In a word: Powerpoint.

Just came across this site today, and have to echo some of the contents, especially this quote from Scott McNeally:

We had 12.9 gigabytes of (Microsoft) PowerPoint slides on our network. And I thought, 'What a huge waste of corporate productivity.' So we banned it. And we've had three unbelievable record-breaking fiscal quarters since we banned PowerPoint. Now, I would argue that every company in the world, if they would just ban PowerPoint, would see their earnings skyrocket. Employees would stand around going, 'What do I do? Guess I've got to go to work.

Obviously, Sun's decline since that statement was made has conclusively proven that banning Powerpoint is not, in and of itself, the key to corporate profitability. However, my own experience echoes his.

Early in my project management career I was leading a team of about eight people. Our meetings, and even email exchanges, were a disaster, with everything explained using a long -- often full color -- PowerPoint presentation. I got a huge increase in productivity when I had it pulled off every computer in the group, except for one "public access" workstation that individuals could use if they needed to do something "special" like making presentations for management. I also told everybody that they'd have to get up and present their status reports (or whatever) from memory. All of a sudden our meeting were functional and to the point again.

I would have liked to have tossed Excel as well, since it really had no relevance to anybody other than myself and one project administrator who was tracking the budget. Unfortunately, many of our users summarized requirements in spreadsheets, so this turned out to be impossible.

On subsequent projects I banned everything except simple text emails, and Word for formal and final documents.

Those who must use PowerPoint in their work might want to consider Paul Kedrosky's sage advice on the matter: Cut the number of slides in half and reverse the order! While he is speaking mostly to entrepreneurs, my experience is that his advice applies to most presentations.

Simpler, to my mind, is always better.