As a teenager living in Sao Paulo, Brazil I owned a machete. It had a 20 inch blade, a shiny black handle and a leather sheath decorated with beads and tassels. Now Sao Paulo was a city the size of NYC at that time… a place where machetes were seldom used for any constructive purpose. In fact, the only time I really needed my machete was during a month long trip with my dad and two older brothers into the interior of the country.

This past week however, I felt a little like I was hacking through the Brazilian underbrush again as I tried to track down the origin of a common presentation related statistic.
If I were to ask you how many PowerPoint presentations are given every day around the world… what would you say?

If you need help answering this question, you can look here, here, here, here, here, here,… or in countless other electronic repositories of valuable information across our great and wonderful Worldwide Web.

The answer of course is 30 million presentations every single day. Most people apparently know this. But is it true? Where does this number come from? How was it calculated?

The 30 million presentation number is most often quoted as a Microsoft estimate, so this is where I began my search. A friend at Microsoft was kind enough to make an inquiry for me. The answer came from the Microsoft PR department. The 30 million presentation number does not come from Microsoft. Microsoft thought it originated at Presentations Magazine (now defunct). It had been a few years since I’ve spoken with Tad Simons, editor of Presentations, so it seemed like a good time to make contact again. “Tad”, I asked in my email, “where did this number come from and how was it calculated?” Tad’s response came back that very afternoon. “To the best of my knowledge it comes from an estimate done by one of our columnists, Geetesh Bajaj, who runs the web site, indezine.”

While I have never met Geetesh, like most Presentation Professionals, I am familiar with and appreciate Indezine… so I took another hack with my machete and sent Geetesh a quick note. “Where does this number come from?” I asked. “How was it calculated?”

The reply came bright and early the next morning. “The figure was quoted the first time in an article by Iain Parker” Thanks to Geetesh, I thought I had hacked my way onto another trail in search of a possible Presentation Fact.

Ian Parker is a British writer who lives in New York and writes for The New Yorker. His work has been widely acclaimed. A little over 4 years ago, he wrote a New Yorker piece entitled: “Absolute PowerPoint: Can a software package edit our thoughts?” The article appeared on page 76 of the May 28, 2001 issue. In this article he states that “according to Microsoft estimates, at least thirty million PowerPoint presentations are made every day.”

With a tidy slash of my 20-inch machete blade, I stepped through the Brazilian underbrush only to find I had come full circle… right back where I started from!

Discussion
Does it matter at all how many PPT presentations are given each day? Probably not. Does it matter that people in and around our field have no problem regularly quoting information as fact that cannot be substantiated? I think that matters a lot!

Until Presentation Professionals, start treating their profession more seriously, they probably shouldn’t expect the rest of the world to.

Presentation Fact: Apparently, machetes are a vital tool in the search for presentation truth.