Comments on: Charting Best Practices in PowerPoint

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Mon, 18 May 2009 20:30:54 +0000

Good point, Conrad. The thing is, if they just want to say The Sky’s the Limit, they don’t need the chart, just happy graphics. If they want to show the actual financial results, they have to try harder not to obscure them with happy graphics. It’s a trade-off.

By: Conrad

Conrad — Mon, 18 May 2009 18:39:24 +0000

After further posts at Jan’s site, I finally realized the familiar phrase suggested by the first slide. “The sky is the limit.” This is a powerful message that fits with the graph and tells a compelling story about Skype’s future. This is totally missed by the second slide.

Jan wins on style.
Skype wins on communicating their narrative.

Which matters more?

By: Ryan

Ryan — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:10:50 +0000

What strikes me most about the original slide is the rainbow — it follows the upward trend of the bar until exactly the last column (and is the only other thing in a purply color), then drops, as if implying that revenues are currently peaking and will soon start plummeting!

By: Conrad

Conrad — Wed, 06 May 2009 19:54:22 +0000

When I looked at the first slide, what jumped out at me was a pattern of dramatic revenue growth that the slide implied would continue to climb into the clouds, that Skype soars above competition like a plane, that like a rainbow, positive, hopeful feeling should be associated with Skype. The 3D shadows in the original slide all point toward the clouds.

While from a stylistic point of view, the above critiques are accurate, I wonder whether the original slide might nonetheless be more effective on a psychological level for conveying optimism about the company.

By: Naomi B. Robbins

Naomi B. Robbins — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:59:59 +0000

I vote for Jon’s idea of dropping the axis but keeping the labels and using light grid lines.

To Michael: I can always measure the handouts. :)

By: Tony

Tony — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:51:29 +0000

I do like the after slide much better. You did point this out, but I’m not a big fan of the text box (arrow) to denote 7 quarters of profitability. The reason i don’t like this is that could mean $1 of profit or $1 bizallion dollars on the bottom line each quarter.

I’m okay with removing the y-axis labels. You could go that route or remove the data values and keep the axis. Also, the different colors of blue doesn’t really do it for me. I know what it’s trying to do, but think the text callout accomplishes that.

I really like the changes in x-axis labels and the title. Also, moving the logo to a less valuable location and removing the background pics are a nice change.