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On Dec 15, 2003, at 9:08 AM, jcowan@r... wrote: >> What is the "cognitive style" of writing documents in XML vs. >> PowerPoint, >> Word, or FrameMaker? Do the tools we use to write affect the way we >> think? > > It's not at that level: it's about bullet-point lists, really. The tools we use *do* affect the way we think. But John's right. I recently switched from PPoint to Keynote (Apple's competitor) and decided that, to use IETF-talk, presentations SHOULD NOT contain bullet lists, and in the three or four big speeches I've done since then, managed to have only one or two, and there are places in fact where it's sensible to enumerate some things visually and then talk about them. So my slides now have a lot more pictures; in fact if I can't illustrate something I usually won't make a slide for it. I believe this has two effects: (a) the presentations are more entertaining. (b) the slides are less useful as collateral to distribute later. -Tim
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