There was a recent flap over an Army lieutenant colonel who was on a deployment to Afghanistan when he was fired and sent home for an article he submitted - without command authorization. Oops. In the article, he blasted the Powerpoint Rangers whom he saw working so hard in Kabul. Tom Ricks allowed the gentleman to reflect and amend his earlier observations, and I caught this point about Powerpoint:
One of the main themes of the article involved the use of PowerPoint. I don't hate PowerPoint. In fact, I use it often. I do object to its use as a crutch or a replacement for serious thinking. Also, the overuse of PowerPoint can give the illusion of progress, when it is really only motion in the form of busy work. It can confuse the volume of information with the quality of information.
A second theme was the way in which organizations function and why they don't e.g. stovepipes, ad hoc or absent processes, run-away egos or adding bodies as a solution to every problem.
Just to make the point, don't hate the tool, hate the messengers. If you're an officer trying to look busy and want to impress the boss with misleading statistics, sure, Powerpoint's your tool. But that should reflect more on the poor training and intentions of the officer, not the abilities of the tool.
A recent article in the Marine Corps Gazette lambasted the use of Power Point. If memory serves me, the author called them "dumb dumb bullets". It was also stressed that there was the need for more Word Documents on the table and I am in complete agreement with the concepts presented in the article - one within a flank of articles on intelligence gathering.
It is easy to look like a rock star with a Power Point which has a research veneer to it. I have never used Power Point for any presentation and consider it a regressive tool within the intellectual battlespace. Present your document, stand up and deliver, and do it all without Dr. Seuess and the laser pointer. Woof!
Tammy Swofford
Posted by: tammy swofford | 31 August 2010 at 12:34 PM
Tammy,
Any inappropriate use of technology obscures the message/s the USER is delivering.
Miaow- with a grin...
Posted by: Ray | 31 August 2010 at 01:23 PM
I've been to some damn complex and impressive OPORDS conducted with pencil, paper and a bunch of plastic Army men, and to some gawdawful ones complete with animated PP slides complete with sound effects AND a twenty-page Word document executive summary.
I'm a little baffled at the way the whole Powerpoint thing keeps coming back around. Yes, it can be a mess. No, it shouldn't substitute flashy graphics for a well-organized presentation. No, it's not inherently evil.
We didn't pass on the semiautomatic rifle just because it took the skill out of knowing how to work a bolt action correctly. The thing's a damn tool. A helpful one, if used effectively.
Posted by: FDChief | 31 August 2010 at 07:22 PM
What a laugh it all is when I think of card-index systems, hauling through piles of files (giving me piles, sitting on that chair all day, when I wasn't dashing to get another file to add to the piles)and all because training had sometimes involved intell.by an instructor with a flip-chart and pen...Powerpoint came along and helped a lot- provided it was understood to be a tool, not the Holy Grail.
Posted by: Ray | 01 September 2010 at 06:52 AM
This might be of interest to some:
http://www.gbuwizards.com/files/gaskins-ppt-at-20-cacm-vol50-no12-dec-2007-p15-p17.pdf
It's an article by Robert Gaskins; Powerpoint invention.
Posted by: Ray | 01 September 2010 at 07:14 AM
Powerpoint presentations have the same problems that viewgraphs used to, before the universal adoption of MS Office and similar products.
The problem is the difference between apparent and real information density. It really bites the audience hard when the subject matter is highly technical.
Most Power Point presentations take the "fast look from 30,000 feet" approach, to material that can only be really understood by close study for prolonged periods. The result is instant total information overload.
In the place I went to grad school, one attendee at a physics department presentation achieved instant campus-wide fame by falling out of his chair when he went to sleep. We all laughed, because we all understood exactly how he felt.
People's brains shut down because they know damned well that they're not "getting it". And they also know they're not going to "get it" in a presentation lasting only 30 minutes to an hour, even if they have IQs that beggar Stephen Hawking's.
Posted by: Stormcrow | 01 September 2010 at 09:45 AM
Power point is an instrument created by Satin to numb our minds.
You have OUTED your affilitions!
Posted by: russell1200 | 01 September 2010 at 01:09 PM
Yes, I am biased against PowerPoint. It is the "People's Magazine" of technology: Big pictures, small words, functional illiteracy come to mind....
Regarding index cards, Ray. Bulls-eye! I have an index card file for various studies in which I am engaged. To physically write a thought onto a card somehow downloads the information into my brain. But the files are for my use and not the public domain.
Regarding Pp being a mere tool, of course! But I have endured some of the most hideous presentations ever, given by men who scarcely understood their topic. The tool can cast a spotlight away from the oafish and lazy military officer and keep his shadow of ignorance from public view! Pie charts, colors and line graphs, Oh My! I hate the tool. Absolutely.
Tammy
Posted by: tammy swofford | 01 September 2010 at 02:32 PM
Well, the old ways should come back. No self-discipline today. Anyone falling asleep during Powerpoint or failing to understand the subject should get a damn'good thrashin'. Useless officers, such Tammy describes, should either be flogged, or forced to spend an indefinite tour in Guam.
Caning: that's how I learned my lessons at some schools, and why I'm so well educated today. Beat it into 'em. Visual aids are crap.
I think I'm kidding.
Posted by: Ray | 01 September 2010 at 03:20 PM
Having ‘grown-up’ using PowerPoint with physical science presentations – it’s a real challenge to draw X-ray crystal structures on the white board or ask an audience to conceptualize void space in a metal-organic framework, an NMR spectra, or TEM micrograph without a visual – I’m appreciative of how effective a tool it can be for communication.
My suspicion/speculation is that speakers who were truly good communicators before PowerPoint are good communicators with PowerPoint. And that the inverse also holds true. Some fraction in the middle who were mediocre speakers before can now chose to employ PowerPoint as a crutch.
TX Hammes’ essay “Dumb Dumb Bullets” (http://www.afji.com/2009/07/4061641) is a great, imo, discussion of how PowerPoint can be used effectively. His major criticisms revolve around use of PowerPoint in decision-making. He asserts that use of PowerPoint has led to a shortening on time allotted for decision-making leading to more hurried and less informed decisions versus more informed and contemplative ones. I’m not convinced that the causal factor is PowerPoint; rather it’s an artifact of the speed and compressed/demanding time-scales of the current time, i.e., “the Tasker’s due at noon, we need something now.”
Selin, imo, similarly blames a tool – & that’s been the sound bite that’s been picked up – rather than focusing on the decision-making process or in the case he relates, what he sees as a lack on decision-making process. PowerPoint is not likely the cause; something in the organization process/institution is. PowerPoint is just an easy target.
Posted by: Marg | 02 September 2010 at 08:16 AM
Marg,
What a great post. Yes, I agree with your premise regarding certain aspects of PowerPoint usage. It is a challenge to replicate a DNA strand or discuss nanotechnology applications, etc. with the primitive tools. Kinda like the chimpanzee using the stick to dig in the termite hill for a treat, some presentations are deserving of better applications. You have probably struck the balance: good communicators make Pp shine, bad communicators end up looking like potted plants. I have endured too many potted plants.
Guam?! Ray! How dare you! I spent an AT at Naval Hospital Guam. Air Force to the north, big Navy to the south, takes less than two hours to travel the complete coastal route around the thing. Zzzz I developed island fever within a week!
Tammy
Posted by: tammy swofford | 02 September 2010 at 09:07 AM
Yes -Guam has great potential for mosquito-borne diseases- good subject for local talks with Powerpoint...
Posted by: Ray | 02 September 2010 at 10:11 AM