Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Slideshare contest winner

This slideshow was announced the winner of this year's contest. A classmate from MIT Sloan and I were brainstorming ideas to participate in this contest, but eventually ended up not entering due to time constraints. Just as well.

I was disappointed at the outcome. Comparing this year's winner to the winners from the past, there seems to be a clear and obvious pattern. Not to take away from the content of these presentations which is definitely thought provoking, the recipe seems to be as follows: throw in a bunch of statistics, eye catching visuals and short phrases, stir well, spice up with the hot topic of the day, heat and serve with a side of captivating images. Never one to cook by the book, my reaction was, well, whatever. How predictable.

How would the judges judge a presentation on a topic that does not lend itself to statistics or catchy phrases? Not every topic one needs to present on lends itself to this stock formula. When we were planning to enter the competition, we thought this would be an edifying experience. Turns out we made a wise choice with how to spend our time.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good post. Looks like the same guy won this year as well as last.