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PowerPoint (Microsoft, Redmond, WA) has made its way into teaching and conferencing and professional meetings big time. PowerPoint is cool. At least a modicum of PowerPoint expertise is becoming essential for radiologists in academic practice and others involved in teaching. We seem to be fast approaching the position that if you want to participate in the presentation of papers, or give instructional or refresher courses at national meetings, or speak at various symposia, you've got to go with PowerPoint!
It is hard to imagine, but PowerPoint has not been around all that long. The background and history of PowerPoint's development was well chronicled by Ian Parker [1] in a recent issue of The New Yorker. According to Parker, the progenitor of PowerPoint was the brainchild of a well-known scientist in computer circles, a certain Whitfield Diffie, who came up with the idea in 1981 while working at Bell-Northern Research in Mountain View, CA. Diffie developed a program to design material for presentation by overhead projectors. As such things often go, Diffie himself never profited from his idea. He failed to recognize its full potential. That was left to one of his then colleagues, Bob Gaskins.
It was Gaskins who noted that overhead projection had become all the rage of business types for presentations at their various meetings, and it was Gaskins who saw the potential of a graphics computer program to facilitate the production of "overheads." In 1984, and now with a company called Forethought, Gaskins hired a software developer named Dennis Austin to write the software to do just that. The program was initially called Presenter but, after a flash of marketing genius, was renamed PowerPoint. The first version of PowerPoint (for Macintosh only) went on sale in 1987. It was an immediate success with Macintosh users. Now enter Microsoft.
Microsoft quickly recognized the potential of PowerPoint and, shortly after the program was launched, Microsoft bought PowerPoint from Forethought for $14 million and subsequently coupled PowerPoint with Word and Excel to form the juggernaut, Microsoft Office. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Now PowerPoint has come to the hospital. Have you been to a hospital committee meeting lately? Then I am certain that you have encountered PowerPoint. Hospital administrators, business people that they are, love those PowerPoint graphics. PowerPoint can embellish any presentation. The PowerPoint "finish" can lend an air of authority, an it-must-obviously-be-true, cast-in-stone quality to a presentation. PowerPoint has the ability to make the banal appear profound—a triumph of graphics over reason. Of course, that is the intent in this setting. Strong stuff!
For radiologists, however, PowerPoint represents a paradigm shift for the preparation and presentation of lectures and teaching conferences. Radiologists are not much enamored with the inherent ability of PowerPoint to bamboozle, or bore, or even, God bless, inform an audience with the "finish" of text and Excel-generated charts, à la hospital administrators; but radiologists recognize the advantages of PowerPoint for the presentation of images. Radiologists are heavy into the graphics side of PowerPoint.
There is, of course, both an upside and a downside to adopting PowerPoint. A shift from slides to PowerPoint computer presentations carries with it serious implications for the manner in which presentations are prepared.
PowerPoint has been used for the preparation of text slides for the past few years; in fact, its use for this purpose is now almost universal. Initially, secretaries performed the word processing required to prepare slides, but, as more and more faculty gained facility with the use of computers, many radiologists found it easier and faster to simply type the slides themselves. The faculty's use of personal computers for word processing has decreased their dependence on secretarial support. Similarly, the implementation of PACS has decreased the faculty's dependence on photographers and audiovisual personnel for the preparation of slides of images.
In fact, the adoption of computer presentations eliminates the need for slides altogether. That is the good news. The bad news is the faculty themselves must do the work required to produce these materials, in actuality giving the faculty more to do to achieve the same end—namely, to prepare a presentation. C'est la vie!
But then again, once you have converted to PowerPoint, presentations are easily stored and readily accessible for immediate use, and, unlike slides, PowerPoint images won't get dirty or scratched or have coffee spilled on them, and won't acquire fingerprints when handled, or turn yellow with age, or get misplaced in a drawer, or slip to the floor and get stepped on, or be loaned to an associate and never returned.
Then there are the added features of PowerPoint, the bells and whistles of text box insertion and animation: the ability to add to the projected image the patient's age, sex, and pertinent medical history, and, when appropriate, information regarding examination techniques used to acquire the images under consideration. And let's not overlook the welcome prospect of placing, on command, arrows and lines to highlight various points, thereby eliminating the vertiginous distraction of a laser beam whirling and swirling (and occasionally shaking) across the screen during the presentation.
So where do we sign up? How do we get started?
Most radiologists are now familiar with computers. You will find that PowerPoint, like almost all computer programs, is not intuitive; there is the usual learning curve. You could start by reading a help book, say PowerPoint for the Well Above Average. (No, there is not such a book. I just made that up.) Or you could go to your computer, open PowerPoint, and fumble around until you become proficient. That will take a while. Probably the best way to learn is "monkey see, monkey do." Prevail on one of your friends who is facile with PowerPoint to show you how it's done. Such instruction is best received in small portions, no more than a couple of points at a time. In the end, you will find that you get better and more comfortable with the program the more you use it.
In view of the increasing importance of PowerPoint proficiency to radiologists, we at the AJR have sought to establish a regular feature of tips for PowerPoint users. Ken Schreibman, a recognized PowerPoint maven and a radiologist on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, has graciously consented to get the ball rolling with short, two-page feature articles entitled "PowerPointers" that will periodically appear in the Journal starting with this issue [2]. Each article will describe a couple of tips to improve your PowerPointing skills.
Now it is your turn. Read his piece, try out the tips, and let Ken know how it turned out and what else you might like to hear from him.
We can all profit from pointers to improve our PowerPointing.
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