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Death by .ppt!
- Thread starter Flash
- Start date
PPT is an awesome tool if you know how to use it (which I don't claim to be an expert, though I figure I'm not fully retarded), but I think a lot of people, both in the Navy and outside of it just see it as a way to put their presentations in bullet format. It's wonderful for illustrating points, not insulting people's note taking/listening abilities. I wanted to kill myself once during a GMT when the briefer put entire paragraphs on the slides and proceeded to read them!
I refused to do flight briefs off PowerPoint and would only use it to display maps or imagery as the need arose. I hate PPT with the fire of a thousand suns, and after working in a job at regiment, I'm fully convinced that we spend more time putting the PPT of the plan together than we do thinking through the plan itself. People would spend hours getting video or sound or moving icons to work right, rather than polishing the content of the brief.
White boards, dry erase markers, and briefing from memory. Learn it, live it, be more knowledgeable for it.
White boards, dry erase markers, and briefing from memory. Learn it, live it, be more knowledgeable for it.
One only needs to spend a brief time in an OCS classroom to see this in effect.
ZZZZZzzzzzz
ZZZZZzzzzzz
Powerpoint, used the way we use it, is a crutch for poor brief preparation. It's basically a briefers notecards displayed on the screen. I hate it.
You mean your senior officer briefs sucked so bad the XO and Skipper were falling asleep? :mischievo
And I read the article. It sounds like a lot of people suck at PPT. I like to use it for visuals only and leave the info to my voice. But I had that hammered into my by an old boss at GE.
There's a staff expression; "his knowledge is only Powerpoint deep".
Powerpoint is a tool and like all tools it can be abused. Powerpoint is not the issue, it's the lack of public speaking skills demonstrated (or not demonstrated) by the person that conducts the brief which is the problem.
What I find more telling is the comments about the amount of time required to generate Powerpoint slides for higher headquarters. In C7F AO we had to generate 'quad charts' for everything. You want to do a training event, send up a quad. You got tasked to do something by C7F staff, send up a quad to tell them how you are going to do the assigned task. Completed the task? Send up the quad with your AAR.
It's progressed to the point that the military is reliant on Powerpoint to convey information rather than writing.
Imagine what WWII would have been like if Spruance was required to provide a Powerpoint AAR to Nimitz vice a written report???
Powerpoint is a tool and like all tools it can be abused. Powerpoint is not the issue, it's the lack of public speaking skills demonstrated (or not demonstrated) by the person that conducts the brief which is the problem.
What I find more telling is the comments about the amount of time required to generate Powerpoint slides for higher headquarters. In C7F AO we had to generate 'quad charts' for everything. You want to do a training event, send up a quad. You got tasked to do something by C7F staff, send up a quad to tell them how you are going to do the assigned task. Completed the task? Send up the quad with your AAR.
It's progressed to the point that the military is reliant on Powerpoint to convey information rather than writing.
Imagine what WWII would have been like if Spruance was required to provide a Powerpoint AAR to Nimitz vice a written report???
Which brings me to another point...how does one become an Officer or a Chief without the proper understanding of grammar, syntax, active vice passive voice, and punctuation? Some of the mass emails that come out make me shake my head.
Maybe we ought to replace that second semester of Physics in the ROTC course requirements with an English composition class, instead. I've never had to explain (or even understand) how light refracts as an O. I write almost every day. I'm thankful it's a skill I possess.
Agree WHOLEHEARTEDLY. My favorite mistake of the week was "currier cards" for "courier cards". But the general lack of proper grammar, spelling syntax is enough to make me chuckle when checking daily email. I mean it's informal email, but still. Read that bitch over once or twice before submitting it to the critical eyes of the masses.
And as for the OP, PPT, as was said, is a TOOL. Just like any other tool, it can help or hurt you, but the overall picture is still clear. A person who isn't a good speaker, isn't prepared or just isn't knowledgeable is still going to appear all those things if he uses powerpoint. In many cases, his use of powerpoint as a crutch will highlight that fact. If you know your shit, you could have your slideshow be the victim of a sledgehammer in the briefing space and still knock out a great brief. You either have it or you don't...
In HSC land circa 2007, "tactical" briefs were done with a whiteboard. Which later changed to a single Powerpoint slide instead of information on the whiteboard. Which then changed to having a couple extra slides on the ppt to "illustrate the situation." Before I left in late '09, this had ballooned to 100+ slide behemoths for a two-hour, two-ship hop.
It's like mission creep - as soon as you agree to extra, people start shoehorning in all kinds of crap.
It's like mission creep - as soon as you agree to extra, people start shoehorning in all kinds of crap.
