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Posted: 4/27/2010 10:05:12 AM EDT
[#1]
I'm more concerned that they just figured this out NOW.
Makes one wonder what else they're out of touch on? |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 10:18:53 AM EDT
[#2]
Haha I read that this morning and laughed my ass off
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Posted: 4/27/2010 10:21:45 AM EDT
[#3]
These assholes should not be allowed to sit all day behind a computer making something no one understands.
Get out in the fucking field and make yourself useful. |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 10:24:31 AM EDT
[#4]
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
"...no bastard ever won a war by making powerpoint slides for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard make powerpoint slides for his country." This. Indeed. If we had the Taliban and AQ making PPT slides for their CoC's this thing would be overwith by now. Maybe we can appeal to Bill Gates' patriotism and air distribute full license Dari and Arabic versions of Powerpoint in the A-stan AO. 
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Posted: 4/27/2010 10:30:06 AM EDT
[#5]
Quoted: Quoted: That particular chart would have been much better laid out as a flowchart. It might even then be somewhat comprehensible. CJ A flow chart implies that the process is linear. Which, in this case, it very much is not. Done as a logic chart, it's possible. Lots of branches and conditionals, XORs, ANDs, NANDs, ORs, etc....but it'd still be more readable than THAT abomination. The problem is, no logic flow chart ever was worth a damn when dealing with illogical humans. CJ |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 10:33:17 AM EDT
[#6]
Quoted:
Add to that mIRC on the INTEL/OPS side...this war (and the one in Iraq) are being run by a bunch of kids (no offense meant) sending text messages to each other...literally. You aren't kidding. The network connection goes down and the war is paused. No email? Well, I guess everyone should head back to your hooches and we'll let you know if it comes back... |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 10:34:23 AM EDT
[#7]
Quoted:
These assholes should not be allowed ordered to sit all day behind a computer making something no one understands. Allowed implies they have a choice. When the HMFIC wants a slide presentation, he gets a slide presentation. ETA: What's worse is, more often or not, it's junior NCO's and officers who get tasked with putting the presentation together. Rather than spending time with or in front of troops to get experience, they're holed up at a desk in an office trying to figure out if the maintenance officer wants them to use the real or BS deadline report. |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 10:38:40 AM EDT
[#8]
they need a powerpoint that says "kill shit, win"
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Posted: 4/27/2010 10:38:50 AM EDT
[#9]
Welcome to big business!
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Posted: 4/27/2010 10:39:56 AM EDT
[#10]
You think PP is fubared, just wait until they start in with the JARA shit..
Mass suicide will be the result. That shit borders on insanity. Oh and it WILL be abused, no matter how neat of a tool they tell you it is. |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 10:41:58 AM EDT
[#11]
back in ~1989, I was employed making viewgraphs for NASA HQ briefings
Our shop had design and graphics training Releasing powerpoint to amateur "designers" is a recipe for crap
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Posted: 4/27/2010 10:42:40 AM EDT
[#12]
Powerpoint has infected the Navy as well.
Training underway absolutely could not be conducted with out a powerpoint presentation. Currently working at a major HQ on a certain AFB in NE. Death by powerpoint is an understatement. A presentation (no matter who it is for)has to be built using the command approved PPT format. |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 10:43:00 AM EDT
[#13]
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Posted: 4/27/2010 10:45:22 AM EDT
[#14]
_MaH |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 10:48:36 AM EDT
[#15]
What the hell ever happened to "Kill them all and let God sort them out" ?
