This Friday’s question: I was hard at work preparing for presentations at the annual PDMA conference – the leading conference on product innovation – and posting a couple posts on the dangers of PPT usage:

• Friends don’t let friends use PowerPoint – T. Stewart Fortune Mag
• Do you think straight line progression & 3-5 points per slide format of #PowerPoint warps our brains & thought processes?

Interesting responses included the following. I only had one respondent doubt the assumption that PPTs warp the mind:

1. I think any method that allows us to process concepts down a fore-sought path, warps our brains @KAITHACK
2. I draw. Sheet of A4 and an idea to explain is my heaven :)) Only people keep wanting to #PowerPoint my pics. Loses impact 😦 @rossahall
3. I’m trying prezi.com @RickShort21
4. Probably not much more than reading left to right, front to back, and with sequentially-numbered chapters, IMHO.@agossen
5. “Friends don’t let friends use PowerPoint~T. ->UNLESS they follow @presentationzen wisdom @ExpatCoachMegan

Innovation articles or postings of interest this week:

A warning from the discoverer of lead users: Attention Companies: Your Users Are Your Competitors LeadCompetitors – Alexis Madrigal – The Atlantic

‘What Is Creativity’s Value–In Marketing, In Biz? ‘Creativity$Valure – depreciated or simply misunderstood? @Forbes (via @ckburgess)

Collaborative Consumption is not a niche trend, notaniche via @fredzimny RT @rachelbotsman: Harvard Business

Go Barbarians! Who is likely to innovate? – Romans, Barbarians, and innovation. Barbies RT @scottvandam

Crowdsourcing and/or Co-creation

What is in it for the creatives? The Unbalanced Benefits of Crowdsourcing unbalanced benefits RT @lisosa @innovate

“BREATHTAKING” ALERT: I guarantee “The Power of Co-Creation” will be talked about for years to come! INCREDIBLE (qty/quality) EXAMPLES. @tom_peters

Social Media Marketing

The More Exciting Story of Facebook http://on.wsj.com/aTLSc2 #WSJ

Effective SM B2B collaboration! RT @johncass http://bit.ly/aEtY51 Companies Lower Drug Development Costs – Collaboration

5 More Incredibly Interesting Case Studies On Using Twitter For Business incredible @jeffbullas

Privacy is dead..get over it! ‘Scrapers’ Dig Deep for Data on Web Scraping #WSJ

How to Integrate Social Media With Traditional Media integrate  Events2Inspire RT @smexaminer

Innovation in Education  

Murdoch on Ed reform: If Schools Were Like ‘American Idol’ . . . FoxyTeachers #WSJ

Social Media Marketing

Eric Schmidt: Google gets close to ‘the creepy line’ – Telegraph.co.uk (blog) OverTheLine @pingmicro