Imagine this scenario. You’re at a friend’s house, or maybe a bar, and it’s time for a party game. No one feels like charades, and Pictionary is so – you know – 1996. Someone suggests PowerPoint karaoke, and they nominate you to go first.

Here’s what happens. You walk up to the front of the room, and begin presenting a random PowerPoint presentation. It’s been pulled off the Web, you’ve never seen it before, and you have no clue what it is about. But that’s the whole point. The object of the game is to present the slides as if you wrote them yourself – confidently and with authority.

So if the first slide were to claim that “we offer a robust SQL architecture that integrates seamlessly with your existing application base,” you need to make something up so that it looks like you actually know what that means. And if the next slide promises that “Reducing mainline capacity has produced a significant increase in ancillary revenue,” you have to explain it so that it adds to your story. Your friends will shout out suggestions and comments while watching you make a fool of yourself.

There’s no winning or losing, and there’s not really a point beyond transforming the typically mind-numbing PowerPoint presentation into a wacky, zany short story. It’s a sort of Mad Libs 2.0. Karaoke PowerPoint began in Germany, and has become popular at tech conferences in the United States. If you happen to be playing at a bar, pre-game cocktail consumption is recommended.

Source: Boston Globe