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Posted: 4/27/2010 10:53:48 AM EDT
[#16]
Quoted:
they need a powerpoint that says "kill shit, win" You are almost literally correct. It amazes me that learned professionals have no IDEA how to make PowerPoint a useful tool for presentations. They typically kill you with worthless information overload. Proper way to do a PowerPoint: 1. 1 page executive summary prior to presentation. 2. Simplistic slides to REINFORCE your position. PowerPoint should NEVER be the center of attention - leave that to the presenter. 3. If you wrote a novel on your PowerPoint slide, then you fucked up and might as well draw swirlies with Paint because that's about as effective as your presentation will be. |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 10:54:02 AM EDT
[#17]
Quoted: What the hell ever happened to "Kill them all and let God sort them out" ? It turned into "Map the problem into a visual aid and you'll be irrelevant by the time you've defined the problem." There's another slide that goes with the spaghetti flow-chart... "The firefight decision tree." They might as well call it "This is a waste of time. Lets go home." |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 10:55:35 AM EDT
[#18]
Quoted:
Quoted:
These assholes should not be allowed ordered to sit all day behind a computer making something no one understands. Allowed implies they have a choice. When the HMFIC wants a slide presentation, he gets a slide presentation. ETA: What's worse is, more often or not, it's junior NCO's and officers who get tasked with putting the presentation together. Rather than spending time with or in front of troops to get experience, they're holed up at a desk in an office trying to figure out if the maintenance officer wants them to use the real or BS deadline report. Exactly. Believe it or not but senior 0-3's and junior 0-4's do not have a whole hell of a lot of choice on this matter. PowerPoint is often used to present text in paragraph form when a word .doc would be much more effective, because That Is Simply The Way It Is Done. |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 10:57:24 AM EDT
[#19]
As a staff officer in an infantry BN I feel this pain; so much of time is devoted to updating these ridiculous slides. How does putting together charts, graphs and random bullet points affect the battle...they don't it just chews up time. I waste time updating these things, re-formatting them, emailing that it takes away from my actual job of making sure the line companies have stuff. The rule is two lvls up and 2 lvls down but PPT makes it so convenient for very senior staff to see what the companies are doing (that is 3 lvls down). I've often thought aloud at what point does all this 'information' become counter productive? What ever have happened to actually briefing someone, we have an officer on staff that is a horrible public speaker because he relies on his PPT slides all the time, painful to watch. The storyboards that LT refer to is the truth; everyone wants to know everything down to the smallest detail because they think they can affect the battlefield.
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Posted: 4/27/2010 11:02:16 AM EDT
[#20]
 Copy, Paste, Print.
Another reason why WE are our own worst enemy. The frustration with the status quo, one element of which, is plainly highlighted in this article....and right now it makes me want to put my head through a window. |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 11:06:20 AM EDT
[#21]
If I remember correctly, GEN Shinseki put out the same guidance in about 2000. All PPT slides had to be black and white, no transitions, etc. I guess that fell by the wayside, unlike the black beret.
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Posted: 4/27/2010 11:08:55 AM EDT
[#22]
I have been involved with professional presentations for a quarter of a century.
You have no idea of the damage PP has done |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 11:09:43 AM EDT
[#23]
Quoted: Quoted: http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Components/Photo/2009/December/091202/091203-engel-big-9a.jpg What a mess. And people think it is a black and white situation over there. The war is so simple that it fits on one page, how have we not won yet?  |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 11:20:44 AM EDT
[#24]
Quoted:
If I remember correctly, GEN Shinseki put out the same guidance in about 2000. All PPT slides had to be black and white, no transitions, etc. I guess that fell by the wayside, unlike the black beret. Except the real problem is rarely the colors, transitions, etc. I grant you, in some cases the presenter just gets carried away with effects, and the presentation suffers horribly. But the more common problems are that PPT makes people think 1) they can cram more info into people's heads by flashing it on a screen, and 2) they can give a presentation without as much preparation, because if they fall apart up there and forget everything, they can just read the slide. So people cram a novel into a slide for those two reasons - they think it conveys more info and/or they're too lazy to do the work of tightening up their delivery and editing their slides. I'm speaking as a student who just suffered through 4 years of PPT presentations that, with discouragingly few exceptions, were at best