Cognitive Power Point in International Contexts?
(Or why business school annoys me, Part x.)
So I’m preparing a Power Point for my international entrepreneurship class, and I start the way I’ve been developing my slideshows for the past couple of years.
- Single color background
- Large black sans-serif text
- No more than three bullet points per slide
- Concepts rather than sentences
- Large, rich, demonstrative graphics
- Clear, meaningful, enriching data
- Yada, yada, the whole Tufte, GTD, Kawasaki 10-20-30, etc.
But my prof… His slides are black text on a white background, but with lots of words, flipping by point by point, click by click.
One of the problems with many teachers is that they reward conformity and punish the strange. So to get a good grade, I have to demonstrate that I can mimic the professor well. I asked him about attempting a more cognitive presentation, and he basically said, well, in training for international contexts, you should shoot for the traditional style.
But that misses the whole point. I understand that people in China expect a certain style of presentation—but that’s the same with people in the US, and it’s just as ineffective here as it is there. I understand that language is an issue, so it’s easier to read than to hear—but if you have powerful graphics with simple concepts, isn’t that even more universal? And if language is a real issue, they won’t be listening to you anyways, so why not make that big visual impact when you can and to those who care?
When I was teaching a few classes in Tanzania, the kids in the top class were excellent at their math workbooks. But once I started quizzing them on math problems I made up off the top of my head—both students and their teacher had difficulty solving them. They had merely memorized the answers in the workbooks!
So traditional methods of delivering content and learning—while comfortable and sure not to ruffle feathers—may not only be useless, but they don’t allow other contexts to progress alongside Western styles. You’re hobbling your information—and yourself—by catering to what is assumed to be their primitive minds. And that’s horrible.
I think it’s more important than ever to give dynamic, rich, cognitive Power Point presentations in developing and international contexts. It’s not fair to anyone to shy away from it.