Should the first slide show the agenda?

This comic, if you're a regular follower of Snarky, is based on a comment I made last week about forcing work presentations to follow the Ignite model and stick to no more than five seconds per Power Point Slide (from Isn't That What You Said About Our Testing Resources Last Year?).  I spend a lot of time reading about dystopias, and one of the general rules for writing your own dystopic literature is to take any basic fact about modern society and just go overboard with it until it's unhealthy.  Basically, subvert the religious mandate, don't do anything to excess.  So this comic is subverting the idea that 5 second slides might be healthy in a corporate environment.

If you're looking for a good dystopia, and you've already read The Handmaid's Tale, I just read Hugh Howey's Wool series.  Although in some respects it fails my litmus test, for instance, by having hope, it's a good series.  The first five books are pulled together in an omnibus edition.  You can read it on a Kindle for $5.99, which is about $.01 per page.  A good deal.  I'm not quite through Will McIntosh's Soft Apocalypse yet, but I'm already enjoying it very much.  And it definitely fits the extrapolation theme.  As does Albert Brooks' (yes, that Albert Brooks) 2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America.

Snrky: Executive management is limiting us to 5 seconds per slide.  I'm going to need you to create a 720 slide presentation for me on our new product.
Title: Should the first slide show the agenda?

Isn't that what you said about our testing resources last year?

Unrelated to the Snarky of the day, did any of you make it to Ignite in Minneapolis this year? It was May 24 and, thankfully for those of us who are more of less bound to one place, streamed. It's not specifically a developer-centric conference, but goes wider than that, encompassing a variety of interests. The crux is you only get about five minutes to present, and you have no control over the forward motion of your slides, which happens every fifteen seconds.  As a presentation learning tool, it's great.  They should apply the same process to corporate Powerpoint presentations.

Snarky submitted a presentation last year, before our graphic/art reboot (thank you, Lupi!), that wasn't accepted. This year we didn't submit, although our content would be significantly more interesting given our focus on SEO and art. But being incapacitated doesn't bode well for getting on a stage. We'll target the next one, as we have some clever ideas to make it not just educational, but extremely amusing. Our main issue is whether we can have a pair presenting, or whether we have to figure out how to mimic two of us using only one presenter.

These were the presentations this year.  My streaming died about half way through the second part, which was too bad because they seemed to be getting better and better, backed up by a friend who caught all of them.  But traditionally Ignite puts the presentations on the web, so you can catch them even if you missed all of them.

• Art Allen – The Beards of the Presidents
• Margaret Kaplan – Rooting for the Underdog: Sports Fans and Paper Bags
• Jeffrey Cobia – My Genetic Albatross: Overcoming the Stigma of Anxiety and Other Mental Illnesses
• Aaron Korver – Rebuilding the Old Ford
• Patrick Rhone – Get Covered in Shit (that you love)
• Liz Tupper – How to Attend a Rock Show.
• Kirk Livingston – How to Hack a Conversation for Insight
• Amanda Ingle – The True Hunger Games: How to Get in Shape for the Zombie Apocalypse
• Colin Bartol – How mechanical Watches Work
• Tom Johnson – The New Space Race

AKQURACY HALF-TIME SHOW / INTERMISSION

• Stephanie Watson – How to Finally Write that Novel You Keep Talking About
• Amber Carter – In Defense of Earnest: Or, Why Twihards Will Be The Ones To Save The Community Rec Center
• Greg Flanagan – Make Mistakes
• Pete Barry – Wreck Everything
• Julio Ojeda-Zapata – AeroPress Coffee Maker Helps a Gadget Geek Get Minimal
• Meghan Seawell – Drink, Smoke, and Screw: We're All Going to Die Anyway
• Rohn Jay Miller – Delete Your Klout Profile Now!
• Jake Nyberg – Water: What Happens When It's Gone?
• Ross Phernetton – Reverse Psychology vs. Forward Psychology
• Julie Kucinski – How to Succeed in Biz (and Life) - No, Seriously

Snarky: We are letting go of support staff.  It'll drive efficiences.

Title: Isn't that what you said about our testing resources last year?