The Office Jester… every office needs one to make you laugh when PowerPoint presentations go wrong
If you enjoyed the last instalment of Office Jester, then you’re going to absolutely love this one. You see, the crux of this instalment is that same as the earlier one i.e. those ever-present, ever annoying bane of working man, PowerPoint presentations. The previous instalment focused on all the mistakes people make when it comes to PowerPoint presentations. In fact, it brought those mistakes out in the open, quite literally.
The treatment of the subject of PowerPoint presentations is slightly different here. This one’s music based. It’s actually a rap about PowerPoint presentations. This means that there’s far more attitude in this video than there was in the previous one. After all, there’s no other genre of musicians have more attitude than rappers. Have you seen the bent of their fingers when they rap?
It’s almost like they’re going to impale their own crotches just to prove how ‘gansta’ they are. It’s strange though. They pretend like they’re gonna poke themselves silly only to end up stroking themselves silly. It’s very amusing. Next time you see a rap video, make sure you notice it. Anywho, let’s enjoy this rap about PowerPoint presentations first.
Rapping About PowerPoint Presentations Gone Wrong
One thing that you must’ve immediately noted about this video is that it is as much visual as it is audio. In fact, the lyrics constantly refer to images being shown in the video in such a manner that if you just read them, you won’t get the jokes. In fact, the images used in the video are incredibly amusing.
This video on PowerPoint presentations is almost like a PowerPoint presentation which is, no doubt, what the creator intended in the first place. The video acts like a series of slides with images animating in just the way they do in PPTs. It is the perfect example of what a creative person can do with PowerPoint and anathema to all the lazing, dozing, coasting, drifting professionals out there.
As you’ve no doubt surmised already, the content is what actually sets this video apart. It starts quite tepidly talking about sleeping, reading, and monotony but it soon ties up and brings everything back to PPTs. It’s almost like a slow burner ending up in a nuclear explosion. We like!
We especially like the fact that these guys made the politician look creepy and sleazy. They even managed to treat the image in a way that made the politician extremely greedy. That’s some serious creativity with highly minimalistic tools you know and that is exactly what characterises this video.
The next image that stood out for us was, of course, the psychotic woman with the short hair. Is it just us or does she actually look like a deranged version of Kirsten Dunst? After that comes another stupendous example of creativity despite minimalistic instruments i.e. the tombstone that says “Here lies sue killed by bad PowerPoint”.
Did you notice when the rap stops for that “super special, super unique” slide? Did you notice the droning voice of the speaker and its sheer tonelessness (yes we made that word up purely for this guy). Nicely done again!
Now comes the first mistake that this rap wants to focus you on – data dumping in PowerPoint presentations. Management veterans and unimaginative newbies are probably most guilty of this PowerPoint crime. These people think that if they dump as many numbers, statistics, graphs, and charts into their PowerPoint presentations, they won’t have to work hard. Well, they actually evade working hard but they also evade the attention of their listeners with this information overload.
The rapper even had time to include advice to counter this little phenomenon. Consider.
“Did you ever stop to think about your audience?
A presentation should make an alliance.
So if you want to increase your influence,
Practice, bullet points, abstinence.”
We think that at this point, the rapper got conscious of a defamation lawsuit from “Mr Gates”. So, he decided to insert a disclaimer on how you shouldn’t blame the tool but the user instead. It’s all true but was there really a need?
After this, the rapper brings in another very common PowerPoint presentations mistake of using too few images with too many words. It is counterproductive because a PPT is supposed to get the message across as quickly as possible. It should be a summary, not a book.
We’re gonna try to (w)rap (see what we did there?) things up quickly now. We’ve spoken quite a bit on this one simply because we like the video. It’s highly indulgent. You should complain to our boss!
The last bit we want to focus on is this:
“So Bill what’s the big message in your presentation to the team today?
“Message?”
“Yes, the point?”
“Oh you mean my charts.”
Hilarious. Don’t you think? Typical, bowtied dimwit, eh? The point or the message is NOT the charts. It’s high time people realise that and we think that this little video may help a few get that epiphany. Again, we think this is an excellent video. Even the beat in this rap is exceptional. Did you notice the rhythmic screeching? Wonderful! Yes, we know that you know that we really like this video!
Disclaimer: We weren’t paid for this btw, we actually just like it!
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