the case for the 6 page memo – the case against Powerpoint

I stumbled on an upside to a long drive to attend a funeral. I picked up ‘‘Working backwards – Insights, Stories and Secrets from Inside Amazon‘ by Colin Bryar and Bill Bar.

You’d not expect a legal opinion or medical diagnosis to be handed to you in a PowerPoint, so why insist on it to communicate a political strategy or legislative state of play? But, today most lobbyists and their clients insist on using PowerPoint.

I don’t think it works and am happy to see that Amazon, a company I admire, limited its use.

Amazon used to use PowerPoint. They worked out early on that it did not work and stopped. They now use a 6-page memo.

In an Amazon meeting, the first 20 minutes of meetings are spent in silence with people reading.

If you are interested in why PowerPoint is a poor way of communicating, you should read Edward Tufte’s ‘The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within‘.

The book contains an amazon style memo. It is is helpful to read for inspiration or reference.

 

Source: working backwards, pages 84-92.

If you use memos,  the reader takes in information more quickly and in more depth than if they had to listen to a PowerPoint talk.

People don’t like to use memos for a few good reasons. First, a good memo is hard to write. Second, most people don’t like change. Third, it is easier to hide a bad case in a PowerPoint.