Are PowerPoint Templates like people?

One of the things that bothers me about PowerPoint is the number of times I've been in meetings only to see the same PowerPoint Template used again and again.

Have presenters lost their own identities?

I mean I don't walk around copying other people. I like to believe that deep down inside we're all individuals. So why when we're presenting do we use the clipart and the PowerPoint Templates provided with Microsoft Office?

It's a bit ironic that as people we try to be individuals and yet as presenters we don't seem to care if someone else is using the same PowerPoint Template. Surely I'm not the only one that thinks this is a little strange?

A few weeks ago I was at a meeting and the people I was there to meet launched PowerPoint and opened their PowerPoint presentation. Without even thinking I seemed to have let out a sigh. Quite loud too apparently. I wasn't aware that I had until I noticed the reaction from the other people present. Realizing what I'd done and desperately trying to kill that deafening silence, I said, "Oh, I'm sorry. It's just that I have seen that PowerPoint Template before."

The thing is that I was at a meeting just 3 days earlier and a company was using the exact same PowerPoint Template.

It was really only then that I began thinking, "Wow....do people really not care at all about there presentations?" Is the design of a PowerPoint presentation really only something that's necessary rather than something that should be approached uniquely?

I never use these clip art templates that come with Office. What's the point? I mean everyone has seen them so if you open a presentation with one of them chances are most of the audience has seen them as well. So if you're trying to make your presentation unique and individual, and I guess that's the whole point isn't it? To have something unique to say to an audience. Then why start off with something that's public domain? If you see something you've seen before you already have a perception of what's going to come. So why give a presentation if your audience switches off the minute they see the PowerPoint Template?

I know we can't all create unique PowerPoint Templates, and certainly buying one for every occassion would be expensive. But for those presentations that matter most, maybe unique PowerPoint Templates are only way to ensure that an audience can at least start with an open mind and optimism?


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