In the questionnaire I get people to fill in as preparation for the course, a person, in answer to the question:
How do you usually prepare your presentations? Think about the order in which you do things.
wrote:
“I don’t normally spend much time on the preparation of the presentation itself. I use almost all of my time on the preparation of the content.”
What does “presentation” mean in this case?: Slides. Nobody called the OverHead Transparencies we used to use, “the presentation”. They were visual aids, “OHTs”.
Microsoft, unfortunately, has done a great job in influencing people’s vocabulary… and practices.
In a recent article in The Guardian on Netflix there was the following passage:
“The company’s culture has been an object of speculation for years, fuelled in part by its publication, in 2009, of a “Freedom and Responsibility” slide show for would-be employees … Last year, it updated and shortened the document..” (my highlights)
That’s the first time I’ve seen someone use the correct words for what, in my opinion, many presentations are – nothing more than a collection of slides and, in the practice extended by the big consultancies, reports projected on walls.