right. Hmmm. Maybe I'll have to reboot. Hold on a minute. Um, my name is Abe Lincoln and I'm your president. While we're waiting, I want to thank Judge David Wills, chairman of the committee supervising the dedication of the Gettysburg cemetery. It's great to be here, Dave, and you and the committee are doing a great job....