dull, and at worst brought up all my mental shields to deflect incoming information because of fears that the monotone in which the presenter read word for word off slides would cause a devastating harmonic that would vibrate my brain to mush and cause it to flow out of my ears and nostrils. Not having been in the military, I can't say for sure, but the other big problem with a PPT presentation given by a junior member of a team is that person fears some sort of academic attack if they don't put EVERY LITTLE DETAIL in their presentation. Instead of an informative presentation where key points are hit and people walk away with some understanding of the material, these folks try to present everything about everything to prove that they know what they're talking about, and the end result is that everyone who came in knowing the stuff leaves the same way, and everyone who came in not knowing the stuff...leaves after a 10, 15, or 60 minute exercise in tuning out the talk. |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 11:22:35 AM EDT
[#25]
Yeah.. I can attest to the military's love affair with giving briefings using power point. But I don't think it's a bad thing, like all things, everything in moderation. Don't get too complicated with it. |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 11:23:15 AM EDT
[#26]
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Posted: 4/27/2010 11:24:11 AM EDT
[#27]
Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: That particular chart would have been much better laid out as a flowchart. It might even then be somewhat comprehensible. CJ A flow chart implies that the process is linear. Which, in this case, it very much is not. Done as a logic chart, it's possible. Lots of branches and conditionals, XORs, ANDs, NANDs, ORs, etc....but it'd still be more readable than THAT abomination. The problem is, no logic flow chart ever was worth a damn when dealing with illogical humans. CJ Maybe some sort of relational calculus charge with weighted branches. But you'd need an advanced math degree to fucking read it. |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 11:24:35 AM EDT
[#28]
Quoted:
Quoted:
Find the guy who made that slide, and put him in charge of something.
Quoted:
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Components/Photo/2009/December/091202/091203-engel-big-9a.jpg And you gotta know the guy that made that slide was proud as hell. No shit! Put him in charge of the Taleban! |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 11:25:14 AM EDT
[#29]
Personal experience with CONOPs on time sensitive targets and having these kicked back because higher wanted more information. By the time the CONOP was resubmitted, looked pretty enough, and accepted, the time had expired and the target was no longer available. This did not just happen on one occasion. Also, sometimes the requirements were such that it becomes so much of a pain to submit stuff that it just wasn't done in the first place.
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Posted: 4/27/2010 11:27:59 AM EDT
[#30]
Quoted: Personal experience with CONOPs on time sensitive targets and having these kicked back because higher wanted more information. By the time the CONOP was resubmitted, looked pretty enough, and accepted, the time had expired and the target was no longer available. This did not just happen on one occasion. Also, sometimes the requirements were such that it becomes so much of a pain to submit stuff that it just wasn't done in the first place. Not all chain of commands are that retarded. Ours worked pretty fast and we'd go out and quickly take pictures of houses that were going to be raided at night. A couple hours later they'd have all those pictures of the targets and on a nice and understandable Powerpoint for the raiding party to digest and learn about the OBJ and points of entery. |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 11:41:58 AM EDT
[#31]
Quoted:
Quoted:
Personal experience with CONOPs on time sensitive targets and having these kicked back because higher wanted more information. By the time the CONOP was resubmitted, looked pretty enough, and accepted, the time had expired and the target was no longer available. This did not just happen on one occasion. Also, sometimes the requirements were such that it becomes so much of a pain to submit stuff that it just wasn't done in the first place. Not all chain of commands are that retarded. Ours worked pretty fast and we'd go out and quickly take pictures of houses that were going to be raided at night. A couple hours later they'd have all those pictures of the targets and on a nice and understandable Powerpoint for the raiding party to digest and learn about the OBJ and points of entery. Oh I know not all of them are like that. I want to name names but I'm not going to. To make matters worse, the guys collecting the intel, making the presentations, and conducting the raids were all the same, so it isn't like the intel was being passed to another raiding party to conduct the mission.(ODA) The CONOP was just to inform higher. What ended up happening sometimes would be we would put out to higher that we were going on a "presence patrol" which required a lot less bs, or would say the mission was driven by our counterparts. Couldn't do it all the time though, because when you come back with familiar names the gig is up! 
