Chevron Bullet Points? A Sobering PowerPoint Story for a Friday

Note: All names have been removed to protect the innocent…and my friendships.

I recently met up with some old university friends for one of our regular weekends of walking, eating, drinking and shooting the breeze. The fact that we all graduated in 1991 (a year that some of my colleagues at Eyeful view as ancient history) means the term ‘old’ is becoming increasingly apt.

We’ve remained very close over the years, our deep friendships forged in that odd way that many male groups operate – 95% mickey take, 5% openly caring. A recurring theme in the 95% mickey take portion has been the careers we’ve forged over the years. Much to our own surprise, we’ve all done rather well – we’ve got FDs, senior civil servants and globally respected consultants in our number – and I seem to have taken on the mantle as the ‘PowerPoint bloke’. What typically follows are a series of very tongue-in-cheek questions about the latest bullet point animation techniques (“How do I make them make a noise when they swoosh in, Morts?” or “Bouncing bullet points – attention-grabbing or distracting? Discuss”).

Tiresome to someone who repeatedly highlights the importance of story over mindless PowerPoint trickery? Yes.

Endlessly amusing to the rest of the group? So it would seem.

Our last trip happened to kick off in a very agreeable pub in Bath. As we slowly gathered from all corners of the country, one of our group apologised but had to put the final touches to a presentation. My curiosity was naturally piqued. As he was one of the more vocal of our group in the PowerPoint mickey-taking stakes, I was excited to see just how this self-proclaimed master of the presentation crafted his own decks.

I will save him his blushes by forensically explaining all the ills I witnessed that afternoon (good God, it was terrible), but he uttered one phrase that has stayed with me since. It sent a shiver down my spine and continues to haunt me, weeks later:

“If I’m looking to jazz up the slides a bit, I dig out my old favourite – the chevron bullet point”.

This was followed by a series of nods and affirmative grunts from the rest of the group. I assumed this was all part of the beer-fuelled bonhomie and that my professionally successful friends were joining in on some weird PowerPoint-based joke, but to my horror, I realised they meant it. Their idea of a more visually appealing PowerPoint deck was “digging out that old favourite, the chevron bullet point”.

As the weekend hangover subsided, the takeaway from this bizarre encounter was that businesses of all sizes (my friend works for a MAJOR tech firm) continue to flagrantly misuse the communication tools at their disposal. I honestly thought the days of bullet point heavy slides were long behind us, but perhaps I’ve just become naive. In my professional life, I find myself working with people who have seen the light and would have a similar visceral reaction to “my old friend the chevron bullet”, but it seems like there are plenty more fish to go after.

So, to my fellow presentation professionals, many of whom I also call friends, our work is not yet done. We owe it to the world to get rid of aimless presentations and bullet point strewn PowerPoint decks. Even the ones featuring chevron bullets.

If you’ve been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can find support at www.eyefulpresentations.com ?