Dear Mr Gates,

We are writing to ask if we could have your help to improve Powerpoint.

As a program, Powerpoint has come to define the nature and style of virtually every presentation given in the entire world. You yourself have used it to great effect. Yet the nature of its use by many leads to very poor information transfer, a stifling of creativity, a limiting of opportunity for thought and discussion and a restriction of learning. This is often unfairly referred to as “Death by Powerpoint.”

It is wrong to blame Powerpoint itself; effective presentations can be delivered using the program. Sadly millions of presentations are made by simply adding text to a template and reading it aloud. Many long for improvement but with the additional twin pressures of time and conformity, few move beyond this simplistic approach and consequently billions of presentations are of poor quality.

It is our experience that knowledge of the nature, format, construction and delivery of a presentation results in a dramatically different approach to presentations. Sharing this knowledge with colleagues has allowed them to deliver presentations of greater creativity, increased engagement with their audiences and overall better reception of thoughts and ideas.

We believe that by sharing these insights with you and those with whom you have influence, changes could be made to the Powerpoint that might ultimately improve the quality of presentations across the whole world. Can you imagine the potential of billions of excellent, inspiring and engaging Powerpoint presentations? We believe we can help and this is why we would like the opportunity to discuss this with you.

Yours sincerely,

Nicole Gugger @nicolegugger

Ross Fisher @ffolliet