In Defense of PowerPoint
A Book
Not a “Book”

I am about to unleash a book on you.
A book—not a “book.”
Said book (not “book”) is in PowerPoint.
100%.

My colleagues insist that not everybody is like me.
Not everybody dotes on PowerPoint.
Damn.

I mainly give speeches.
My speeches are based on PowerPoint presentations.
Fact: I “do” PowerPoint.
Fact: I “am” PowerPoint.

My book (not “book”) is a long one.
It—almost literally—consists of “everything I’ve learned” about effective (EXCELLENT!) and ineffective (un-Excellent) organizations in the last 49 years.

It is 1,918 PowerPoint slides long.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
About 40% of those slides are gray-background explanatory text.
That’s probably 50,000+ words of text.
Add in the slides and the text may run, say, 80,000 words.
Which translates roughly into 275 pages of “real” book-format text.

I am not a total sadist.
When we release the book—very soon—you will indeed find THE WORKS as I call it—a single 1,918-slide set.
But you will also find 11 separate PowerPoint presentations which are the 11 chapters (not “chapters”) of the book.

Of course the main thing is that I hope you read it and discuss it and use it—and steal like crazy from it at will.

For better or for worse, it’s the (VERY) best I can do.
And since I “do” PowerPoint, that’s the way it will come to you.

Enjoy.
Coming soon to various nooks and crannies, including, obviously, this site: tompeters.com.

(NB: Did you know I wrote my first blogpost 11 years ago next month—August 2004? It was the day after the youthful Illinois Senatorial candidate Barack Obama made his debut at the Democratic Convention in Boston, which resulted in the nomination of John Kerry. My Post #1 was not in any way political. I simply said that I give speeches for a living, and that was one helluva speech!! Like or dislike the President, I sure as heck got the “good speech” part right. Four years after the post, that precocious youngster was headed for the White House. And, to more or less repeat, like him or dislike him, he’s in the White House. And you and I aren’t.)

Oh yeah, one last thing.
I “do” PowerPoint.
And I also “do” … EXCELLENCE.
So remember my mantra:

EXCELLENCE is NOT an “aspiration.”
EXCELLENCE is NOT a long-term goal.
EXCELLENCE is manifest in the next … FIVE MINUTES.
Or not.

Tom Peters posted this on July 15, 2015, in Excellence.
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