Illustration: The Work of Edward Tufte and Graphics Press; click image for larger view.
This is my PowerPoint. There are many like it but mine is 7.0.
My PowerPoint is my best friend. It is my life.
I must master it as I master my life.My PowerPoint without me is useless.
Without my PowerPoint, I am useless.I must format my slides true. I must brief them better
than the other J-cells who are trying to out brief me.
I must brief the impact on the CINC before he asks me. I will!My PowerPoint and myself know that what counts in this war
is not the number of slides, quantity of animations, the colors
of the highlights, or the format of the bullets. We know that it
is the new information that counts. We will brief only new information!My PowerPoint is human, even as I, because it is my life.
Thus I will learn it as a brother.I will learn its weaknesses, its strengths, its fonts,
its accessories, its formats, and its colors.
I will keep my PowerPoint slides current and ready to brief.
We will become part of each other. We will!Before God I swear this creed. My PowerPoint and myself are
defenders of my country. We are the masters of our subject.
We are the saviors of my career.So be it, until victory is America’s and there is no enemy,
but peace (and the next exercise)!
Three views of PowerPoint:
David Byrne (yes, that David Byrne), Learning to Love PowerPoint
Edward Tufte, PowerPoint Is Evil (both essays from Wired, September 2003);
CPT E. Tyler Woolridge III, USN (Ret.), Order a PowerPoint Stand-down, Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, December 2004, reprinted on Military.com
7 Comments
Sadaam Hussein interviewing for a new torturer. First question – Do you do Powerpoint.
Here’s the problem. You’re an action officer in the Pentagon. You have a two-week window in which to staff a current-events issue, develop a consensus, type up an issue paper (which may or may not be read), and then you have maybe 10-20 minutes with the general officer who’s going to approve your issue.
What do you do? You make a powerpoint brief. Yes, some GOFOs will sharpshoot your brief, but the good ones will listen and digest the main points in your brief. The brief is a supplement, a reminder, the footstomp to emphasize the key points. The briefer still has to talk and answer questions. The real danger is when people just send the ppt around as the talking paper without notes or explanation. Then bad things happen.
I Am A Powerpoint Ranger. My PowerPoint without me is useless. Without my PowerPoint, I am useless.
In some cases even a person with Powerpoint is useless. Numerous people I served with just wrote a Powerpoint, gave it some funny sounds…and then read directly off the slides without a shred of insight. We usually left the training having lost about 4 points off our I.Q. Having Powerpoint is a nice crutch, but its still going to be worthless when the person using it is lazy.
Here ya go.
Mark,
I agree that PowerPoint forces a very linear style of thinking, and can easily be abused. In my daily experience I still see its utility, however. For distilling complex concepts and disseminating ideas, it works for me personally.
I think there’s a really interesting dissertation out there about the way the modern U.S. military is commanded, structured, and driven by Microsoft Office products, particularly, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook. For the record, I use Apple at home.
Charles
The true definition of Satanic behavior is to hand out printed Powerpoint slides. Kills two virtues with one stone: wasted resources, wasted time.
My PowerPoint presentations evolved away from slide after slide of bulleted lists – aka “Death by PowerPoint.”
Instead, I would have one concept or statement on a slide – perhaps two, but no more than two – with the content to support it on a notes page. I would present the material in a facilitative fashion, using questions asked of my students and their answers to help progress through the training.
It got rave reviews from my students and my management observers. After being observed and subsequently praised by my training manager, I asked her if she had noticed what was different about my PowerPoint presentation. She hadn’t. We had all kinds of “beans” that had to be met, but nothing to evaluate the quality of the actual presentation.
Sometimes I would make a point of doing a PowerPointless presentation – a presentation the old fashioned way, with discussion, use of the white board, activities – anything but PowerPoint.
I’ve finally escaped PowerPoint. I haven’t created – or given – a presentation this year.
I retired.
Someone else is now using my old presentations, but without the years of experience in covering the underlying material. Life moves on.