ETA I think a lot of this had to do with a really risk averse COL who didn't want us going out unless the target was high value and even then was concerned about the particulars of the mission. |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 11:47:54 AM EDT
[#32]
Regardless of his taking away the AAFES shit...
I like this guy.... |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 11:54:33 AM EDT
[#33]
The worst thing about PP is that it shortens thoughts to suit.
If it doesn't graph well then it is also irrelevant. I've never seen a morale or career satisfaction PP slide... |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 12:02:13 PM EDT
[#34]
Quoted:
Yeah.. I can attest to the military's love affair with giving briefings using power point. But I don't think it's a bad thing, like all things, everything in moderation. Don't get too complicated with it.
We had a guy send a 60MB powerpoint presentation via email and crashed all of our Exchange servers, he sent the damn thing to about 100 people. The presentation was full of video clips and other crap, don't ask me how long he spent making it, did earn him a nice talking to from my boss on why the MAJCOM and all our bases lost email for several hours. |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 12:11:02 PM EDT
[#35]
Too many people use it as a crutch for their shitty briefing skills instead of a tool.
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Posted: 4/27/2010 12:12:57 PM EDT
[#36]
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
That particular chart would have been much better laid out as a flowchart. It might even then be somewhat comprehensible. CJ A flow chart implies that the process is linear. Which, in this case, it very much is not. Done as a logic chart, it's possible. Lots of branches and conditionals, XORs, ANDs, NANDs, ORs, etc....but it'd still be more readable than THAT abomination. The problem is, no logic flow chart ever was worth a damn when dealing with illogical humans. CJ Maybe some sort of relational calculus charge with weighted branches. But you'd need an advanced math degree to fucking read it. Remember Venn diagrams? That's the right tool for this presentation, although I expect Zen diagrams would work even better. I think the chart in this particular case was made this way intentionally to illustrate the complex relations. At least that's my hope. If not, it means the person that did assemble the chart is short on imagination and simply used a brute force solution. |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 12:13:54 PM EDT
[#37]
It feels like this case study will appear in a Harvard reasearch paper about 10 years from now where students are studying the downside of concise communication.
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Posted: 4/27/2010 12:18:28 PM EDT
[#38]
I went to a business school and we had a lot of the professors teach with Power Point. They handed us out slides of their presentation. Ish. Nobody learned a thing.
Another teacher used the "chalkboard method" where you simply write everything out. That is amazingly powerful because it forces the students to really be with the professor on everything. You're kind of a passenger in his head. |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 12:27:22 PM EDT
[#39]
Quoted: 3. If you wrote a novel on your PowerPoint slide, then you fucked up and might as well draw swirlies with Paint because that's about as effective as your presentation will be. The closest I've ever come to stabbing myself to death with a pen was a 9 hour conference where all but one of the presenters (who had between 30 minutes to an hour each) read each and every word on their PP slides. And they didn't have any public speaking skills either. And the font was so small that four rows back I couldn't read anything on the giant screen anyway. |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 12:32:19 PM EDT
[#40]
Quoted:
Quoted:
That particular chart would have been much better laid out as a flowchart. It might even then be somewhat comprehensible. CJ A flow chart implies that the process is linear. Which, in this case, it very much is not. Yeah, I don't think there's a chart in existence that can clearly explain the complexity of the situation. |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 12:47:39 PM EDT
[#41]
Quoted: Maybe one in 4-dimensions, but then it couldn't be visually represented in 3-dimensional space.... Quoted: Quoted: That particular chart would have been much better laid out as a flowchart. It might even then be somewhat comprehensible. CJ A flow chart implies that the process is linear. Which, in this case, it very much is not. Yeah, I don't think there's a chart in existence that can clearly explain the complexity of the situation. |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 1:09:12 PM EDT
[#42]
I recently had to give a uniform wear and appearance class.
