If I ran my own business, I would follow Jeff Bezos’ example and discourage the use of PowerPoint for internal presentations. Instead, everyone would need to write and read memos. But since I’m currently working for a corporation that is fond of PowerPoint, I keep making slide decks. It’s not that bad.
But how did slide decks become the currency of corporate communication in a similar way research papers are the currency of academia? Dynomight considers the possible causes. I agree with them that there is unlikely to be any single reason, but if I had to assign blame, I’d point my finger at the fact that a slide deck feels like a more substantial piece of work than a memo that communicates the same information. That’s why people like sending them and looking at them.
Here is an older blog post on a related question, also inspired by Dynomight: Is it better to write in prose, or in structured text?
Nehaveigur 