It was 3 slides long. It had pictures of the various uniforms and methods of wear in theater. The entire brief took 10 minutes. After all, I'm not dealing with a bunch of fucking idiots here... they'd all been in for a few years. I was just giving a quick refresher class (don't pres your ACUs, dumbass, and you need a left boot and a right boot.) For some godawful reason, somebody invited a major. This Major hated my presentation. I was directed to make a new slideshow, going from the very basic uniform standards to theater policy, command policy, and general good notes. The new pp was 40 pages long, was a wall of text, and hurt to read. After I read 40 pages of power point slides, I read verbatim from AR 670-1 until I could not see anymore. It took me three hours. He loved it. 
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Posted: 4/27/2010 1:34:06 PM EDT
[#43]
Quoted:
Quoted:
Maybe one in 4-dimensions, but then it couldn't be visually represented in 3-dimensional space....
Quoted:
Quoted:
That particular chart would have been much better laid out as a flowchart. It might even then be somewhat comprehensible. CJ A flow chart implies that the process is linear. Which, in this case, it very much is not. Yeah, I don't think there's a chart in existence that can clearly explain the complexity of the situation. We need to get Stephen Hawking on this ASAP. |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 1:49:22 PM EDT
[#44]
My Father while in Naval Intelligence had to put together slide briefings back in the 60's and he probably would have given anything for the ease of Power-Point. I still have the slides from a few of the presentations...kind of cool. |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 1:51:23 PM EDT
[#45]
A little known fact is the Roman military machine collapsed and became ineffective because the Romans developed a briefing system very similar to an ancient PowerPoint somewhere around 200 AD.
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Posted: 4/27/2010 1:52:38 PM EDT
[#46]
Quoted: A little known fact is the Roman military machine collapsed and became ineffective because the Romans developed a briefing system very similar to an ancient PowerPoint somewhere around 200 AD. There were a ton of faults with the Romans as to why they fell apart. It was a combination of things, I dont think you can point to one thing and say "this is why they failed". One of the many that really hurt was much of their army had basically become like mercenaries and cared far more for riches than for Rome and when times got tough, because of not having loyalty to Rome, they didn't stick with it. |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 1:54:58 PM EDT
[#47]
Quoted: Might want to have your sarcasm meter taken in to S-6 and have them check the calibration.Quoted: A little known fact is the Roman military machine collapsed and became ineffective because the Romans developed a briefing system very similar to an ancient PowerPoint somewhere around 200 AD. There were a ton of faults with the Romans as to why they fell apart. It was a combination of things, I dont think you can point to one thing and say "this is why they failed". |
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Posted: 4/27/2010 1:56:38 PM EDT
[#48]
Quoted:
Quoted:
A little known fact is the Roman military machine collapsed and became ineffective because the Romans developed a briefing system very similar to an ancient PowerPoint somewhere around 200 AD. There were a ton of faults with the Romans as to why they fell apart. It was a combination of things, I dont think you can point to one thing and say "this is why they failed". I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe I should make a PowerPoint presentation explaining how insisting the Roman Empire fell because of PowerPoint is not a serious postulation.
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Posted: 4/27/2010 1:59:11 PM EDT
[#49]
Welcome to 2004 General.....
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Posted: 4/27/2010 1:59:25 PM EDT
[#50]
Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: A little known fact is the Roman military machine collapsed and became ineffective because the Romans developed a briefing system very similar to an ancient PowerPoint somewhere around 200 AD. There were a ton of faults with the Romans as to why they fell apart. It was a combination of things, I dont think you can point to one thing and say "this is why they failed". I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe I should make a PowerPoint presentation explaining how insisting the Roman Empire fell because of PowerPoint is not a serious postulation. No, I think you should make a PowerPoint about how it IS a serious postulation, and you should have unexplained bullet points detailing your justification. |
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